Pacific Education Institutes

Pacific Education Institute and SPARKscience engage students in real world research

PEI expands students’ opportunities to learn in outdoor settings throughout Washington State. By integrating PEI’s field investigation model with SPARKscience and My World GIS technology, students are conducting inquiry investigations and producing data that teaches them about the value of scientific research. Based on their field-work, not only do students learn a valuable scientific lesson, but their accurate and reliable data is also used by natural resource agencies to help inform environmental impact decisions. Students want to know how science is relevant to their worldwhat could be more powerful than seeing the real data they collected being used for real world decisions?

With SPARKscience, PEI is able to take existing SPARKlab activities and customize them. They can also easily create their own SPARKlabs to have students focus specifically on the issues that face their local environment. After spending time learning about the pH needs of salmon, students can take their investigation outside and collect pH data on the nearest salmon bearing creek. Through this process students are able to immediately see both the value and the meaning of the data they are collecting and the impact of that data on the salmon in their region.