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.

After almost two months since students welcomed new salmon eggs into the classroom, Ruch students finally transported grown-up fry to the Rogue River for release into the wild. 

As part of the Salmon Watch Project, students have been studying the salmon life cycle, habitat requirements, trends in native salmon populations in the southern Oregon, and the cultural significance of salmon to local communities including Native American tribes.  Joined by a fish biologist from the US Fish & Wildlife Department and parent volunteers,  students gave their farewell haikus to their incredible salmon friends as they began their long jounrey to the Pacific Ocean.  Hopefully some will return from the ocean to spawn in the gravel redds just as the middle school students are graduating from high school!

Learn more about the salmon class in the Mail Tribune and on KOBI-TV NBC channel 5.

By:  Ryan King

One of the many blessings of being a K-8 school is the opportunity to put the older students into the role of teaching their elementary counterparts.  At the end of every term, junior high students work in small teams to design and deliver an age-appropriate lesson around an issue of sustainability.  Through this activity, the older students must master the material in order to teach an audience of curious and excitable littles.  Important skills such as communicating effectively, managing time, cooperating with others, resolving conflict, and maintaining grit are just a few of the "take-aways" while the littles "leave behind" a positive experience, learning something fascinating about the natural world.  

At Ruch Community School, olders step into the shoes of a teacher and act as ambassadors of the community, while littles interact with positive role models that help ignite a lifelong passion to learn new things relating to sustainability.  To date, olders have covered topics on composting, gardening, healthy eating habits, marine and stream environments, life cycle of trees, the importance of honeybees, and recycling.  

"Real differences between micro- and macroorganisms become clear when students have their hands buried in the earth, says Ryan King, a student-teacher from Southern Oregon University.

"Is a worm a macro- or a microorganism?" King asks, after one of his students from Ruch Elementary School announces she's hit a writhing mother lode of organic recyclers.

The 10 seventh- and eighth-graders are on one of their regular field trips to Sanctuary One at Double Oak Farm — a nonprofit care farm in the Applegate Valley.

The worms are macroorganisms, busily creating beneficial microorganisms that will help grow the chard, lettuce and spinach being planted in the vegetable beds Tuesday afternoon, say King's students.

Partnering with the care farm is part of a larger plan to market Ruch School as a campus with a place-based learning approach that connects students with nature and uses community connections to improve programs for students, King says.

"We have totally changed our curriculum," he says. "And we have a lot of pride in this model. We've flattened the walls down and got the kids out in the community."

Getting students outside of the school environment and into the community has benefitted everyone, King says.

Della Merrill, Sanctuary One general manager, agrees. Every couple of weeks, the students visit the farm for a series of lessons in applied science. The symbiotic nature of the students' help and the care farm's healing and educational influence is a powerful mix, Merrill says."

Read more here.