🌿🧪💧 North Buncombe Middle School eighth graders learned how science connects to real-world environmental work during the school’s Conservation Field Day on September 30.
Students rotated through four interactive stations led by RiverLink, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, the N.C. Cooperative Extension, and Buncombe County Soil and Water Conservation. Activities included testing water quality, studying air molecules, examining stream life under microscopes, and removing invasive plants from campus. Science teacher Brandon Rice said the goal was to help students “see what people who actually work in scientific fields do to preserve our environment” and “draw connections between those things and what we learn in class.”
Students appreciated getting outdoors and learning by doing.
“It’s more engaging because we’re getting our hands dirty and using different tools,” said Skylar, an eighth grader.
“This is a great project,” added Harris, another student. “You get fresh air, and it helps the campus. It’s really fun pulling out roots and learning how to tell if the water’s clean or not.”
Rice noted that the experience supports the eighth-grade science standards on mixtures, elements, compounds, and ecosystems.
“These are the things students remember,” he said. “When we talk about them later in class, they’ll recall being out here and it’ll stick with them.”