Class act: Every day is Earth Day at Lake Tahoe magnet school
Published: November 15, 2011
Bob Comlossy, head teacher at the Lake Tahoe Environmental Science Magnet School, knows for certain that his students are using the lessons they learn about green living and environmental stewardship in their everyday lives. After students completed an energy audit of their campus, finding ways to significantly cut the school’s utility bills in the process, Comlossy began hearing from parents whose children were surveying their own homes to find ways to save energy.
“One father said, ‘Thanks a lot. I just had to change 50 conventional light bulbs to compact fluorescents.’ ” Comlossy laughs. “The kids really take home what they learn here.”
In 2004, the future looked grim for the community school that’s located at the foot of Echo Summit in a remote area in the Tahoe Basin. Declining enrollment had hit the area hard, and in June the Lake Tahoe Unified School District reluctantly closed the campus, then called Meyers Elementary.
But parents had invested a lot in their local school, which they believed provided unique opportunities for the study of environmental science because of its proximity to undeveloped forests and the Upper Truckee River, and they worked hard to convince district officials to give the school another chance.
They proposed that Meyers reopen as a K-5 magnet school that could bring environmental science to life by introducing students to the wilderness just outside their classrooms—and, in the process, attract students from throughout the district. Tahoe Superintendent James Tarwater was an early supporter. “It was a perfect fit,” he says.
The school reopened in September 2005 with a new name and a new focus on integrating environmental science concepts throughout the curriculum.
“We were super-excited when we heard the school was going to reopen,” says Amber Salmon, whose daughter Bailee, now in seventh grade, was a first-grader the year the magnet school opened. “There are other great schools in the district, but we feel we have something really special here: the projects the kids do, the fact that they spend this great time outside, and the dedicated teachers.”
With a teaching staff of 12 and just under 200 students, Lake Tahoe Environmental Science Magnet School began what its founders called “an experiment in integrated K-5 science education.” Staff consulted with virtually all the major state agencies that oversee forests, water, resource management and regional planning, and with various environmental groups; a teacher volunteered to serve as the school’s first environmental outreach coordinator.
The school also tapped the expertise of local parents, many of whom were scientists and environmentalists themselves. By the end of that experimental first year, teachers had integrated more than 50 state academic standards into their environmental science curriculum for fourth- and fifth-graders. Comlossy seized the opportunity to introduce students to environmental science by having them participate in real-world projects that produce tangible benefits.
Working with the U.S. Forest Service and the California Tahoe Conservancy, Tahoe students planted trees to help restore areas that were devastated by the Angora Fire that ravaged the area in 2007. Because virtually every resident was touched in some way by the fire—which destroyed 252 homes—the project provided emotional support while it helped the students study the science of the fire and its aftermath. Students surveyed the burn area and tracked the return of macro-invertebrate populations to nearby streams.
Initially some observers believed that the magnet school was doing so well academically because it had attracted “the best and brightest” students from throughout the district. “But every year we are getting more diverse,” Comlossy says. “And our test scores keep going up and up.”
The school has grown to about 366 students and 16 teachers. A $1 million federal grant funds a full-time environmental outreach coordinator who works with state agencies and environmental groups to bring the magnet school’s project-based program to other schools in the district. The school has won a number of other grants and honors, including a Jiminy Cricket Environmentality Challenge from Disney Inc. for a bat habitat restoration project and a Golden Bell Award from CSBA for its “Every Day is Earth Day” science curriculum.
The program is also scoring academic gains. Lake Tahoe students posted impressive scores on state standards tests in 2009-10, with 84 percent of magnet school students scoring advanced or proficient in English-language arts, 90 percent advanced or proficient in math and 92 percent proficient or above in science. These scores represented increases of 10 to 12 points over the 2007-08 scores.
“It’s the only [elementary] school where you will see that the boys are scoring just as high on standards tests as the girls,” says district Superintendent Tarwater. “I believe [it’s] because there is so much project-based hands-on learning.”
—Carol Brydolf
WHO: Lake Tahoe Environmental Science Magnet School
WHAT: “Every Day is Earth Day” project-based curriculum
WHEN: Since 2005
WHERE: Lake Tahoe Environmental Science Magnet School, Lake Tahoe Unified School District in El Dorado County
WHY: To teach environment science with hands-on projects and infuse academic standards into environmental curriculum
MORE: www.ltusd.org/subpage_schools/schools/ltesms.php