At Marcus Whitman High School in Rushville, New York, students who are enrolled in a college-level environmental science class participate in hands-on projects – from making maple syrup to raising trout. High school senior Maddie Mekeel is one of these students. Although her plan is to study art after graduating later this month, Maddie said the lessons she’s learned in teacher Jonathan Pragle’s classroom will help guide her as she enters the world beyond high school.
I live in the Finger Lakes region of New York state, near Canandaigua Lake. I’ve grown up on the lake. I’ve lived walking distance to it since I was little. I spend a lot of time at the lake, especially during the summer. We’ll look for sea glass at the lake, and we’ll go swimming. There’s a lot to do. And I like to hike, especially on a trail that’s near my house.
I like to look for animal bones in the woods. It’s not morbid – it’s just really interesting. I especially like to look for skulls. I like to look at the formation and the shape and the teeth. Once you know what to look for, it’s not hard to find them. A lot of times, you’ll just see a pop of white somewhere. I’ve always kind of been interested in skulls. I think it started when I was on a trip in Florida during middle school, and I found a little squirrel skull. Ever since, I’ve been trying to figure out the different animals in my own area and what to look for – the different shapes. I’ve learned how to ID them. I’ve found a lot of raccoon skulls. If you compare a raccoon skull to an opossum skull, raccoons have a lot fewer teeth. Opossums have these tiny, tiny teeth – and they have a longer snout. A raccoon’s skull is rounder.
In the environmental science class this year, we’ve done a lot of really big, hands-on, class-wide projects. In the maple sugaring project, before we gathered sap, we studied the science of it – how the sap flows and that sort of thing. We have a lot of maple trees right in the yard at the school, and we have a huge woods that we go out into, even for other class stuff, like looking for wildflowers. Once the season started in February, we tapped the maple trees and went out just about every day to collect sap. Then we did the boiling. I think the school is working on getting funding to build a sugar house, but this year we did the boiling outside.
Before that, we had little, baby brown trout – they were so cute – and we raised them to release into the waterways. We worked with Trout Unlimited on that project. We had a huge tank in the classroom. We started with eggs, and we made booklets and drew how they looked during different life stages. We measured them and kept track of water temperatures. We made sure the dissolved oxygen was at the right level, and we tested the water pH – because the fish are really sensitive.
We also did a project where we designed an ideal watershed and then a horrible watershed. We designed an ideal way that water can be channeled and funneled and filtered and processed. And then we designed a horrible way that could happen. It was fun to really analyze what makes a watershed bad and what makes it good.
We’ve studied how different things impact the environment. We just did a unit on energy and comparing and contrasting coal and oil and natural gas and nuclear power and wood heat. There are a lot of things in this class that we can translate into real life – and into making decisions for ourselves. We’ve learned to weigh the differences and study the ecological impacts of different choices. It’s a really great class that I’m learning a lot from. We are all able to share our opinions and our thoughts in a very civil manner. It’s a really great environment to be in.
Graduation is June 23. I’m planning to attend Finger Lakes Community College, and I think I’m going to get my associate’s degree in fine arts. Then I’ll go somewhere else after that. I do a lot of sketching and portrait drawing and painting. I’ve dabbled in sculpture, but I really like sketching faces and figures. I’m definitely going to have to broaden my horizons going into studying art. I like to paint – acrylic paint, oil paint, oil pastels. I like a lot of hands-on art. Our school doesn’t have the most extensive art program, but we do have really great teachers. My art teacher, Ms. (Johanna) Minehan, is amazing. She’s super supportive and really pushes us to be better.
This summer, I really want to go up to the Adirondacks and hike. I haven’t been there for a long time, but I spent a lot of time there when I was younger, and I really miss it. My great-grandma had a place on a lake near Bald Mountain in the Adirondacks, so I’ve gone up and down Bald Mountain more times than I can count. And I plan to spend lots of time at the lake. I’m hoping to get a job near the lake. I hope to spend lots of time outside this summer.