The Columbian – Susan Parrish
“In a century-old forest, teacher Mark Watrin led students along a downhill path and deeper into a thick stand of Douglas fir and Western red cedar. Minutes earlier, the students conducted field tests in a sunlight-dappled patch of thinner trees interspersed with an undergrowth of ferns, stinging nettle and blackberries. But where the students now stood, the canopy of tall trees filtered the sunlight more. It was deeper, denser, darker. “What’s different about this part of the forest?” Watrin, a science specialist, asked the Prairie High School Advanced Placement biology students. “Let’s do a light meter reading to see if the light is different here than it was in the more managed section of forest.” Watrin is on a mission to train teachers in Battle Ground Public Schools about the latest science standards, which must be implemented for all grade levels by the 2017-2018 school year. So far, Washington and about a dozen other states have adopted the new standards.”(more)