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This is Our Life
a project linking people and places
to Nevada’s past and present
This project creates a humanities-based interpretation program operated by regional youth, facilitated by teachers, and guided by humanities scholars.
In this project students begin to answer questions about people, their history, and their environment by creating interpretive programs at nearby parks, nature sites or historic places, or by creating multimedia projects that showcase their community, in the past and in current times. As educators, the project director feels that the most important way to involve youth in these challenges is to develop their ownership and leadership in seeking solutions. This project thus establishes a student-run network for history and science interpretation programs, projects that highlight the roles of the physical environment and the arts in shaping the human history of a region. Through the network, schools may work in partnership with the public agencies that manage historic places. Together, they may develop docent programs for school or adult tours, use Chautauqua characters, or create other projects centering on history, natural history, and the consequence of human endeavor in the region. The network, in partnership with KNPB-TV (PBS), also allows schools to tell the stories of their communities, and share ideas, strategies, challenges and successes of adopted projects. The network also will: 1) enhance student learning through interdisciplinary service-learning projects that connect the arts and sciences to real and urgent concerns for the well-being of the environment; 2) engage students in activities in which learning takes place in the context of meaningful on-the-job training or civic service as volunteers and decision makers.
Several workshops and field trips are scheduled in late June and early July in order to provide you with background information or training on related topics. See the list of free workshops on the next page. More workshops will be scheduled as well in the fall. If you have any ideas or contacts with workshop presenters that you feel are appropriate for this project, please let me know. You are invited to bring some of your top students (two maximum) to these 3-hour workshops. Space is limited so please sign up early by e-mailing me about the workshops you wish to attend and the names of participants from your school.
The Marlette Lake Field Trip (July 2-3) is an overnight trip for teachers only.
Sincerely,
Craig Rock, Project Director,
or call 775-847-7088
FREE WORKSHOPS, June 19th – July 3rd
Tuesday, June 19th, 9AM-Noon - Innovative Environmental Education – in the Literature and on the Interpretive Trail - Instructor: John Olmsted, co-author, Adventures On and Off Interstate 80, natural and human history along the Pioneer and Gold Rush corridor from San Francisco’s Pacific shore to Nevada’s desert sand. Interested class participants and guests are also encouraged to attend a complementary program presented on the afternoon of June 18th. Please contact Heather Segale at University of Nevada Cooperative Extension for details about this free event. Call (775) 832-4150.
Wednesday, June 20th. DRI, 1-4 PM, Interrelationship of Society, Industry, and the Environment in Eastern Sierra Watersheds - John C. Tracy, Director Watershed and Environmental Sustainability Center, Desert Research Institute, Reno NV, The focus of this workshop is on Lake Tahoe and the Walker River.
Thursday, June 21, 9AM-12, Fundamentals of Creating Multi-Media Content, Workshop facilitators will include representatives of both the education and the production departments at Channel 5, as well as classroom teachers who have been using multi-media production as projects in core curriculum.
Friday, June 22nd, All-Day Field Trip – Leviathan Eco-Tour - Join Professor Glen Miller on a toxic tour of a creek near the Leviathan Superfund Site, 25 miles south of Gardnerville, Nevada. This interdisciplinary class includes hands-on activities.
Monday, June 25th, 9AM – Noon, Virginia City, Historical Archaeology and the Urban Landscape of D Street, Virginia City: Teaching the Value of a Landscape Approach to Archaeology - Instructor: Kelly Dixon of the Comstock Archaeology Center.
Tuesday, June 26th, UNR, Riparian Streams of the Truckee Meadows, Instructor: Dr. Sherm Swanson of the UNR’s Dept. of Environmental and Resource Sciences and the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.
Wednesday, June 27th, Bartley Ranch, Reno, 9AM-Noon, Teaching Historic Places, Bartley Ranch will be used as a laboratory to examine how a historic ranch can be used for interdisciplinary science, history, archaeology, and English lessons. Participants will brainstorm possibilities by developing a model docent program for this site.
Monday and Tuesday, July 2 & 3, Lake Tahoe Overnight Field Trip, Marlette Lake Field Trip – History, Archaeology, Science Workshops sessions center on the use of field archaeology in the curriculum, regional logging and water use as it relates to 19th Century Nevada, and the forest ecosystem of the Carson Range including hands-on learning activities. Various presenters. Teachers only at this overnight event.
For more information, contact Craig Rock at 775-847-7088, or email at
Class size is limited so please register soon. Teachers are invited to bring along two students. This project is open to all secondary schools in Northern Nevada and Eastern California. It is highly recommended that each school send at least one representative to the multi-media content workshop on June 21st.
Funded in part by the Nevada Humanities Committee
This is Our Life is supported by but not sponsored by NNREC. This information is posted to promote natural resource education in Nevada.
