With a grass-covered dam in front of him and the fish-filled Guadalupe River behind, technician Scott Kolbe tells two dozen rural Texas teachers how a hydroelectric power plant operates and what training he needed to do his job.

Keeping Field Trips Local

More than 10 million students nationwide attend rural schools, according to a 2009 report by the Rural School and Community Trust, a nonprofit advocacy group. Getting to college is a long road for many of them because more than 40 percent of rural students live in poverty, and only 69 percent graduate from high school.

Rural school districts want to help their students overcome these barriers, but most just can’t afford it. Science is a special problem because of the expense. Districts often don’t have a tax base to support even the most basic science class supplies, like prisms and beakers, much less the expensive equipment needed for modern biology and chemistry labs. While some urban and suburban schools face similar budget problems, teachers in rural schools have fewer places to go for help: fewer local businesses to ask for donations of money or equipment, fewer scientists nearby to share their expertise, fewer universities and museums to illustrate why science matters.

“One of our biggest issues is showing kids how science can benefit them in the real world,” says Keith Starr, a science teacher at a charter high school built in a former peanut field in Gaston, North Carolina. Starr, who has worked with the Trust, doesn’t have many opportunities to invite scientists into his classes, but he has found the occasional scientist from outside who is willing to visit, including Howard University physics professor Walter Lowe who grew up in the area and NASA astrophysicist Harvey Moseley who met Starr through a member of his school’s board of directors.

		Discovering Bennett's Millpond Each year, around two dozen high school students and teachers have used the pond as a research center. Explore the results. Rural Teachers Visit Central Texas Hydroelectric Plant Join teachers on a field trip where they learn how to bring science to their students.

Field trips are a great way to spark student interest, many teachers say. They offer a real-world view of science, but distance, time, and money make trips especially difficult for rural schools. That’s why Sara Swearingen and two dozen of her fellow teachers in rural Texas visited a hydroelectric power plant on the Guadalupe River between Austin and San Antonio, straining to hear over the rushing water and the loud buzz of the power equipment. On a sticky July afternoon, these central Texas teachers visited three sites for field trips that they may be able to re-create in many rural areas: a power plant, a cave, and an organic farm.

The visits are part of the Rural Schools Initiative run by Fuchs-Young at MD Anderson in Smithville, itself a rural community. “It was a response to the needs expressed to us by teachers, who are concerned about their students who want to stay in their rural community [after graduation]. They have very bright students who don’t have the kinds of scientific career opportunities that those in more urban and suburban districts might have,” Fuchs-Young explains. She and her colleague Heather Reddick started looking around their own rural town. “We found all kinds of resources and places that are in and around rural communities that provide rich learning environments and also show off scientific or health-related career opportunities.”

Every small town has a wastewater treatment plant, a farm, or a local hospital, for example. The Rural Schools Initiative trains teachers to create local field trips at these kinds of nearby, low-cost venues. Field trips give students a chance to meet people who work in science, like Scott Kolbe, the technician who explains how water turns into electricity at the hydroelectric power plant, or Malcolm Beck, the organic farmer who wowed the teachers by showing them how garden waste feeds the fish he farms; and the fish waste provides organic fertilizer for the garden.

Swearingen, who teaches fourth grade in Smithville, says field trips have been canceled in her district because of budget cuts. No more trips to the state capitol or the Blue Bell ice cream factory 60 miles away. But field trips closer to home might be an option. “There are things out there,” she says, “we just don’t know what is available.” Reddick, Fuchs-Young, and the rest of the team help them find these resources.

Photo: Matt Rainwaters

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