Wahluke science teacher creates unique learning opportunities

MATTAWA — When Wahluke Junior High science teacher Mike Bosko started teaching, he had an idea for how to give students hands-on experience in the field of science. He created a program that allowed students to learn about stream ecology firsthand.

“My background is in software and stream ecologies,” Bosko said. “I’m new to this teaching thing.”

While working full time in stream ecology, Bosko had college students intern with him. After starting to teach, Bosko never fully left his stream ecology work. He decided to offer his junior high students an opportunity to intern with him.

“I like to get kids outside,” Bosko said.

At first, Bosko would take nine students at a time out for the day to learn about stream ecologies. A couple of summers ago, he and some fellow teachers decided to turn the day trips into three-day, two-night camps during the summer. They partnered with professors at Central Washington University, allowing the junior high school students access to college students. The college students showed the Wahluke students how to do things like electroshock fish and how to work on stream models. Some of the camps had 18 Wahluke Junior High students.

In 2018, the Yakama Nation Fisheries put wood back into streams to help improve the habitat for fish. The students in Bosko’s internship program had been wanting to do their own study, so Bosko guided them to a study involving one of the streams that would be receiving wood.

“One hundred years ago, the area had logging and mining,” Bosko said. “When they took the wood out, they put the logs behind dams. They would blast the dams and they (the logs) would shoot downstream.”

This method of moving logs straightened out the streams. But logging operations weren’t the only way that streams have been straightened out. In the past 10 to 20 years, wood has been removed from streams to make it easier for salmon to go upstream. But the results have been a loss of fish habitat.

“We’re starting to put wood back in,” Bosko said. “There are some big projects. We’re seeing an improvement in fish habitats.”

The addition of the wood has also decreased the amount of flooding that occurs further downstream.

Bosko’s team specifically studied Indian Creek, between Teanaway River Road and the North Fork of the Teanaway River. Before the wood was put in, they took the measurements of the stream above and below where the wood was going to go.

In 2019, they went back again to measure the stream and to see if there was a difference.

“Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot of snow,” Bosko said. “We didn’t see any major spring runoff. We’re waiting for a bigger water event to happen.”

When water hits the logs in the stream, it spreads out across the flood plain. This lowers the temperature of the water and adds sinuosity, or curvature, to the stream, causing the water to slow down.

Bosko’s students found that in spite of a lack of substantial runoff, the stream above the added wood had increased in sinuosity. The portion of stream below the wood remained basically the same.

Each year, Central Washington University offers SOURCE, an annual conference that allows college students the opportunity to present their research and get judged for it. The event is also open to high school students.

Last spring, Bosko’s students presented their initial measurements at SOURCE.

“My kids presented their initial data,” Bosko. “This year, they were all excited that they actually had before and after data.”

Because of COVID-19, this year’s presentations were made online. The students made a two-and-a-half-minute presentation about their research and findings. The presentation can be found on Youtube under the title “Wahluke Science Internship, 2020 Indian Creek Stream Wood Study.”

While the initial project started with more students, the final presentation only had five. The students were sixth-graders when they started interning with Bosko. Currently they are ninth-graders.

“This year, before we did this presentation, I was thinking they were done and they’re probably moving on,” Bosko said. “They came back to me early in the year this year and asked, ‘Are we going to continue this?’”

For Bosko, the internship isn’t about making scientists out of his students. It is an opportunity for the students to take their learning beyond the classroom and into the natural world.

“My goal is to get them outside and to look at the world around them,” Bosko said. “If they want to be a scientist, great. This is something they can put on their resume or college application.

“This is a great group of kids,” Bosko continued. “The remaining five are amazing kids. They’re driven. It’s neat to see how they’ve grown up through this whole thing.”

Bosko hopes to continue giving his junior high students opportunities to learn outside of the classroom. With the changes to schooling that COVID-19 has brought, Bosko is considering other alternatives to allow interested students opportunities. One option is videotaping himself collecting the samples and allowing the students to watch and learn remotely.

“I have others starting a new study,” Bosko said. “Some are new sixth-graders. This is a program I still want to keep growing.”