HRM of Texas - InSites

THE HORNSBY BEND 6TH GRADE LIVING LAB THE PROPOSAL

Project Summary

In collaboration with Holistic Resource Management of Texas, Inc. (HRM TX), Dr. Patricia Q. Richardson proposes to organize and manage a field-site based, hands-on training for 6th grade students from an economically disadvantaged, ethnically diverse, urban neighborhood in Austin Texas. These students will study a parcel of land representing particular habitats over a nine-month period and monitor the changes they observe. Their training will qualify them to be ecology mentors for both younger students at their school and for their community.

From the perspective of HRM TX three-part goal, this proposal "facilitates training and education, creates public awareness and forms collaborative partnerships". These actions support the quality of life value of "a healthy ecosystem capable of supporting the people in it". These actions help ensure an essential future landscape that has "high biodiversity, a healthy water cycle, a healthy mineral cycle, efficient capture of solar energy, and a harmonious interdependence between urban and rural communities through an understanding of ecological processes".

In Texas, over 95% of the land is privately owned, but over 85% of the population is urban. In cities the general public has little opportunity to witness or understand ecosystem processes. Yet the social and political "voice" of the people rests in the hands of this large urban majority.

Among the urban population, children of the economically disadvantaged are often the least likely to observe, recognize or participate in ecosystem process management. This project will develop their skill as land observers, their insight into the need for a healthy ecosystem and their role as stewards. Even if they never manage more than a flower box, they will have a well-founded awareness of the complexity of living systems and a framework of understanding for making decisions regarding ecosystem health.

This proposal addresses urban education both to build understanding of ecosystem processes and management and to create awareness that "land language" is unique to each piece of earth. Individuals who have had the opportunity or inclination to pay close attention to a piece of land over a time scale of seasons or years become unique "repositories of knowledge". They cannot be easily replaced. Urban recognition and respect for such "human resources" are critical to the "harmonious interdependence between urban and rural communities".

Site

Hornsby Dunlap Elementary School, on the eastern edge of Austin TX, is 5 miles from the City of Austin Hornsby Bend Biosolids Management Facility (Hornsby Bend). This 1200 acre site has: (1) over three miles of Colorado River frontage with both riparian forest and lowland prairie habitat (2) over 100 acres of evaporative ponds which provide one of the finest most diverse birding habitats in central Texas (3) pasture acreage where half of the biosolids produced are land applied to raise hay crops (4) acreage where the other half of the biosolids are combined with yard trimmings and composted to make a soil amendment called "Dillo Dirt". The Center for Environmental Research (CER) is located at Hornsby Bend and is a partnership of the City of Austin, and the Universities of Texas and Texas A&M. The purpose of this center is to support research and education about urban sustainability and ecology. This facility includes a 100-seat lecture hall/auditorium, two class/seminar rooms and a large chemistry/biology laboratory.

During school years 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 Drs. Patricia and Dick Richardson at the University of Texas have been collaborators in a continuing partnership at the CER to mentor biology and ecology hands-on education for 100 4th graders and 100 5th graders from Hornsby Dunlap Elementary School. They conduct a series of 3 field days throughout the school year at Hornsby Bend. Patricia Richardson organizes field day curricula, presents classroom training for volunteer mentors and for elementary school students, and participates as a mentor on all field days. Major partners in this collaboration include City of Austin Water and Wastewater Utility, Colorado River Watch Foundation, Travis Audubon Society and Capitol Area Master Naturalists. They have a volunteer network of over 50 well-qualified enthusiastic individuals who give over 1200 hours a year to the existing program, and who are a "driving force" in developing an additional 6th grade program. All the partners have committed to implementing this project and will supply site and laboratory space, equipment, volunteer expertise and time.

Objectives

Expand the scope and depth of ecological training for a select number (12 to 15) of 6th grade students, many of which would be coming for their third year to Hornsby Bend.
Teach students the skills of observation and data gathering.
Provide place-based hands-on study of ecosystem processes and how to monitor change.
Provide field site training in conservation and restoration.
Build the students' understanding of their connectedness to nature, dependence upon a healthy ecosystem and role as land stewards.
Encourage students to be ecosystem-mentors among their peers and within their community.

Methodology

Curriculum will include a continuing study over time of the soil, vegetation and wildlife on a parcel of land at Hornsby Bend that includes a diversity of habitats.
The focus will be to show the constant connectedness of all living processes - that one management action affects all parts of the ecosystem.
We shall present the studies from a perspective of the four ecosystem blocks - energy flow, mineral cycle, water cycle and community dynamics. We have been encouraged by Master Naturalist volunteers to use this project to develop a prototype for a junior master naturalists program.
Students will come from Hornsby Dunlap Elementary School to Hornsby Bend for one morning each month (9 mornings total) to specifically monitor "their study area" both at a macro (vegetation and wildlife) and micro (soil biology) scale. They will monitor and record changes from fall to summer. They will take vegetative transect and fixed point photo data, test water quality, map all signs and presence of wildlife, conduct a microscopic study of the living organisms in the soil, and integrate all data into a living system of interactions. They will present a report to their own 6th grade classes and to the 5th and 4th grade classes as part of pre-field day preparation. At one of the 4th/5th grade field days the 6th graders will show and discuss their study site.

Conservation outcome

Drs. Pat and Dick Richardson, as research ecologists and scientists, constantly observe among large urban populations: (1) an enormous lack of regard for human impact on the ecosystem, (2) a lack of awareness of human requirements for co-existence in the ecosystem - healthy soil, erosion prevention, pollution prevention, watershed management, the importance of vegetative and wildlife diversity and management. We feel challenged to provide an urban understanding of the necessity of thinking about ecological health. We know this project will teach everyone involved (mentors as well as students) to think in "land language" at both a personal and at a landscape (e.g. watershed) scale.

Hornsby Bend Sixth Grade 2001-02 Living Lab Program
thinking from a holistic management perspective

by Patricia Q. Richardson

Twelve sixth grade students, ethnically diverse-all smart, but some with learning disabilities (dyslexia, attention deficit disorder) are brought to Hornsby Bend one morning per month throughout the school year. The remaining three mornings are March 22nd, April 26th and May 10th. Anyone interested is welcome to come and observe/participate.

This sixth grade program is definitely an ongoing learning experience, and we are getting lots of practice using the feedback loop (plan, assume wrong, monitor, control, replan).

I personally feel quite attached to the assume wrong part of the loop... "Oh, this is my best at the moment, and I KNOW it isn't going to be perfect, so I'll monitor from the get-go and make corrections (control) and try something different (replan) as soon as results waver from our desired and expected outcome" is much easier for me to say than "Oh, I tried so hard, and all I did was fail!" What a downer. Do my best and assume wrong is a very freeing component of Holistic Management. It doesn't mean I'm an idiot. Assume wrong means I do not have all the information I need, and I will never have all the information I need, so I'd better pay attention. New information is always trickling in that will allow me to make a better decision, and assume wrong again.

What are we in the 6th grade program always trying to move toward? We desire to give these youngsters out-of-doors experiential learning that includes an understanding of the complexity and connectedness of all life forms. We desire to encourage their knowledge and confidence in observing the processes that allow our ecosystem to function effectively. We desire to impart and share a sense of "knowing a piece of land" in order to recognize our capacity to love and defend versus just exploit. We desire to learn more about bugs, birds, other animals and plants.

Who is "we" (the decision makers)? We are a group of eclectic mentors - ranging from a passionate environmental/social justice activist high school student, to moms raising their own families, to retired engineers, teachers and business professionals, to working engineers, city and NGO program directors, to academicians, academic interns and graduate students. Talk about a herd of cats... We are also an eclectic group of 12 sixth graders - six girls and six boys, many ethnic groups and mixes represented, many modes of learning represented. They actually initiate many of the "replans", and indirectly make many of our "decisions", by their response and behavior to our best-laid plans.

That's why we use lots of monitoring, and then pull human creativity out of the toolbox and apply with plenty of living organisms, some technology, some money, and lots of labor.

What is the "piece of land" that we are trying to "know"? Hornsby Bend - an unlikely place you might say to love and defend. It is the sludge treatment facility for the City of Austin. I like to affectionately lay it right on the table- it's where all the human poop from about half a million folks goes-your poop and my poop (the kids giggle). The "piece of land" includes 160 acres of evaporative ponds, three miles of riparian forest along the Colorado River, agricultural hay fields, and grass/shrub pasture (collectively habitat for over 300 kinds of birds). It's "urban wildscape," the only wilderness that many urban kids see. It's got coyote, sometimes beaver, a few deer, a bobcat. It's a place to study nutrient recycling (through soils, water, vegetation). It's a place to study and carry out restoration. Individuals who "know" Hornsby Bend, volunteer mentors who "share" Hornsby Bend, children who delight in Hornsby Bend, a community that "loves" Hornsby Bend, and Hornsby Bend itself, a place to learn, explore, observe and work are all part of what we need and envision existing far into the future.

This may be a stretch of the concept of grazing as a tool, but we "manage" (simply by not destroying) an interesting form of "grazing": Leaf-cutting ants have a large many mound colony on the corner of the sixth grade forest/meadow study plot. The "grazing" is the multitude of plants (forbs to trees) that the ants cut into tiny pieces and haul (hundreds of feet) to their mounds. The soft soil mounds are part of their "animal impact," resulting from having excavated deep underground chambers where they "farm" their own very special fungus gardens, feeding the cut plant material to the fungus, and feeding the fungus to the queen ant and to the hatched larvae.
We've covered parts of the whole, parts of the holistic goal, and some of the tools we use for this project.

David West ranch