Lessons in logs: The Mount Rainier Institute inspires a life-long love of science

CENTRAL

For four days in September, a group of students from Yakima’s Wilson Middle School set aside their daily lives and immersed themselves in outdoor science at the University of Washington’s Mount Rainier Institute.

Story by: Jackson Holtz // Video by: Kiyomi Taguchi // Photos by: Dennis Wise

EATONVILLE, Washington — The students examine logs, learn about glaciology, study old-growth trees, eat edible plants and get up close to a real volcano.

They hike, measure tree trunks, bird watch and spy on marmots as Mount Rainier’s glaciated summit looms above, a crown in the clouds.

For four days in September, a group of kids from Yakima’s Wilson Middle School set aside their daily lives and immerse themselves in outdoor science at the University of Washington’s Mount Rainier Institute.

“That opens up their eyes,” said Matt Meyer, a seventh-grade teacher at Wilson Middle School. “It really allows them to have an opportunity to get out of the classroom and learn what we’re trying to teach them.”

Each week in the fall and spring, a different group of students come for the UW’s four-day curriculum that can flex from 4th to 12th grade, but aims squarely at Meyer’s middle school students.

Six years ago, Meyer, a professional baseball player turned science teacher, discovered the Mount Rainier Institute while searching for similar programs on Facebook. Each year since, Meyer has organized resources to bring about 50 students from Yakima to Charles L. Pack Experimental Forest, where the Institute is based.

Away from their daily responsibilities, in the woods, the students love it.

“It’s really refreshing to see them learning in a fun way without so much weight on their shoulders,” sixth-grade teacher April Adkison said. “They get to be kids.”

The days and nights include campfires, singing and epic games of tag. But with all this happening at the base of the state’s tallest mountain, among the Douglas-fir, every moment is instructive.

“They’re learning and they don’t even know it. It’s great,” Adkison said.

That’s made a big impact on students, like 12-year-old Alex Hurtado. He said he hopes to return and his sights are aimed high. Next year, he says he’d like to stand on Rainier’s 14,411-foot peak.

“My week has been very fun,” the seventh grader said. “It is fun because it is like going up into the sky. It is a mountain that is a volcano, that you never know when it will explode, and I would like to keep coming every day.”

Invoking a love of nature and science has been part of the Institute, a program of the UW’s College of the Environment, since its beginnings in 2012.

“There’s a variety of different things that happen at a place like this that really can inspire a kid,” said John Hayes, the Institute’s director.

That inspiration and connection to place is what drove the National Park Service to develop an overnight school-based program at Mount Rainier. Pack Forest – with its existing bunk houses, dining facilities and teaching space – was a perfect fit and the program took root, Hayes said. Tuition is $390 per student, but the actual cost is closer to $500. The UW makes up the difference, largely through grants, fundraising and timber sales from the 4,300-acre forest.

students in a classroom presenting.

Research shows that having an immersive experience like the one the Institute offers benefits children’s educational career trajectory and makes them healthier, happier and smarter, Hayes said. The Institute’s curriculum is equivalent to spending a couple of weeks in the classroom, but with a more lasting impact.

“They tend to remember and retain that knowledge that they wouldn’t in a normal classroom setting,” Hayes said. “They take it back to their classroom. They tend to get along better with each other. They tend to be more enthusiastic about going to school and being engaged in the academic side of things.”

Pack Forest, acquired in 1920s by UW thanks to Charles Pack to be a “show window forest,” is a long way from Rainier Vista on the UW’s Seattle campus, the students still get the feel that they’re in a university environment, Hayes said.

“There’s this real collegiate feel here that’s not lost on our students,” he said. They’re on a university campus, they’re doing presentations for their research projects and there might be a UW graduate student in the audience.

The core curriculum is designed to take the kids on a journey of discovery. The first day is devoted to orientation and sets the tone. There’s an evening campfire, but this isn’t summer camp.

Day two is a 12-hour lesson in forestry and ecology. The students design an experiment, come up with a hypothesis and then collect data both in Pack Forest’s old-growth forest and in the 100-year-old managed forest.

“They go through an authentic science experience,” Hayes said.

The topics vary. One group from Wilson Middle School looked at the availability of edible plants in the forest, hypothesizing that there’d be more to eat in old-growth versus the younger, managed forest. The students, who called themselves the Yakimaniacz, emphasis on the Z, found out that the opposite was true, said Conor Lough, one of the Institute’s charismatic instructors.

On day three, the kids visit Mount Rainier National Park.

“On this mountain they get to see this gorgeous paradise of the natural world that as a scientist, as an adult, they could potentially explore,” Lough said.

They wrap up the week presenting their scientific research findings to one another.

“Learning science out here is very fun because there are a lot of trees that you normally don’t pay attention to, you just know that they provide oxygen,” said Hurtado, one of the students. “And, it is really fun.”

Brianna Dorminy, 13, also enjoyed the time outside of the classroom.

“I liked getting my hands dirty,” the eighth-grader said.

Being outside, seeing plants they never would have in Yakima, all help make the experience memorable, said Amaya Jimenez, 13.

“It’s really cool that we get that freedom that we wouldn’t get at school,” she said.

Photos above: Students experience immersion in nature as they learn at UW’s Mount Rainier Institute.

 

Meyer, one of the teachers, said he loves the leadership that the students bring back to their Yakima classrooms. Students who get to go to Mount Rainier share their experiences with other students, and encourage their peers to attend the following year.

“They hear about it and they get led by these kids,” Meyer said. “And it’s an amazing thing to see.”

After the school group has packed into their big yellow school bus for the ride back to Yakima, Hayes pauses to reflect on the life-changing days the students have had.

“I know that when they leave here they’ve had an experience that will stick with them for a long time – a really positive one outdoors, that can lead to all kinds of incredible things in their life,” Hayes said. “Not the least of which is a connection to nature and the environment, and hopefully a desire to take care of what’s out here.”

See a related story on KIMA (CBS affiliate).

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Originally published February 25, 2020