Northwest Education: Discoveries in Learning
Summer 2003
PORTLAND, Oregon—Just outside the main entrance of Harriet Tubman Middle School, students are surveying the small garden of native plants they helped bring to life. Judi Lampi, the instructor of this after-school ethnobotany class, gives her students a lighthearted pop quiz as they wander among the plants. "What's this?" she challenges, bending down and running her hand over a low-lying ground cover with thick, dark-green leaves. "Kinnikinnick!" the students call out in ragged unison, making this wonderful word sound like a full marching band of clashing consonants. Similar responses come with each new challenge, the names of the plants rolling off the students' tongues, as familiar now as the names of their friends or the streets on which they live: "Salal! Red cedar! Oregon grape!"
From behind the building comes the roiling hum of rush-hour traffic, commuters heading home on Interstate 5, car tires making a steady, tidal splash on the rain-slicked highway. But here in front of the school students are nose-to-needle, finger-to-leaf with plants that Meriwether Lewis documented in his journals nearly 200 years before; plants that Native people named and knew and relied on for ages before Lewis and Clark arrived. For an hour a week, over the course of many months, these students will piece together a deeper understanding of their region by looking at the interrelationship of plant life and human cultures, the intermingling of the ancient past and the dizzying present.
For teacher Judi Lampi, helping students discover the beauty and complexity of their home place is a natural extension of her own childhood. "My great-grandparents homesteaded near Astoria," she says, "not that far from Fort Clatsop," where Lewis and William Clark's Corps of Discovery wintered near the coast. "I grew up in Portland, but my extended family was still there, so I spent a lot of time there as a kid. I've heard about the Lewis and Clark story all my life." Her interest in the native flora of the region has similar roots in childhood, she says. "My grandfather was a logger and also a great lover of nature—he knew all the trees and plants. He used to take me on walks in the woods and point out everything to me, tell me the names. He taught me a love of the outdoors and a respect for the plants."
For more than a decade, Lampi has combined these lifelong interests in her ethnobotany class at Tubman. A mixed-age, mixed-ability class, it has been offered as a regular school day elective or as an after-school program, depending on the funding available. The class is a perfect fit at Tubman, an ethnically diverse, 6-8, Title I school that is one of three health sciences/biotechnology magnet schools in the district. "It fits well with the overall focus of the school," says Lampi. "There's a strong technology component and we study the medicinal uses of the plants, which link directly to subjects like pharmacology, biology, health, and environmental studies. And it also appeals to a lot of different learning styles and backgrounds. Going outside and learning about plants is fun. I haven't met a kid yet who doesn't love it."
Now being offered as an after-school program, the class is not graded, but students are held to high standards. Lampi brings passion and dedication to the subject and she expects the same from her students. Each prospective class member must write an essay explaining why he or she wants to learn about this subject. Enrollment is kept to a maximum of 20, ensuring a lot of one-to-one attention, and students are expected to complete all assignments and keep regular attendance or they are not allowed to go on field trips.
The combination of a compelling subject with local relevance and a committed, enthusiastic teacher has attracted a lot of outside interest and support over the years. The class has benefited from several grants and community partnerships, including Options in Science grants, the present Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project grant, and collaborations with Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, and the Waters Foundation. In addition, many volunteers, both individuals and organizations—some who are fascinated with the Lewis and Clark story, others who are dedicated to native plants and the environment—have rallied around the class.
Friends of Trees, a Portland nonprofit organization, was a major help in creating the urban green space of native plants that provides such an inviting presence at the front of the school. They donated all of the plants, helped students with the design and planting, and continue to be closely involved with its upkeep. The garden is more than just a pleasant green space—it is also directly tied to the curriculum of the class. "All of the plants are chosen from among the 176 that Lewis documented in his journals," says Lampi.
Lampi focuses her students' attention on plants common to the Lower Columbia region. "We choose those that are specific to our area, so not only can kids study them in the garden, they can also find them in the local forests or even in their neighborhood," she says. While parts of the larger story are frequently discussed, Lampi uses this same localized approach for the entire curriculum, focusing on the Lower Columbia, from the former Celilo Falls near The Dalles—which disappeared after the river was dammed—to the river's mouth near Astoria.
"Lewis's journals are an amazing resource for educators," says Lampi. "The fact that he documented all of these plants allows me to tie together a variety of subjects—I can teach kids about the native plants in their area, but I can also bring in the story of the expedition." The end result for students, she says, is a much broader understanding of their region. "They know more about the natural environment that surrounds them and they know more about the human history that has taken place here. The journals personalize this in a way kids can relate to—the adventures, the hardships—it's a very compelling story."
On this drizzling, late afternoon in March students seem happy enough to brave the elements—the winter hardships that the Corps of Discovery endured at Fort Clatsop perhaps not yet firmly etched in their minds. Their brief tour of the garden is soggy, but refreshing after a long school day. Reluctantly, students head back into the warm, dry comfort of the classroom. Lampi quickly gets them back on task. "I want you to look through these books and find your plant," she says, while passing out copies of Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon (1994) and Ethnobotany of Western Washington by Erna Gunther and Jeanne R. Janish (1973). Soon, fingers are flying through indexes and tables of contents as students look for the familiar names.
At the beginning of each new term, Lampi has her students pick one plant to focus on. During the rest of the year they will come to know this plant as an old friend. They will find passages in Lewis's journals that describe it, and they will research current literature about it. They will know how Native people used it and what place it had in their cultures, and they will learn about its modern medical and dietary uses. They will document what they learn, using everything from pencils to PDF files, journals to JPGs. And along the way, they will have a chance to plant and tend to it in the garden, to know what it smells like, to watch how a season changes it, and to search for it along the banks of the river that Lewis and Clark followed to the sea.
"I want you to write down this Web page address," Lampi tells her students, as she uses her laptop to take them on a tour of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home. "You can actually do a virtual-reality tour. It's like flying around the room." The students don't seem the least bit surprised to be exploring 200-year-old subject matter through the portal of modern technology. On their journey to discover more about their region, Lampi and her students will use every digital-age tool they can get their hands on, and surfing the Web is only the beginning. Thanks in part to the Rediscovery grant, students will be documenting their chosen plants in ways Meriwether Lewis could not have imagined.
One of the distinctive features of the program is this mix of the ancient and the up-to-the-minute, both in subject matter and in process. Students keep journals, make drawings, and consult written materials, much as Lewis and Clark would have. But they also use digital cameras, software programs, and satellite mapping systems.
A journey in itself, Lampi walks her students through a complex process of using technology to document their chosen plants. Students take photographs using digital cameras, then learn how to digitally edit them using Photoshop software. Next, she guides them through the process of using Adobe Acrobat to create portable document format (PDF) files so they can post the information they have gathered online. Finally, Lampi and her students work on a Web page that shares their knowledge with the world, so that anyone who wants to can use the information for a journey of his own (www.nwrel.org/teachlewisandclark/free/portland.html).
While Lampi has been teaching her Lewis and Clark-oriented ethnobotany class for more than 10 years, the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery grant has provided equipment and training in the use of global positioning system (GPS) units, geographic information systems (GIS), and other advanced technology that neither she nor her students would otherwise have had a chance to learn to use.
Each year, on the last weekend of May, Lampi leads her students on a three-day canoe trip down the Columbia River. It is a chance to complete the circle of learning—to bring all of their classroom and field studies to bear in one real-world situation. "One of my main goals for the class is that students get to experience a small part of what Lewis and Clark experienced," she says. "I emphasize that we are on the river for three days, while they were on the river for nearly three years, but it is a very valuable part of the learning process." By taking her students on the river, Lampi hopes to replicate Lewis and Clark's progression from studying and planning to the testing of their knowledge in the real world.
Students prepare for the trip by making a list of all necessary equipment. During the course of the journey, they will keep a journal, take photographs, read aloud from the journals of Lewis and Clark written on the exact same days almost 200 years earlier, and experience many of the joys and struggles of canoeing and camping alongside a major western river.
While some teachers might find a canoe trip with 20 middle school kids nearly as daunting as the original journey of Lewis and Clark, Lampi obviously loves the challenge. And she has a lot of help. "The Multnomah Athletic Club donates the use of the canoes and all the other necessary gear, and we have a lot of parent volunteers. We also take every precaution: trained lifeguards, an emergency-response team on call, cell phones, volunteers that follow in cars, and one adult for every child in a boat. It's definitely a team effort." For Lampi it is also a kind of annual homecoming ritual. "My dad crosses the river in his boat to help us safely cross the shipping channel, and he also brings us firewood. It's a real family event for me."
The first day of the trip is spent on the Washington side of the river. Students are given ample time to observe the flora and fauna, write and draw in their journals, search the banks for native plants they have studied, and enjoy the camaraderie that teamwork and cooperation bring. At meal times they read from Lewis and Clark's journals and compare them with their own, trade stories and observations from their day, and, in some years, are entertained by the sounds of the Washington Old-Time Fiddlers Association as it plays tunes that Lewis and Clark might have enjoyed while sitting around the campfire.
The following days include many more opportunities for adventure and learning. From the occasional overturned canoe, to portaging around difficult (or low-tide) areas, students gain a firsthand experience of the difficulties of river travel. The trip is also a lesson in the changes that 200 years have brought to the region. "The most nerve-wracking part of the trip is crossing from the Washington to the Oregon side of the river during the second day," says Lampi. "Many people don't realize that on the Columbia there are major shipping vessels coming through every 26 minutes. That's how long we have to get from one side of the river to the next without getting caught in the wake of one of the ships.
"All in all, we've had very good luck," says Lampi. "The weather has generally been amazingly good for us. But no matter what, it's a really great time and a special experience for the kids." For anyone who has spent even one sunny afternoon on the Columbia in late spring, it's easy to understand the powerful impression the trip can make on students.
After months of study, learning about native plants, Native American cultures, and the journey of Lewis and Clark, students have a context for understanding their home region that many residents will never have. At the end of their trip, the end of their school year, pulling their canoes on shore as the late-afternoon sun spills over the river, smelling the willow and cattail and tule on the riverbank, feeling the wind in their hair and the gratifying soreness in their muscles, perhaps the students have come to know this one part of the world in a deeper, more meaningful way than they did before.
For Judi Lampi, sharing this experience is the greatest reward. It continues a journey that her grandfather began for her in the woods and waterways of the Northwest coast. At the end of a school year, she has taught her students many things and many new words, but perhaps more than anything, she has taught them what we might mean when we say the word "home."
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