This fall, 8th grade students at Ruch Outdoor Community School began a yearlong project with the Well Water Warriors (or Warriors for short) concerned advocacy group to help rural communities understand how to protect their drinking water resource.  Students participated in hands-on lessons to learn about what groundwater is, where it comes from, how it can become contaminated, and what to do if the groundwater used for drinking water becomes contaminated.  The four-week course aligned with topics covered in science class, including the water cycle, salmon habitat, water quality, and food webs.
 
Students collected water samples from their home, conducted the test at the school, tabulated the results, and then plotted the nitrate values on a community map.   Nitrate is the most common well water contaminant, and the sources of nitrate are fertilizers and animal and human wastes.  At the end, all testing equipment and supplies were donated to the school for future use.
 
In addition, the Warriors, with the assistance of a few Ruch students, are offering to conduct a free community-wide well water nitrate-testing event at this spring’s science fair on May 15th at Ruch Outdoor Community School, 156 Upper Applegate Road.
 
The Warriors would love to offer their assistance in working with other schools to conduct a large-scale nitrate well water testing events.
 
It’s never too late to learn more about protecting our groundwater! You can reach Audrey Eldridge from the Well Water Warriors at [email protected]  or 541-292-1329.  

What started as a bold idea in October became a memorable reality this June for 8th grade students at Ruch Outdoor Community School: a multi-day excursion to Yosemite National Park and northern California.  

Students were responsible for a bulk of trip preparations.  In addition to learning about natural history and current land use practices, students planned the food menu, researched hiking routes, set the itinerary for the trip, completed the Educational Fee Waiver form, and conducted multiple fundraising activities to cover over three-quarters of the trip's expenses.  This promoted a natural "buy in" and sense of agency.  Students walked away from this experience with a greater appreciation for public wild areas and the recreation activities made available by them.  

Highlights from the trip include:

• Warm-up morning hike to Lower Yosemite Falls;
• Guided tour of the riparian valley adjacent to Merced River from the Parks as Classroom Ranger Program;
• 6.4 mile hike on the Mist Trail to Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall Trails;
• Views of Liberty Cap and Emerald Pool from the John Muir Trail;
• Scouting for rock climbers with binoculars on El Capitan - we saw three!
• Birdwatching and nature sketching in Hodgdon Meadows;
• Swimming in glacial Tioga Lake in Tuolome Meadows at 9,639' elevation!
• Waterfall hikes on the McCloud River.

Ruch Outdoor Community School is proud to be the first public school in the county to boast a solar installation.
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The project, scheduled for installation by the end of this school year, is due to district funds as well as a $24,000 grant from Pacific Power Blue Sky.  The funds are part of the Blue Sky Renewable Energy program that allows customers to contribute to renewable energy in their communities.

A 33 panel, 11.4 kW photovoltaic (PV) system on the school’s roof will generate 15,483 kilowatt hours annually, saving the district roughly two-thousand dollars annually in energy costs.
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The project will include a kiosk to display site energy generation and usage, which the school will incorporate into its STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum.

Watch news video on the project here.

Read the Mail Tribune article.

​Southern Oregon​ has been under a cloud of smoke for the past month, yet Ruch students enjoyed some fresh air to visit firefighters on the Hamilton Road fire camp last week.  Fire crews ranging from Alaska to Colorado gave students a behind-the-scenes tour of the wildfire campsite as well as an up-close experience with the helibase.  Ruch students spoke with on-the-ground crewmembers to learn about fire suppression tactics, training requirements to be on a wildfire-trained crew, satellite mapping techniques of the area, and flight procedures used by helitrack pilots. 

The Miller Fire Complex, about 17 miles east of Cave Junction, has burned over 36,000 acres and is currently 65% contained.  Fire crews have kept residents up-to-speed on developments, including explaining what to expect with different evacuation notices and how the fires are progressing.  On August 31st, a level 2 evacuation notice was issued, meaning residents should either voluntarily relocate outside of the affected area, or if choosing to remain, be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice.

As a token of their appreciation, Ruch students made hand-written thank you cards that were placed in the firefighter's lunch boxes.  The community is grateful to the many patrols who left their homes to make sure ours were safe and protected.

To learn more about the Miller Complex fire, please visit https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5514/

​To sign up to receive emergency alerts in Jackson County, visit www.jacksoncounty.org/alert. 

Wow!  What a year it has been.  Thanks to a number of grants from the Gray Family Foundation, US Forest Service, Medford Schools Foundation, and the Ruch School PTO, junior high students participated in a number of field experiences all over the state of Oregon.  Our place-based educational model promotes local stewardship, outdoor exploration, and a multidisciplinary lens to study the natural world. 

​Some of this year's outdoor field trips included:

​- Citizen science snowshoe project at Crater Lake National Park
​- Native tree planting on riparian restoration site along Applegate River on Earth Day.
​- Overnight coast camping trip in the Redwoods National Park.
​- Whitewater rafting on the Wild & Scenic Rogue River
​- Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail to Hobart Bluff
- Guided hike with the BLM at Lower Table Rock
​- Cob construction with House Alive! to build an outdoor classroom learning bench
​- Visit to White Oak Farm & Education Center
​- Releasing spring chinook salmon into the Rogue River through the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Eggs to Fry Program.

On April 20th, a group of junior high students spent the morning learning about the science of wildfire and readying their school for the impending wildfire season.  The training is part of National Wildfire Community Preparedness Day on Saturday, May 2nd.   

Students participated in role-playing workshops covering topics such as fire ecology, emergency preparedness, climate change, and forest management.  Students identified three zones at the school to plant fire-resistant plants and reduce ladder fuels in the event that a wildfire were to enter the Applegate Valley. 

In partnership with the Lomakatsi Restoration Project (a nonprofit group devoted to ecological restoration), Ruch School participated in a half-day field trip to Lone Pine Creek in North Medford.  This field trip was an extension of our sustainability curriculum to study the importance of aquatic habitat restoration and invasive species abatement.  Ruch students made many connections with current themes of sustainability:  biodiversity, native salmon populations, climate change, forest ecology, and natural history.  In just two hours, twenty-seven 8th grade students worked in small crews to plant eighty tree saplings including ponderosa pine, Oregon ash, Oregon grape, incense cedar and big leaf maple.  Students also observed features of a healthy watershed, removed parrot feather weeds from the creek, and met with natural resource professionals to explore job opportunities in ecological restoration.  Today was the beginning of a long-term partnership between Ruch School and Lomakatsi to participate in future hands-on, outdoor projects to connect students with nature.

Read more here.