Mountain Adventures: Increasing Children's Awareness of the Importance of Native Plants through an Online Curriculum

Alton C. Byers
The Mountain Institute

Amy Gifford
National Gardening Association

Native plants and their products play an extremely important role in the local life and national economies of developed and developing worlds. This is particularly apparent in mountain environments, where rapid changes in altitude, temperature, and habitat along the mountain slope result in unusually high biodiversity and endemism (plants or animals confined to specific environments). Throughout the Himalayan, Andes, and Appalachian mountains, hundreds of indigenous plants have traditionally provided people with foods, such as mushrooms, nuts, and greens; medicinal supplements, such as ginseng and plants rich in essential oils; and the means to make utilitarian products, such as rope and baskets. Knowledge of traditional “woods lore” in all three regions, however, has decreased dramatically in recent years, leading many to lament the growing detachment between young students and their natural environment.

In order to build awareness of the global importance of native plants among U.S. teachers and secondary students, The Mountain Institute (TMI), in partnership with the National Gardening Association (NGA) and the Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources, developed and implemented Plants, People, and Biodiversity Protection, a multifaceted ecological awareness project, in 2001. The project, culminating this March, receives funding from the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) Development Education (“DevEd”) Program, dedicated to increasing U.S. public understanding of the role of foreign assistance to the humanitarian, economic, and security interests of the United States.

Plants, People, and Biodiversity Protection serves to increase youth understanding and awareness of the importance of native plants in the U.S. and abroad; the usefulness of native plants to millions of people worldwide as sources of food, medicine, and fiber; the local-global commonalities in the historical and day-to-day use of plants; and the role of USAID in protecting native plants through international, community-based conservation projects. Project regions include the species-rich and traditional plant use cultures of the Himalayas, Andes, and Appalachians in order to maximize the opportunities provided by TMI, NGA, and Virginia Tech's ongoing initiatives within these regions.

Project materials include six thematic articles on the importance of native plants (hardcopy and online); a new mountain curriculum developed with participating NGA teacher members (online); an online student collaborative project involving U.S., Nepali, and Peruvian students; and hardcopy and web-based information designed to reach secondary student audiences for years to come.¹ Plants, People, and Biodiversity Protection already serves as a model for similar programs around the country, one of which is sponsored by the National Geographic Society. TMI will continue to act as an advisor to organizations implementing mountain-related curricula, and the Mountain Adventures curriculum will remain accessible to teachers for years to come. Below, each of the Plants, People, and Biodiversity Protection components is described in detail.

The Articles

The Mountain Institute collaborated with Virginia Tech to produce six articles, illustrated with color photographs and maps, describing the domestic and international uses of native plants for food, medicine, dyes, fiber, and other utilitarian purposes. The last article in this series describes various domestic and international assistance efforts that protect indigenous plants through community-based biodiversity conservation programs, such as those in the Himalayas, Andes, and Appalachians. In each article, we emphasize the cross-cultural role of women as traditional keepers of botanical knowledge. The articles illustrate local-global connections in several ways, by providing:

• descriptions of native plants found in the U.S. and their properties and traditional uses for food (e.g., morel mushrooms, fruits, nuts, berries, greens, teas); medicine (herbs, roots, inner bark of cherry and slippery elm trees); and fiber (basswood, dogbane, milkweed);

• descriptions of the parallels and connections between the properties and uses of indigenous plants in the U.S., Nepal, and Peru (e.g., allo [stinging nettle] fiber and cloth, which was also used in the 17 th century in the U.S.; lokta [daphne bark] paper; chyau [morel mushrooms]);

• stories about Nepali, Peruvian, and Appalachian women's knowledge and use of native plants and their roles as plant specialists, healers, and keepers of the traditional knowledge;

• explanations of how and why these plants have traditionally been harvested, and the importance of promoting sustainable harvesting methods for future generations;

• specific examples of U.S. foreign assistance abroad that promotes sustainable use of non-timber forest products, community-based biodiversity conservation, and conservation-linked enterprise development (e.g., through ecotourism, ethnobotanical tours), drawing specifically on the expertise of TMI's field-based staff; and

• reasons why U.S. foreign assistance in these areas is in the best interest of the United States (e.g., the protection of globally important resources, or the development of techniques and models that are applicable to the U.S.).

The Curriculum

After publishing the articles online and producing hardcopies for distribution, the content of these articles was used as the basis for an interdisciplinary middle school curriculum, Mountain Adventures: Exploring the Himalayas, Andes, and Appalachians. Participating teachers, selected by the NGA from its teacher network, collaborated with the curriculum development specialist during the first participatory workshop to design the curriculum. The curriculum consists of five modules, each containing teacher materials, student materials, and activities.

Module 1, Why Mountains? thematically introduces students to mountains around the world as sources of water, play areas, sacred sites, homelands, weather barriers, “islands” of biodiversity, and geographic divides. Why Mountains? introduces students to the importance of mountains— globally and personally— with open-ended questions to provoke interest in topics addressed in later modules, such as:

• Mountains as Sources of water : Almost every place on earth is linked by water to its surrounding mountains. Where does your water come from? Can you think of any local mountains that might be the source of your water?

• Mountains as Sacred sites : Mountains are sacred places for some Native American people. Is there a mountain near you that has or once had any sacred, spiritual, or cultural significance? What did the mountain mean to these people? Why was it considered sacred? How was the mountain involved in traditional life? Are any of these customs still practiced today?

• Mountains as “Islands” of biodiversity: What are the problems that mountains face in terms of biodiversity? Have any native plants or animals found refuge in a local mountain? Does this species exist outside its mountain environment? How is this species well-suited for life in the mountains?

In this module, students also learn the definition of a mountain and how mountains are made, and explore graphical representations of mountains on maps. Expeditions to the top of Nevado Huascarán (Andes), Mount Makalu (Himalayas), and Blair Mountain (Appalachians) frame the four remaining modules as students work in teams to “climb” a mountain in the longest, tallest, or oldest mountain range in the world. Along the way they explore the biodiversity (Module 2: Mountains as Biodiversity Hotspots ), cultural diversity (Module 3: Mountain People ), ethnobotany (Module 4: Plants and People ), and hydrology (Module 5: Mountains as Water Sources ) of their mountain.

In February 2002, NGA sent the draft curriculum to the teacher participants for pilot testing in their classrooms during the spring semester. Each teacher received an extensive evaluation to complete after the pilot testing period. Teachers returned the completed evaluation forms to the curriculum writer at the second participatory workshop in June 2002. During the first day of this workshop, the group held a discussion on the evaluation responses to determine specific recommendations for curriculum revisions. The curriculum writer incorporated the recommendations into the draft curriculum prior to field testing. We also had 40 West Virginia K-12 teachers test selected portions of the curriculum during a July-August TMI course entitled, “Celebrating the International Year of the Mountains 2002 in West Virginia.” Their comments and suggestions helped us further develop the Appalachian module of the curriculum.

In the fall of 2002, NGA selected 50 middle school teachers to field test the curriculum with their students.. The curriculum development specialist selected the field testers from a pool of teachers who responded to a call from the National Gardening Association to participate in the curriculum testing. Ten teachers tested each of the five modules and provided feedback to the curriculum writer by completing an evaluation form. The resulting recommendations were incorporated into the final version of the curriculum which was then posted on the NGA International Programs Web page.

The On-line Student Collaborative Project

Lastly, NGA and TMI produced a collaborative, international, online project with middle school students and teachers in three countries. NGA's curriculum writer and IT staff provided the interactive on-line format and design for the project. TMI staff in Nepal (Kathmandu), Peru (Huaraz), and West Virginia recruited one middle school classroom each and provided online and classroom support, including email correspondence between students and the creation of a web site featuring students' discoveries about their country's native plants.

The youth enjoyed the opportunity to share information about their native cultures with their peers overseas. Students from Madhyapur Thimi Model School in Kausaltar, Nepal, wrote, “In our town, traditional Newari culture is still alive. … Through this project, we not only learned about the value of native plants but also became familiar with email and the Internet.”

Students from Atoqpampa School in the village of Vicos, Peru, also related their enthusiasm for the project: “We conducted our field work in a glacial valley called Akilpo. We spent four hours identifying native plants. In just 30 minutes, we collected about 30 different utilitarian plants!!! Of these, 80 percent have medicinal value, 15 percent are edible, and 5 percent are used for natural dyes.”

The project gave American, Nepali, and Peruvian students a unique opportunity to explore their own schoolyard and local habitats for native plants, investigate the histories and uses for these plants through formal research and interviews, and submit their findings online for comparison and discussion.²

Unanticipated Outcomes and Lessons Learned

Several unanticipated outcomes of note surfaced during the course of the project's implementation. First, TMI's Andean and Himalalyan Programs requested permission to translate the curriculum into Spanish and Nepali. Between June and August 2003, the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., showcased the curriculum through an educational display that included five thematic panels, plants from the Andes, Himalayas, and Appalachians, and plant-based artifacts from each of the three mountain regions (such as natural dyes, cordage, and baskets).³ TMI's Andean Program helped develop a beautiful educational poster entitled “Protect the Native Plants of the Sierra Ancash” that is being distributed in local schools, communities, and tourist facilities throughout the Huascarán National Park region in Peru.

This project reinforced what the National Gardening Association and TMI already knew: teachers are an invaluable resource when it comes to developing a curriculum, but they are also incredibly busy people. We needed to allow plenty of time for contributions and feedback, and we had to anticipate that some teachers, due to exceptional and increasing workloads, would not be able to carry out all of the responsibilities associated with the project. Knowing this, we started out having more teachers involved than necessary to complete the project. We also learned that the partnership between NGA and TMI was a good fit – this is not always the case with collaborative projects, and those who consider partnering with other groups should be sure to clarify roles and responsibilities of each partner, expected deliverables, and budgets well before the project begins.

Project Timeline

The Partners

The Mountain Institute, established in 1972, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the strengthening of mountain communities, the conservation of their natural resources, and the promotion of cultural heritage in three of the world's major mountain ranges—the Andes, Appalachians, and Himalaya.

The National Gardening Association, also founded in 1972, uses the theme of gardening to promote environmental responsibility, to advance multidisciplinary learning and scientific literacy, and to create partnerships that restore and enhance U.S. communities.

Virginia Tech 's College of Natural Resources, Center for Forest Products Marketing and Management, has developed a program on non-timber forest products that evaluates their utilization and marketing in the Appalachian, Himalayan, and Central American regions.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has administered the foreign assistance programs of the United States since 1961. The Development Education Program, which funds the Plants, People, and Biodiversity Protection project, is designed to increase U.S. public awareness of the importance of humanitarian aid while promoting enhanced understanding of international affairs.

Endnotes

1. Please see http://www.kidsgardening.com/ambassador/ to access all materials.

2. See http://www.kidsgardening.com/tmi/project/summary.htm to view the students' work.

3. Please see the June issue of USAID's Frontlines magazine, page 16, for an article on the exhibit at www.usaid.gov/press/frontlines/fl_jun03.html .

Alton C. Byers, Ph.D. is a mountain geographer specializing in integrated conservation and development programs, applied research, and the development of mountain-based educational courses and materials. He received his doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1987, focusing on landscape change and human-accelerated soil loss in the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Khumbu, Nepal. Following two years of integrated conservation and development work in Ruhengeri Prefecture, Rwanda, he joined The Mountain Institute (TMI) in 1990 as Environmental Advisor. Between 1993 and 1994, he helped establish Nepal's Makalu-Barun National Park and Conservation Area. During 1994-1996, he worked as founder and Director of Andean Programs in the Huascaran National Park, Peru; directed TMI's Appalachian Program and Spruce Knob Mountain Center (SKMC) in West Virginia between 1998 and 2000; and currently works as Director of TMI's Research and Education Program in support of all programs. Dr. Byers has worked and published on a variety of research, field managerial, and program development initiatives in the U.S., China, Nepal, India, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Current initiatives include the study of human and cattle impacts on alpine regions of Nepal, Tibet, and Peru; glacial recession in the Everest region since 1953; co-editing of a new mountain geography textbook; and coordination of a new multi-year program designed to strengthen TMI's institutional effectiveness, monitoring and evaluation capacities, and field-based impacts.

Amy Gifford has a Masters degree in Botany from the University of Vermont. Amy has several years of teaching experience, most recently as a teaching fellow in the Botany department at the University of Vermont. She has developed high school curricula on plant biodiversity and invasive plants designed to integrate scientific research and community service. She has also designed organic gardening curriculum for grades K-12. As a curriculum development specialist for National Gardening Association she has authored several publications designed to facilitate hands-on garden-based experiences for children, including Steps to a Bountiful Kids' Garden, Growing Ventures: Starting a School Garden Business, Schoolyard Mosaics: Designing Gardens and Habitats; 10 Terrific Vegetables, and the Pollinator Field Guide. She has also collaborated on curricula with other organizations, including the Cooperstown Farmers Museum on the curricula, Feeding Body and Soul: Haudenosaunee Agriculture in the 19th Century and A Harvest of History: A Supplemental Social Studies Curriculum. Most recently, Amy developed a middle-school curriculum entitled Mountain Adventures: Exploring the Himalayas, Andes, and Appalachians for the project, Plants, People, and Biodiversity Protection, in collaboration with The Mountain Institute, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.