NATURE AWARENESS & SERVICE
Nature Awareness and Service is a youth education program catered to students in grades K-8. It is designed to help students learn techniques to understand and enjoy the nature in their neighborhood. It will help instill an early interest in conservation, foster scientific curiosity and build life-long stewardship of local natural areas.
The program begins with a visit to a classroom where a Volunteer Naturalist from the Riverkeepers and trained through Metro's Nature University will introduce the concept of nature awareness, through age and benchmark appropriate activities. This component is followed by a field-trip to a local natural area where students will have the opportunity to put the concept of nature awareness into practice. Volunteer Naturalists lead small groups through various activity modules including animal tracking, botany and ethno-botany, and food web simulation. The culmination of classroom and field experiences is the community service project. Following the field trip, a representative from the Riverkeepers will return to the classroom with the purpose of helping students brainstorm project ideas based on their needs and interests. The Naturalist will guide them to formulate a project and from that point, will serve as a resource for teachers and students, connecting with relevant organizations.
We encourage teachers to work with the Riverkeepers prior to the program. This allows us to make adjustments in curriculum choices that will link the program most affectively to classroom curricula and benchmark needs.
What Is Nature University?www.metro-region.org
NATURAL AREAS & FIELD-TRIP SITES
Gotter Prairie
Gotter Prairie is an uncommon, wet prairie habitat and a home to rare Pacific Northwest species. Pacific chorus frog, Red-legged frog, Northwest salamander; Red-osier dogwood, Gary oak; White-breasted nuthatch and Yellow-breasted Chat are just a few of the species living at Gotter Prairie. There are numerous waterfowl species that use the area in their migratory travels.
This 120 acre property is located approximately 1 mile North of the intersection of Highway 210 and 219 in Scholls, OR. SEE MAP
Students will learn nature awareness techniques that will prepare them for their explorations at Gotter Prairie. Small student groups explore the riparian area of McFee Creek and the Tualatin River as they track animal signs. They learn to identify native prairie and riparian plants as well as get first hand experience with what it's like to be a predator and to be prey.
Gotter Prairie Background
This property first came under agricultural cultivation as recently as the 1930s and several relatives of the original homesteaders still reside along the creek. A historic mill operated at this site back at one time and Native Americans are said to have camped on the upland area alongside the creek. The property was owned by the Gotter Family from the 1930s until 1994. Sam Gotter and his wife were " very excited to see Metro purchasing land " and to see the restoration of the floodplain and are glad to see the area become a bird and animal sanctuary. Gotter Prairie is now owned by Metro and was their first purchase along the Tualatin River, part of Metro's Greenspaces Acquisition Program. Gotter Prairie is just one of the many amazing natural areas acquired by Metro with monies from a public bond measure passed in 1995.
Tualatin Riverkeepers first became involved on the site in 2002. Since then, they have been very successful leveraging funds for restoration at Gotter Prairie and encouraging community involvement on the site. The youth education program is one of the many ways Riverkeepers and Metro are making connections between community members and Gotter Prairie.