ECOBUS

Jefferson County Schools

is to help children to understand that their own corner of the world is a very Special Place, one that must be nurtured and understood as much as any exotic rainforest or foreign land. This project strives to create a learning environment which uses real world activities and experiences as a field of study, providing students with real life applications in their local environment as opposed to the more general, abstract locations discussed in textbooks. It does this with a curriculum which is specific to Alabama. Through this project the school district seeks to provide students with a better understanding of several areas of science directly related to Alabama, including geology, mining, environmental concerns, energy, and historical perspectives.

ECOBUS will be a combination mobile laboratory, museum, and library, with a primary educational focus on the environmental impacts of fuel and non-fuel mining, for elementary age students. ECOBUS will contain a series of stations or displays with a variety of mining and non-point source pollution themes to be used as an educational resource for teachers and students. ECOBUS will be designed so that classes proceed through the bus in small groups, guided by parent and community volunteers. The remaining class members will conduct activities outside the bus beneath an attached awning while waiting their turn to tour the bus. Before ECOBUS visits a school site, an informal contract will be agreed upon between the school's administration and parent organization to provide a cadre of parent volunteers to be trained as docents. The volunteers will help direct activities and conduct simple experiments from ECOBUS's curriculum. Schools involved in the project are:

Adamsville - Wetlands

Cahaba Heights - Alabama Minerals

Fultondale - Surface Mining

Hueytown - Natural Gas

Leeds - Macroinvertebrates

Hewitt Trussville - Non-Point Source Pollution

Bryan - History

Pinson - Landfill/Reclamation

Greenwood - Wetlands

Grantswood - Ground Water

Concord - Coal Formation

For more info, contact Ben Martin at Dems061@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu

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