The
Nepal Himalaya encompass some of the greatest contrasts our planet has to offer.
The top of Mount Everest, at 8,848 meters elevation, lies less than 150 kilometers
from the edge of the flat Ganges River plain, at less than 200 meters elevation.
Rainfall can vary even more than elevation: It tops 5 meters per year in places
along the range’s southern flanks, whereas only 40 kilometers to the north,
it barely reaches 50 centimeters per year.
Last May, at the Shree Mahendra Dev Secondary
School (shown at far left) in Taranache, Nepal, representatives of the Oneworld
School Project dropped off letters from pen pals in California and met with
the head science teacher to draw up a list of needed science equipment. At left,
from left to right, field assistant Laksman Tamang, geologist Beth Pratt-Sitaula,
guide Bhairab Sitaula and the class’ sixth-grade teacher talk to students.
All images courtesy of Beth Pratt-Sitaula.
When I set out to study the rivers and glaciers of the central Nepal Himalaya
as part of my Ph.D. geology thesis, I was (at least partially) prepared for
the topographic and climatic contrasts before me. Still, the sheer size and
extreme nature of the mountain system — 6,000-meter-deep valleys, raging
rivers, landslides that extend over 40 kilometers and more — dominated
my first encounter with the Himalaya.
After my senses adjusted to the new geologic scale, however, I began to notice
the human side of the Himalaya more, and I sought to learn more about the villages
through which my colleagues and I hiked. The true surprise — and possibly
greatest learning experience — came from the range of educational and outreach
opportunities that I encountered. The result has been an educational and cultural
exchange between Nepali and Californian schools, which exemplifies how geologic
research can be successfully combined with enriching student learning.
The children at the villages first pulled me into the project. They were particularly
engaging — always fascinated with our scientific instruments and rock sampling
— and led me to my first eye-opening visit to a rural Nepali school. I
quickly saw that even the supplies we consider most basic, such as maps and
alphabet charts, were lacking.
On my next visit to Nepal, I brought a load of donated maps to three of the
schools in my field area. I sat down with the teachers at each school and asked
them what supplies they wanted the most. They unanimously asked for science-related
equipment, so they could move teaching science from books to a physical presence
in the school. When I naively asked what additional supplies they would need,
one teacher summed it up: “Anything would be helpful. We have no supplies
for science education — none at all.”
When I returned home, I began soliciting donations of science materials from
friends and colleagues. People responded enthusiastically, but the main items
they donated were college textbooks — helpful for secondary school teachers
and universities, but not the most useful for middle and high school students.
I moved toward including more people in the endeavor and raising funds, so we
could purchase science equipment to meet the specific needs of the Nepali public
schools.
I also decided the time was ripe for educational opportunities on both sides
of the Pacific. Drawing on contacts I had in the schools near my home in Goleta,
Calif., I began a series of lectures and discussions on the geology and culture
of central Nepal in fourth- to sixth-grade classes. The Californian students
learned about monsoon weather systems and Himalayan geology and then found out
about the lives of the people who call that area home. They also had the opportunity
to question my husband, who was born and raised in the Nepal Himalaya.
The Californian students also wrote letters to Nepali pen pals and helped to
raise money for bringing science supplies to their pen pals’ schools by
making decorations and manning the ticket booth at a fundraising Nepali dinner
and slide show. As letters came back from Nepal, the personal connection they
gained from having friends in the Himalaya transformed that region from an intangibly
remote place, known only as “where Mount Everest is,” to a location
they could quickly locate on a globe and talk about, both geologically and culturally.
By spring of 2004, we had started a nonprofit organization called Oneworld
School Project and raised enough funds to buy nearly all the supplies that
the Nepali schools had asked for. In April, my field assistant and I delivered
the equipment to the schools en route to our field work.
The students, who formerly had to learn about microscopes from a book, are now
using them in earth science and biology classes. For field studies, they have
hand lenses, as well as thermometers, barometers and precipitation gauges. Each
school now has enough supplies (including lenses, prisms, chemicals and glassware)
to conduct basic science demonstrations in physics and chemistry.
Besides the dinner fundraiser that the Californian students helped with, most
of the funds came from donations by Himalayan geologists and trekkers. The project
is still in its early stages. The headmasters, along with Oneworld School Project,
have started to discuss the next step — helping each school to build a
dedicated science laboratory and bringing local geology and earthquake safety
into the curriculum.
This endeavor highlights how enriching it can be to bring education into an
earth science research project and to combine the human element with the scientific.
The geology and climate of the Himalaya is a very remote subject to many grade-school
students, but it gains interest and relevance when they learn about it in the
context of the people and culture of the area. Furthermore, outreach of this
sort allows earth science researchers, like me, to give back to the communities
in which they conduct their work.
Link:
Oneworld
School Project
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