With history happening in their back yard, students across the North Olympic Peninsula are getting a hands-on experience in the Elwha River dam removal project.
Both the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams are set for removal in 2009 to restore the Elwha River’s ecosystem.
It’s the largest dam removal project ever in the United States, and thanks to a $30,000 grant from the Russell Family Foundation, as many as 200 middle and high school students will be able to take part in the Olympic Park Institute’s Elwha Science Education Project.
Olympic Park Institute is a 30-year-old nonprofit education organization located about 20 miles from Port Angeles on the south side of Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park.
The organization’s Elwha Science Education Project allows students to get out of the classroom and do field research on self-chosen topics of how removing the dams will affect the river’s ecosystem.
“It’s a different approach to learning,” said Jason Winters, an instructor with Olympic Park Institute who takes students on a four-day field trip starting at the top of the river by Glines Canyon Dam and ending at its mouth by the Lower Elwha Klallam Reservation.
About a dozen students from Choice Community School in Port Angeles completed their four-day field trip this week and are researching topics that range from the relationship between the speed of water and amount of oxygen it holds to the different types of mammals and vegetation living in the river’s ecosystem.
Choice Community School is one of six schools on the North Olympic Peninsula participating in the program, and its students will present their findings in a speech at the school’s library in May or through a written report for the project’s Web site at www.elwhascienceed.org.