Members of the WCEE's Education for Sustainability in Wisconsin Steering Committee. Assistant Head of School Mary Anna Thornton is standing in the foreground, at left.

Conserve School’s Assistant Head of School, along with the school’s University of Wisconsin Graduate Fellows, took part in a year-long research project on attitudes toward sustainability and education in Wisconsin communities, spearheaded by the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education (WCEE). The research project recently culminated in the publication of the report “Cultivating Education for Sustainability in Wisconsin Schools.” Assistant Head of School Mary Anna Thornton, a member of the Education for Sustainability in Wisconsin Steering Committee, collected and organized data from the northeastern region of the state, while other steering committee members collected data in their own regions. As part of the process, Mary Anna and the Graduate Fellows collaborated to carry out a focus group protocol developed at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. This WCEE research project was coordinated with another state-wide education initiative, the development of “Wisconsin’s Plan to Advance Education for Environmental Literacy and Sustainability in PK-12 Schools,” carried out by the Wisconsin Department of Instruction (to see a DPI press release about the plan, click here). Just made available online, this publication is the state’s first education plan related to sustainability.

Congratulations to the WCEE and to the DPI on their completion of these ambitious undertakings! The Conserve School community is glad to be able to support and participate in projects that promote young people’s commitment to and understanding of sustainability and environmental stewardship.

The WCEE is an outreach and extension program of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s College of Natural Resources.

You can read more about these organizations and initiatives on the Environmental Education in Wisconsin website.

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Conserve School is a conservation-based semester school for high school students. Read more about us at www.conserveschool.org or on our Facebook page.

The prompts we’ve set up on the students’ websites guide them in reflecting on what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown during their semester, asking, for example: Why do you think this activity or assignment is worth featuring in your e-portfolio? What did you learn from this experience? How does this experience relate to Conserve’s School-wide Learning Goals?

Students also use the e-portfolios to set goals for themselves at the beginning of the Conserve School semester and then, at the end of the semester, to evaluate to what degree they’ve met those goals — and how. The e-portfolios conclude with a “Final Thoughts” page, on which students record new goals for their lives post-Conserve.

Educational research demonstrates that self-reflection (or, to use the educational research jargon, “metacognition”) improves learning and memory. We believe that the process of creating an e-portfolio helps students more deeply understand, and more effectively retain, the academic lessons — and the life lessons — that they’ve learned while living at Lowenwood.

We staff members appreciate the e-portfolios because they allow us to see Conserve School through the students’ eyes. Reviewing the e-portfolios helps us carry out our own self-reflection and goal-setting as we work to continuously improve our program.

Thank you to all of the students who put extra time and effort into building these websites!

And here are our winners. Please click on the students’ names to go to their e-portfolios.

Honorable Mentions
Each of these students received a certificate and a $25.00 gift card from Amazon.com.

Megan S.
Laura L.
Corrin D.
Hannah D.

Tied for 2nd Place
Each of these students received a certificate and a $300 college scholarship.

Kelsie S.
Sarah B.

1st Place
This student received a certificate and a $500 college scholarship.

Shelbi K.

Congratulations, students!

- Mary Anna

Conserve School is a conservation-based semester school for high school students. Read more about us at www.conserveschool.org or on our Facebook page.

A number of advisory groups had their last advisory dinners or activities this week or last week, some of them holiday-themed. In the accompanying photos you see a gingerbread house-making activity with the advisory groups of Cathy Palmer, Director of Outdoor Programs and Residential Life, and Jean Haack, Sustainability Coordinator; a cookie-baking and -decorating activity with my advisory group and the advisory group of Phil DeLong, Director of Admissions and Residential Life; and a dinner and games night with the advisory groups of Nancy Schwartz, Art Teacher, and her husband, Robert Eady, Science and Ceramics Teacher. All of the activities were held at staff members’ on-campus apartments. Enjoy the photos and the short clip (below) of students singing at Nancy and Robert’s.

- Mary Anna

Conserve School is a conservation-based semester school for high school students. Read more about us at www.conserveschool.org or on our Facebook page.

As we enter the final week of the semester, students and staff are determined to fit as much winter fun as possible into the time we have left. So despite warming temperatures that brought rain and turned some of our lovely snow into slush, students in Field Instruction broke out their snowshoes on Monday and Tuesday. Some had done this before and some hadn’t, but field instructor Chris Homeister explained the basics and took them out into a bog, where they could try out the school’s snowshoes on flat, open ground. Our hope is that the skills students have been practicing during their last weeks here at Conserve School will help them get out and enjoy winter even after they’ve left to return home – we’re certainly going to miss them!

~Rebecca

Eventually, the sledding outing devolved into a snowball fight; students allege that Field Instructors Greg Handley and Chris Homeister started it. I emailed students a question about the barricade you can see in the last two photos of the slideshow, and here are a few of the answers I got.

We made an army of sleds and tubes and slowly marched up the sledding hill. The sleds and tubes served to protect us from the snowballs of Greg and Chris. At the top of the hill, we broke the barricade and tackled Greg.
- Brennan

We had the idea of getting all of the sleds to the bottom of the hill and made a barricade out of them. Greg started throwing snowballs at us, so we re-formed to two levels of sleds and started advancing to get closer to Greg and Chris. They continued to throw snowballs as we got closer, and then we commenced to attack Greg and tackle him. It was just a really fun little thing we did towards the end of class.
- Laura L.

The first snow of the season brings out the kid in all of us! The playfulness of these photos reminded me of our Conserve School Community Beliefs and Commitments (meant to guide the actions of the staff) and Schoolwide Learning Goals (meant to guide the actions of the students), which highlight the importance of outdoor play:

Learning Goal #8: A Conserve School student frequently takes time for outdoor play and reflection.
Community Commitment #8:  We regularly set aside our obligations in order to refresh and renew ourselves, play together, and reflect while immersed in the beauty of the natural world.

- Mary Anna

Last week, Conserve School Admissions and Residential Life Director Phil DeLong, an accomplished cross country skier, spent his afternoons in Field Instruction with Conserve School students, taking students step by step through the basics of cross country skiing. He was assisted by the Field Instructors, some of whom were also on skis for the first time, and by a few of our students who are themselves outstanding skiers.

As you can see in the photos, Phil started his lessons inside the Lowenwood Recreation Center, with an explanation of the physics of skiing. After helping students find correctly sized shoes and skis, he led the group outside and coached them as they fit their shoes into the ski bindings. In order to help students learn to balance well, they started out with just the skis — no poles. After students practiced their kicking and gliding, Phil demonstrated how to fall and get back up again — an important skill for beginners. Finally, he let students try skiing with their poles. You can see from the photos how the group improved over time. It was fun to see the beginners go from cautious to confident!

I’m sending out a big thank you to the Conserve School students who are experienced skiers. Last week, as I observed Field Instruction, I saw them kindly talking their classmates through their first tentative forays on skis, hurrying over to help them stand up again after falling, and generally just sticking by their sides and encouraging them. It is always heart-warming to see students be so generous and caring with one another.

- Mary Anna

Okay, at Conserve School we don’t have an official “school picture day.” However, last week English teacher and photographer extraordinaire Jeff Rennicke offered to take portraits of any interested students in his home studio. The results ranged from serious to silly, and as we near the end of the semester it was a fun way for students to memorialize some of the friendships they’ve made here. A big thank you to Jeff for donating his time and expertise!

~Rebecca

In addition to Kathy’s considerable academic, instructional, and technology expertise, her outstanding quilting, craft, and graphic arts skills, her love for animals (dogs, wolves, and horses, especially), her interest in dramatic productions (and her ability to whip up beautiful programs), her appreciation of the beauty of the natural world, her baking skills, and her quirky sense of humor have all helped Kathy establish close bonds with her students and have greatly enriched the Conserve School program.

Kathy’s retirement follows a distinguished teaching career that started in Chicago-area Catholic schools. She has primarily taught mathematics, taking only a short break from the math classroom early in her career to teach the full middle school curriculum. She spent most of her career teaching high school mathematics and computer programming and has taken on a variety of administrative roles as well, including high school Mathematics Department Chair, Science Department Chair, and School Technology Director. At Conserve School, Kathy has taught math courses, Photoshop, and PSAT, SAT, and ACT test preparation, and, over the years, she has planned and chaperoned too many Conserve School extracurricular activities to even begin to describe. Kathy also brought to Conserve School the talents of her husband, Roger Jones, a retired DePaul University Mathematics Professor, who was a very welcome addition to our staff both as a tutor and as a math teacher. Kathy is looking forward to spending more time with Roger, who retired two years ago, pursuing their many hobbies, and enjoying the company of their gregarious American Water Spaniel, Dee Dee.

Kathy will be with us off and on for a few months at the beginning of next year as a consultant, helping the new math teacher settle in and assisting us with her special areas of expertise, like computer-based test administration.

We will miss Kathy a great deal. She leaves big shoes to fill (despite her size 5 feet)! We hope that Kathy, Roger, and Dee Dee find many opportunities for future visits to Conserve, and we wish Kathy the best as she enjoys her retirement.

~Conserve School

Kathy Jones wins quilting award

CS2 student Bree received a $500 college scholarship for her winning entry.

This week we’ve been reminding students about the upcoming deadline for submitting their e-portfolios to our E-Portfolio Scholarship Contest. A panel of staff members will judge the e-portfolios on December 15. The students who submit the three highest-quality e-portfolios, evaluated according to a rubric students have been given, will receive $500, $300, and $200 college scholarships.

Our e-portfolio system is a means for students to record and reflect on school work and activities that have been particularly meaningful to them and to store their memories online in a way that is easy to access both for them once they leave Conserve School and for friends or family members. Academic research shows that reflection and self-assessment are powerful tools for improving student learning, and an e-portfolio can be a useful vehicle for eliciting and guiding self-reflection. (See one example of educational literature that promotes the use of student self-evaluation here.) In addition, the professional world uses technology routinely to showcase achievements, products, and services, so by teaching Conserve students how to assemble an on-line portfolio, we’re giving them a boost on their way to developing the skills and outlook of professionals. Furthermore, more and more colleges are adopting e-portfolio expectations. Here is one example, from Clemson University.

Good luck, CS3 students, and we look forward to seeing your completed e-portfolios!

Mary Anna

In our English class, Wilderness Voices: American Literature and the Land, students are working their way through their last unit, entitled “Speak Up & Speak Out!” This section of the course is aimed at giving students the skills they need to effectively voice their beliefs. Yesterday each student completed a bumper sticker that expressed one of their beliefs, and today, English Teacher Jeff Rennicke had the stickers plastered on his car. The class headed outside to view the bumper stickers in their natural element. While admiring the stickers, students explained their messages to one another and gently critiqued one another’s work, following a checklist provided by Jeff. They considered a variety of questions: Would a change in wording increase the impact? Should the message be more concise? Is the sticker easy to read from a distance? Do the images and colors enhance or distract from the text? Does a bumper sticker have to have words or can the picture tell the story? Read more about this activity on Jeff’s Conserve School website.

At the same time, another section of students participated in Environmental Science class with teacher Robert Eady, learning about alternative energy. Robert demonstrated to students the physics of steam power by firing up an elaborate tabletop steam engine model that once belonged to James R. Lowenstine, Conserve School’s founder. Students  then paired off to work on an assignment: each pair will have to present the physics of an alternative energy method, along with its environmental impact and the economic and political issues that influence its use.

While we’re on the topic of energy … Spanish Teacher Kathleen O’Connor and Math Teacher Kathy Jones recently applied for the opportunity to be beta testers for a new professional development opportunity, the Green Classroom Professional Certificate program (www.gbci.org/gcp), and were notified this week that they had been selected. They will be busy in the next several weeks completing the coursework, considering ways to make their classrooms even more energy efficient and environmentally friendly, and giving the Green Building Certification Institute feedback on the experience.

Science Teacher Andrew Milbauer received some good news this week, too. He was just notified that he has been approved as a reader (i.e., test scorer) for the AP Environmental Science exam.  Being selected as a reader is considered an honor, since the College Board will only invite teachers with strong academic backgrounds and a significant amount of AP teaching and training experience. It’s also considered an excellent professional development opportunity. The College Board provides intensive training for exam readers, and the experience deepens participating teachers’ understanding of Advanced Placement expectations.

Way to go, Kathleen, Kathy, and Andy! These are great examples of how our teachers go above and beyond.

- Mary Anna