The Creamer's Field Project   Six students from Fairbanks, Alaska talk about their work on the award-winning Creamer's Field Project.   By Melissa Burgos Brown SCR*TEC

magine having a living museum right next to your school! A place where you can study wildlife, birds, insects, mammals, history, geography, and art. The students and staff at Joy Elementary School in Fairbanks, Alaska pride themselves in working closely with their community to enrich their learning experiences. Students at Joy School have created an award-winning site by studying the natural resources available to them at Creamer's Field Refuge. Creamer's Field is a Waterfowl Migratory Refuge adjacent to Joy School. The natural resources and wildlife available at Creamer's Field serve as a rich learning environment for students.         The Creamer's Field project won second place in the International Schools Cyberfair 1999 competition. The project was entered in the "Local Attractions" category of the competition. They competed with 38 schools from around the world!

Nick enjoyed doing the Creamer's Project. He said, "It was great to see how each part from each grade came together to make the final product."

oy Elementary School has been connected to the Internet since 1996. Since then, the teachers at Joy School have worked hard to integrate technology into their classrooms and enrich their curriculum in exciting ways. During the Creamer's Field project, students learned to work with scanners, digital cameras, and the Internet. This month, Kidspeak spoke with six students who were involved in the schoolwide project.        Nick, a fifth grader at the time of the project, describes what it was about. "In the Creamer's Field project, our school was trying to describe a special place in our community. Creamer's Field is located right next to our shool. Since it is so close, many teachers take their classes there often. Each grade did a part of the project. All the parts fit together to make the finished product."

any students were enthusiastic about the technology skills they learned. Wade, a fifth grader at the time of the project, shares his opinion about participating in the project, "The Creamer's Field project was a great way to show kids how to use computers, instead of having them play games an hour a week. ... With all the different subjects that the classes worked on, it turned out to be a great site. In the end, we had the History Alphabet, Alaskan Water Cycle, Mammals, Birds, Seasons of Creamer's, Insects, and Stories."

Wade said, "My favorite part of the project was examining it when we were done, and hearing that we were second in the international contest."

tudents completed the project in about five months. Each class worked on different areas of the project at different times. The younger students worked on their projects individually. Some of the older students worked in groups or with a partner.        One student we spoke with was already very familiar with Creamer's Field. "The reason I know so much about Creamer's Field is because we live really close to it. My grandma lives right next to it and we go over there a lot. I like to play in the field," said Brittany. A third grader at the time, Brittany studied the barn and how it ties into the history at Creamer's.

tudents gathered information about their topics in a variety of ways. They visited Creamer's, researched encyclopedias, read books, conducted interviews, and searched the Internet. Members of the Creamer's staff and the community were also very helpful to students by providing interviews and even visiting the school to speak to classes.        Brianna, a third grader at the time, talks about how she gathered information for her project, "I had to gather information about the history of Creamer's Dairy, specifically about Don Creamer, son of the original dairy owners. ... I interviewed Don Creamer and researched at the Creamer's farmhouse museum in order to gather the information I needed."

Brianna's class worked on the ABC's of Creamer's Field section of the site.

he site also features a lot of student artwork. Students created their drawings with the help of a local artist. Nick studied the Black-billed Magpie. For the drawing portion of his project, "A local artist, Mark Ross (biologist at Creamer's), came to my classroom to help us draw our pictures. He was a great help," said Nick.        The students found the participation from community members very helpful. The interviews and class speakers proved to be of great assistance to students' reports and drawings.

long with learning a lot about Creamer's, the students were enthusiastic about the other lessons they learned from completing an award-winning project: Wade: "I learned to scan, to keep going, to use Pagespinner, and that a job well done is worth second place in an international contest." Meredith: "I learned how to do research, I learned about the Least Weasel, how to stick to my work, and that it's very rewarding to work hard." Nick: "I learned the basics about putting a Web page together. ... I learned how to draw birds better. I learned to not be afraid of trying things on the computer. I learned that many different groups, all working on a part, can put together a good product." Brianna: "The only thing I can say that I really learned from working on this project, other than lots about the history of Creamer's Field, is that getting information from an interview is better than relying on written documentation." Ross: "I learned about doing field work, research, animation, and how to work in teams." Brittany"[I learned that] there are mud bird nests on the barn, how to use the [school] server, and how to log on to the server."

Meredith studied the least weasel, her favorite part was doing the artwork.

he second grade class focused on improving their basic keyboarding skills. They learned how to use folders on the server and save their work to their folders along with typing their reports and drawing pictures. Meredith, who was in second grade at the time, studied the least weasel. "I needed to know its size, how many babies they had per year, what they eat, who are their predators, and how long they live."        Although the project was challenging, all of the students we interviewed learned a lot and were glad they participated in it. "I learned that I like to do research. I also really liked writing a poem, it was my first good one," said Meredith.

nother section of the site is dedicated to insects. Mrs. O'Connor's fourth grade class studied the unique collection of insects that reside in Creamer's Field. They studied grasshoppers, flies, mosquitos, ants, beetles, walking sticks, and more! In this section students learned about aquatic insects, migratory insects, insect pests, and several others. After they completed their research, the students drew pictures of the insects and added animation and music.        Ross, a fourth grader at the time, studied migratory insects. He and his partner were asked to find out why insects migrate. Part of their information came from talking with a helpful community member. "We spoke with an entomologist at Creamer's Field when we went there. We met with him two times," said Ross.

"I liked drawing the pictures for the animation. I liked doing the research and field work," said Ross.

e asked the students what their favorite parts of the project were and several of them enjoyed drawing and coloring using the Easy Color Paint program. Others enjoyed improving their typing skills. Still others enjoyed seeing the finished project and finding out that they had won second place in the International Schools Cyberfair 1999 competition. What an honor!        Students and staff continue to work with Creamer's Field Refuge to raise funds to develop educational programs and to continue to maintain the resources available there.

Students interviewed for KidSpeak are nominated by teachers. Send nominations to the editor. Copyright. © 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997 ALTec, the University of Kansas