In the summer and fall of 2014, the Granville School District, with the support of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife program, reclaimed corn fields adjacent to the Granville Intermediate School to create the Granville Schools Land Lab. The Land Lab currently consists of several terrestrial habitat types including short-grass prairie, tall-grass prairie, native trees, and pollinator habitat, as well as four wetlands, with additional stream and terrestrial habitats being added. While the main goal of the USFWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife program is to increase bird and wildlife habitat, the Granville Schools Land Lab has been used to increase the engagement of students at both Granville Schools and Denison University with ecology and the environment. Granville Schools and Denison University have collaborated to create several joint educational and research activities engaging students in K-12 and college. Thus, this project leverages the conservation investment by the USFWS and creates an educational value in addition to the conservation value.
Results/Conclusions
This collaboration has produced several concrete outcomes. First, joint lab exercises between Granville High School and Denison classes provided a venue in which data were collected while exposing both sets of students to ecological and statistical techniques appropriate to their respective levels. Second, joint research projects involving the colonization of the newly created habitats have provided data allowing the examination of colonization and community assembly in wetlands, as well as, terrestrial habitats. Third, research activities at the Land Lab have led to the development of protocols and resources (e.g., digital images, insect reference collections) that can be used by classes throughout the school district (i.e., K-12), further increasing engagement of students with ecology throughout their education. Fourth, collaborations between faculty at Granville Schools and Denison University have the potential to lead to further development of relevant outdoor laboratory activities throughout the Granville Schools and Denison University curricula. The Granville Schools Land Lab is thus an example of how a collaboration between a school district, a local college/university, and a government agency can effectively use a natural area or a restored area to accomplish multiple teaching, research, and conservation goals, and may serve as a model for other such collaborations.