Marblehead Students Learn About Watersheds with Artist Wyland

Students at Marblehead Elementary School were in for a surprise when the Wyland Foundation Clean Water Mobile Learning Experience visited the campus on Friday, Feb. 3.

Not only did students experience hands-on lessons about watersheds, eco-systems and urban runoff, but artists Robert Wyland and surfer Bill Stewart made a surprise appearance during the mobile learning lab’s stop at the school.

During their visit to the elementary school, Wyland and Stewart collaborated on a spray-painted mural of a dolphin, Marblehead’s mascot, leaping out of some waves. 

In the Wyland Foundation Clean Water Mobile Learning Experience, students participated in hands-on activities to teach them about watersheds.

The Experience visits fifth- through sixth-grade classes—a perfect time because the students are introduced to curriculum on water in fifth grade, said Steve Creech, president of the Wyland Foundation.

“We also find that at that age, they seem to be very open to these concepts, and they have a certain idealism as well,” Creech said. “So, it’s a good time to help them shape their minds, especially about something that’s going to be so important to their lives.”

The mobile lab is 83 feet long and 28 feet wide when expanded, and weighs 80,000 pounds, so it’s quite a feat to assemble at each school campus, Wyland Foundation Logistics and Educator Tony Larkin said.

Before students participated in hands-on lessons, they gathered in the brand-new theater to watch a video about Earth’s water resources. 

The mobile learning lab featured six different stations with activities that teach students about managing limited water resources, urban runoff and how environmental issues impact species in the ecosystem.

“There’s a lot to cover on the subject of water pollution and the environment,” Creech said. “We hope that the students, as they go through these activities, walk away with the sense that there are solutions.”

“So, as they go through life and as they go through school and their careers, hopefully a little bit of that is carried with them and they can be the people that can make a difference later on,” Creech continued.

The Wyland Foundation provides students with a curriculum ahead of their visit to the learning lab and conducts a full evaluation afterward to see what they’ve learned and remembered from their activities.

“The general feedback is we see a pretty strong increase in our surveys, at least an increase of 30%,” Creech said. “A lot of the kids are already generally aligned with wanting to do something.

“But we do other surveys, we want to know if they understand the concept of what a watershed is, what polluted runoff is, how it occurs, what their role is within that,” Creech continued. “We’re super proud.”

Kira Olander, Parent Teacher Association vice president, reached out to the Wyland Foundation over the summer, hoping to get the learning lab to visit Marblehead Elementary School sometime this school year.

“We are technically an environmental studies academy, we have an emphasis on environmental studies and STEM programs at our school,” Olander said. “The environment is important to me, so I felt like if we’re going to do it, let’s do it right and let’s really focus on extracurricular learning experiences that will incorporate the environmental studies curriculum.”

“This was absolutely perfect,” Olander continued. “We couldn’t have come up with anything better. Especially being a coastal town, the water is right in our backyard and we should know about it.”

Olander also worked at one of the Clean Water Mobile Learning Experience activity stations and said she noticed students were “oohing and ahhing” in the theater.

Wyland noted that he was blown away by the new theater after seeing it for the first time on Friday.

“I’m always surprised by the creativity of my team, of the Wyland Foundation Team led by Steve Creech,” Wyland said. “We’ve been working on this for 10 years and to see it finally realized and launched here on the 30-year anniversary of the Wyland Foundation.”

“This is amazing and to do it here in my backyard in Orange County, here at Marblehead, means everything to us,” Wyland continued. “I just hope that we can do more of this and continue to bring the message of clean water and healthy oceans to schools all over the nation, all over the world really. This is a model that should be replicated.”

The mobile learning experience was first launched in 2010 and has now led hands-on learning experiences for over a million students.

 “It’s all about bringing the best programs and things we can to all of the schools and try to do as many as we can for free, especially to schools that desperately need these types of programs,” Wyland said. “It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

Wyland added that he hopes students walk away from this experience feeling empowered to enact change.

“We want students to understand their place in the world,” Wyland said. “There’s eight billion people now and they can be world changers, all they need to do is just have the knowledge and the inspiration to find creative ways to keep our environment clean, to help protect our environment and it starts right here today.”

More information about the Wyland Foundation or its mobile learning experience can be found at wylandfoundation.org.