Using nature as classroom, Cuba-Rushford gives students wide array of study projects

On Board Online • October 15, 2018

By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer

At a time of year when back-to-school means back-to-a-classroom in most school districts, middle and high school science students in the Cuba-Rushford Central School District are heading back to the great outdoors.

They are busy weighing and measuring live fish from local ponds, and they are mounting remote cameras in a wildlife management area they call "Deerasic Park." (They will monitor the "rut" season, when frisky white-tailed deer start angling for mates.)

Students also are collecting milkweed pods and will analyze which varieties of the plant will do the most to bolster America's declining monarch butterfly population. The district is home to a nationally certified monarch habitat.

The list of fall projects and activities for Cuba-Rushford students goes on. Students are:

• Operating a fish hatchery and a wildlife research center, also located on school grounds.
• Building a new wild turkey research area - a project that will involve everything from installing fence to navigating a state permitting process.
• Videotaping material for a TV show. They will produce 13 new episodes of the district's "CRCS Outdoors" television program, which will be shown on the Dish and Direct TV networks' Pursuit Channel next year.

"Right on campus, students can do everything," said Cuba-Rushford Superintendent Carlos Gildemeister. "They not only study it, but they work hands-on."

Spearheading all of the district's outdoor programs is science teacher Scott Jordan, 57, who was honored as the National Rural Education Association's National Rural Educator of the Year for 2017-18. Jordan is a native of Cuba - a small town in Allegany County - and has been teaching at Cuba-Rushford for more than 25 years.

He teaches eighth-grade science in the mornings and spends his afternoons working with high school students enrolled in his Fisheries and Wildlife Technology classes. Overall, he has about 60 students.

Before launching his teaching career, he was a fisheries biologist with the Department of Fish and Game in Alaska, where his territory included the area damaged in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He also worked with a bald eagle restoration project for New York State.

It remains a thrill, he said, to work with students in his hometown and see them learn, through personal experience, about fish, wildlife and the natural environment.

"In rural schools, this is what kids are interested in," Jordan said. "We can do real science, and a lot of times, kids don't even realize they are learning."

Some of the work is painstakingly detailed. The fish that students are measuring and weighing this fall are being "sampled," a process that also includes removing a scale from each fish for later examination. Students examine the individual scales closely, using an old library microfiche reader to enlarge their view, and use that information to help determine the age of the fish.

Through the sampling exercise, Jordan said, students are gathering the kind of data that professional biologists would use to help manage a population of a particular type of fish - salmon, for example.

"It's a real-world application of a scientific method that uses math," Jordan said.

Jordan's umbrella program is known as "CRCS Outdoors" and encompasses some activities outside of school, including hunting and fishing trips. Since the early 1990s, he has led excursions to far-flung locations such as the Great Lakes, Alaska, Africa, Texas, Florida and New Zealand. (Gun safety education is an essential element for students who participate in hunting trips outside of school.)

The emphasis on fishing and hunting is unusual for a school-based program, but it's a key part of the appeal for many students, judging by their online photos and comments. The official motto posted on the CRCS Outdoors web page is: "Making a difference, one young hunter (fisherman or student) at a time."

Students do not use or handle firearms on school property, which includes the Deerasic Park wildlife area.

Community service and environmental stewardship are key aspects of CRCS Outdoors, as well. Students help remove pest fish from a neighboring farm each year, and they have built homes for waterfowl, bats and bluebirds. They work with organizations including Ducks Unlimited, the National Wild Turkey Federation, Safari Club and others.

Jordan said he has seen his students' experiences pay off when they compete for scholarships, internships and admission to competitive college programs. He also takes pride in the levels of self-confidence, initiative and responsibility he sees his students develop.

Several students have gone on to careers related to fish and wildlife biology. Jordan quickly listed students working with turkeys, endangered birds, ducks, mammals and fisheries. Others have headed for occupations in law enforcement, film production or teaching.

"I just want them to be successful and happy people," Jordan said. "What could be better than getting up every day and loving what they do and getting paid for it?"