Mrs. Rexford 7th Graders Attend Wetland Watchers Trip!
Mrs. Rexford’s seventh grade science students attended their first Wetland Watchers Service-Learning trip of the year participating in stations including physical, chemical, and biological water quality testing, planting cypress trees, touring the nature trail, participating in a GPS scavenger hunt, and hands-on opportunities with Louisiana’s most famous reptiles including an alligator, a corn snake, box turtles, and an alligator snapping turtle! We had wonderful volunteers from Dow Chemical and the Motiva Refinery facilitating stations. This is also the first time we had former Wetland Watcher students that are now part of the Destrehan High WISE Club (Wildcats Interested In Saving the Environment) facilitating stations! It was na impressive group of Wetland Watchers alumni taking part including 2 students who had spoken with me in Philadelphia, 6 students who had been on Radio Disney with me, and a student whose picture is in the Heroes of the Environment book! The WISE Club is providing an opportunity for our Hurst Middle students to continue participating in service-learning activities on the high school level!
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Wetland Watchers Receive Grant Award and Present at Brown Foundation Service-Learning Kick-off Event!
Hurst Middle School Wetland Watchers received $3,555 through grants from the Joe W. and Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation to fund school service-learning projects. Students and teachers were able to attend the Brown Foundation Service-Learning Celebration which involved over 1,000 students and teachers from 9 Louisiana parishes.
Alexa presents rabbit at the Brown Foundation Celebration!
Back in the Bayou! Wetland Watchers 8th Graders Start Off THis Year’s Service-Learning Trips!
The Hurst Middle Wetland Watchers were back in action recently as 135 8th grade students used Wetland Watchers Park as a setting for activities focused on geography, history, math, language arts, and science. As a service-learning project, students participate activities where they are meeting required academics standards as well as helping to improve our community and the environment. Students will use some of the information gained to create interpretive signage for the Wetland Watchers Park boardwalk. During the school year, students also share the knowledge they are learning from experts at University of New Orleans PIES, Dow, and Motiva to share with younger students across the region.
Hurst 8th graders (L-R) Justin P., Cody H., Jennifer P., and Tyrie P. observe the remnants of a 1200 year old Native American shell midden as part of their GPS Louisiana History cache station during a recent Wetland Watchers Service-Learning trip.
Hurst 8th grader Anthony H. compares a 1915 map that includes the towns of LaBranche, Wagram, and Frenier along the shore of Lake Pontchartrain with the current view of the shoreline. The group also read a survivor’s account from the 1915 hurricane that washed away all of the shoreline communities listed on the map.
Hurst 8th grader Chandler A. compares overlays of maps from 1956 to current shoreline maps to determine the percent of land loss during that period of time. The students participated in the activity on land that was rebuilt to the 1976 shoreline through the efforts of Norco resident Milton Cambre. Students began the activity facilitated by UNO-PIES Educator Dinah Maygarden and was completed in the students math classes.
UNO-PIES educator Heather Egger leads students through a guided imagery activity using a journal written by a carpenter that accompanied Iberville on his explorations throughout the LaBranche region between 1699 and 1721. The students sat along the boardwalk surrounded by palmetto trees ranging in age from 100 – 400 years old, some of which may have been there when the French explorers came through the area.
UNO-PIES educator DInah Maygarden leads a group in a percentage of land loss activity comparing the land they are on right now with maps from 1956.
PErcentage of land loss station - working hard!
Enjoying the lunch break!
Lunch picnic!!!!
Mr. Folse helps steer a group in the right direction using their GPS during the Louisiana History GPS Cache.
Students must work together as the major components of a habitat must to succeed!
Motiva volunteer, Mr. Mark, facilitates a station concerning soil hydration levels.
Dow Volunteer, Mr. JT, teaches students how to use their GPS to find the hidden Louisiana History Caches.
Hurst Middle Wetland Watchers and Destrehan High WISE Club Trash Bash Clean-up!
(L-R) Hurst Middle students Erin M, Elena M, Jenny P, and Amanda O pick up trash along the water’s edge.
Forty-two volunteers representing Hurst Middle’s Wetland Watcher Project and the Destrehan High WISE (Wildcats Interested In Saving the Environment) Club worked together to clean-up the front boat launch area of the spillway. Students collected 32 bags of trash as well as plenty of larger junk. “I am always so proud of the students who volunteer for these events. There is so much going on for everyone every weekend that you have to respect all of the kids and adults that take time out there own schedule to try to better their community” said Hurst Middle School teacher, Barry Guillot. “Every year I am still surprised to see how many car parts and pieces of clothing we find out here! It is sad to see how people just throw their beer bottles or even dirty diapers right on the ground when garbage cans are available so close.” Students use data cards to record and tally every piece of trash collected. This information will all be graphed and analyzed in the classroom so that students can pinpoint which types of park visitors are leaving the most trash such as boaters, picnickers, campers, or fishermen.
Hurst Middle student Joseph J. collects some of the larger pieces of trash submerged along the shoreline of the spillway pond.
(L-R) Destrehan WISE club members Karli B, Thomas M, Brionne B, Emilie U., and Warren M. work with Wetland Watchers Dylan G. and Nick G. to cleanup over 32 bottles from this one spot under the tree.
Wetland Watchers Coordinator Featured in New Book: Harry Hurst teacher gets ‘animated’ for environment
October 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under Media Gallery
Hurst teacher and Wetland Watchers creator/ coordinator is featured in the new Chronicle Book release Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet by Harriet Rohmer, Julie McLaughlin (Illustrator)
Harry Hurst teacher gets ‘animated’ for environment
By Jonathan Menard - Sep 03, 2009
When Harry Hurst science teacher Barry Guillot talks about the Wetland Watchers, he usually gets pretty animated, but it’s hard to imagine he ever envisioned himself as a cartoon in a book about environmental heroes.
The book, which can be found at libraries and stores throughout the country, tells the true story of 12 people across North America who have done great things for the environment. Heroes include a teenage girl who figured out how to remove an industrial pollutant from the Ohio River, a Mexican superstar wrestler who works to protect turtles and whales, and a teenage boy from Rhode Island who helped his community and his state develop effective e-waste recycling programs.
Chapter 10 in the book deals with Guillot and his Wetland Watchers. He is the only teacher featured.
“It is such a huge honor to be recognized in this fashion,” Guillot said. “I hope that in some way our story will inspire other teachers and students to learn more about service-learning and get involved with their community the way my students have.”
Guillot is responsible for founding the Wetland Watchers, which is a service-learning program that was started in 1997 to immerse students in science while learning about the value of the wetlands.
Over the years, the Wetland Watchers have participated in tree planting, water-quality testing and litter removal and have also adopted 28 acres of land in the parish.
That land is now designated as Wetland Watcher Park.
For six straight years, the program has been recognized as an American Leadership Model Project by the Lieutenant Governor’s Louisiana Serve Commission.
The author of the book, Harriet Rohmer, heard about the Wetland Watchers after reading an article about Guillot on the Teacher Heroes site of The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Rohmer said she read the whole profile and was “totally amazed.”
“I wanted to include a teacher, especially a middle school science teacher, because teachers are so important in shaping the lives of kids and thereby determining what sort of society we’re going to have 15 or 20 years down the road,” she said. “Then I read about Barry, and I knew immediately that he was a model teacher.”
Rohmer was reading the profiles to specifically find a teacher who was making a difference in both the classroom and the community.
“His work of helping kids protect the wetlands around New Orleans struck me as exciting and important - and something that all kids could relate to, even if they’d never seen a wetland,” she said.
In fact, Rohmer ends the book with a section called “How You Can Get Involved,” which encourages kids to look for projects that could help their communities, to learn how nature works, and to help with clean ups and tree plantings.
“Following the examples of people like Barry and his students,” Rohmer said.
In the chapter dealing with the Wetland Watchers and Guillot, the teacher appears as both a cartoon and in a real photo. There are also two photos that feature a total of eight Harry Hurst students.
The book, which retails on Amazon.com for $13.25, can be found in local libraries and book stores in the surrounding area.
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