SVES invests in an Aquaculture Center

Yellow and green-shirted children lined up along SVES Isa Drive fence yesterday morning during the quarterly Field Day to wave to motorists and commuters in appreciation of the community’s involvement in the educational pursuits of the school. In celebration of Education month, they were also standing tall to the newest thrust of pedagogical innovation that the school is well known for across the system.

With an active PTA organization and a School Community-Based Management council both headed by former NMC president and current NMC Board of Regents’ member Agnes McPhetres, the school recently got a boost from the Administration for Native Americans when it was awarded a two-year grant to rehabilitate and expand the program of the school’s Aquaculture Science Center.

Previously equipped with an aquarium and a hydroponic garden, along with experiments in alternative energy source and conservation measures, the Center functioned as a science laboratory that served particularly the upper grades of the school. The facilities, however, were damaged by seasonal typhoons, and with the school budget’s failure to support the science resource teacher, the use of the Center declined until it was altogether eliminated from the school curriculum.

With the economic crisis that has plagued the Marianas Islands since the collapse of the Thai baht in the late 90s, and the ensuing reverberations across the Pacific, SVES educators along with other teachers within the public school system, struggled and continue to struggle with the practical dimension of school learning to local trade and commerce. With the drastic 15 percent decrease in school enrollment at SVES this school year, and the visible exodus of San Vicente residents off island, former 5th grade teacher Val Welch convinced the school administrators and officers and members of the PTA to invest, revive and rehabilitate the Aquaculture Science Center but with a distinctively practical and relevant dimension to the project.

The top two school administrators, Joaquina Salas and Betty Miller, are highly enthused with the possibilities the Center offers. Not only will the Center provide instructions that will increase students’ understanding of science and raise science test scores by making science learning exciting and practical, the Center will also have an outreach component that will involve new off-campus home gardens and farms in the San Vicente community where students will be immersed in applied science alongside the hands-on learning in the laboratory and the conceptual teaching in the classroom.

An eye on propagating local medicinal plants, especially endangered species, will also be a part of the Center’s mission, as well as the promotion of cultural land use practices that are environment-friendly. It is hoped that these will add to the science, math, and business skills of the SVES students.

The business side of the endeavor had not been neglected as well. Overall learning in the SVES community is expected to improve because desperately needed funds will be available from the sales of products produced at the Science center, and profits from the off-campus farms will enrich local accounts and aid in the creation of a scholarship fund. Project Manager Welch estimates that almost half a million dollars will be the leveraged resource that will be generated into the local economy.

The project targets 15 community partnerships to ensure replicability and sustainability in the long run. But more importantly, the Center will associate its program with the standards and benchmarks of the Public School System, particularly in Science, Math and the economics’ section of Social Studies. Project proponents are aiming for a 30% improvement in standardized assessment scores for the school within two years. Welch, who is also the Computer Lab teacher for the school, intends to use widely the PSS’ MOOGLE system (an Internet-accessible interactive school website) to attain the projects pedagogical goals.

Finally, and most importantly, the project offers hope of practicality and relevance in student learning, and as expressed in song by the students in yesterday’s school assembly, the sentiment remains:

We are the children of yesterday’s dream
We are the promise of the future we bring
Waving the banner of love to all
To every nation, the rich and the poor.

For together we stand, divided we fall
Together we climb to the top of the world
We can be what we want for the world to see
That we are the children of yesterday’s dream. [B][I](JRV)[/I][/B]