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CONSERVATION EDUCATION

Spinning toward Solutions

During autumn 2000, the Spinning toward Solutions project completed an ambitious education and outreach event targeted at introducing students in K-12 to the science of conservation biology [see SCB newsletter 7(2)]. We would like to inform SCB members about the success of the project, and thank SCB for its encouragement and financial support.

The project centered on a cross-country bicycle expedition between Santa Barbara, California and Washington, D.C. During the 80-day expedition, we rode a loaded tandem bicycle, traveling without vehicular support. The project took advantage of established networks of schools already involved in environmental science education, including the international GLOBE program and the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research programs in Phoenix, Arizona and Las Cruces, New Mexico. These networks provided an exceptional opportunity to connect with teachers willing to make a little room in their busy schedules for an unusual program about endangered species.

At each school, we talked with students for 30-60 minutes. We grabbed their attention by rolling our enormous, fully-loaded 100-pound tandem into their classroom and entertaining them with stories from the road. We strove to provide them with a positive interaction with a pair of enthusiastic conservation biologists. Our classroom program emphasized the origins of biodiversity, natural causes of rarity, and basic processes of extinction. Before the ride, we prepared regional conservation "success stories" for each part of our expedition. We tried to put current issues into their scientific context with an emphasis on general processes, such as habitat loss, fragmentation, exotic competitors, and predator-prey dynamics. Ultimately we prepared more than a dozen presentations tailored by age and region for audiences across the country. Most of these presentations are available online in a variety of formats at www.spinningsolutions.org.

We rolled into Washington, D.C. in mid-November, missing the first snow of the year by less than a week! After our final presentation at Jamestown Elementary in Arlington, Virginia, we had personally visited 5600 students in 45 schools. Our audiences ranged from kindergarten to college across 12 states and 3300 miles of bicycling. With help from media specialists at the GLOBE program and motivated parents and teachers en route, we attracted a fair bit of media attention, and, perhaps more importantly, learned what it takes to create and sustain a news story. We found that our expedition made an excellent "hook" to catch students' attention, and it provided a friendly conversation starter for diverse audiences. We developed an appreciation for the GLOBE program as an exceptional network of schools interested in environmental education. Moreover, our message about endangered species and biodiversity was an excellent complement to their core curricula emphasizing topics in earth system science. Finally, we felt that our effort reinforced and supplemented a range of long-term environmental education projects along our route. Depending on the situation, we provided a fresh voice, some new information, or, perhaps, a bit of inspiration. At the end of the day, we felt that the project could be repeated, and even multiplied, to reach a very large number of students. The hook for future projects certainly would not have to be a bicycle; anything unusual would do: Harley Davidson motorcycles, hot air balloons, snowmobiles, lawn mowers, furry ape costumes!

So, "what's next?" As you might imagine, we have a pile of ideas. We are probably not going to charge back across the country. In fact, we ended the ride thinking that a series of carefully designed regional expeditions might give equal or greater bang for the buck. Perhaps we could set up a series of mini-expeditions involving more schools and more scientists between active SCB chapters--for example, Davis to Berkeley in California or Chapel Hill, North Carolina to College Park, Maryland. Anyone interested?

We especially wish to thank Steve Humphrey and Reed Noss for their support of our project. Under their leadership, SCB provided a core of financial support for our idea which we used to leverage additional sponsorship from a diverse set of organizations, including the National Outdoor Leadership School, GeoDiscovery Inc., Jandd Mountaineering, AT&T Wireless Services, Rincon Cycles, Pearl Izumi, Clif Bar, Burley Bicycles, and Terry Precision Equipment. We also wish to thank Sandy Andelman for her early encouragement and support through the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Along the way, we met many wonderful new friends, including enthusiastic members of SCB at Texas A&M in College Station and Duke University. We hope that future SCB projects will be able to draw on the diverse resources of our local chapters. Please check our web site at www.spinningsolutions.org for more information.

Chris Pyke
Britta Bierwagen

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