enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

University of New England graduate student Caitlyn Little, right, leads a group of sixth-graders from Portland’s Lincoln Middle School into Baxter Woods on Wednesday to take soil samples and measure pH levels, or the degree of acidity.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Eleven-year-old Nathan Loranger, a Lincoln Middle School sixth-grader, assists with soil samples from the Baxter Woods nature preserve as part of the project with UNE.

MORE INFORMATION

THE UNIVERSITY of New England's fellowship program is open to elementary, middle and high schools throughout the Saco River watershed. Science teachers interested in having a UNE graduate student work in their classrooms should contact program manager Henrietta List at hlist@une.edu or 357-0297.

PORTLAND — Learning is a two-way street for Caitlyn Little and the sixth-graders she's teaching at Lincoln Middle School.

Little, a graduate student of marine science at the University of New England, is working with several science classes at Lincoln Middle School under a $2.9 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

The grant's goal is twofold: The sixth-graders get to work with a real scientist and do hands-on experiments that emphasize outdoor research; and Little learns to be more than a scientist.

"It's a chance for me to communicate with people who might not have such an extensive knowledge of science," Little said. "That's important if we're going to help people understand that science is done locally as much as globally."

UNE received the grant in the spring to establish a fellowship program for graduate students at schools throughout the Saco River watershed, said Charles Tilburg, one of three professors who sought the grant.

Little and two other UNE graduate students received fellowships this year: Jay Williams, at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish, and Michelle Bozeman, at Massabesic Middle School in Waterboro. The fellowship program will be expanded to several other schools next year.

Little wound up at Lincoln Middle School because Holly Backus was one of 25 science teachers who applied to host a graduate student, Tilburg said. The school's well-established environmental education program, including an outdoor classroom in a geodesic dome, drew attention to Backus' application.

Together, Little and Backus are developing and leading research projects that focus on various aspects of the watershed. Through the school year, their students will learn about weather, the water cycle, soil, rocks, erosion prevention and sediment.

On Wednesday, Little and Backus showed the sixth-graders how to measure pH levels in soil samples at the middle school on Stevens Avenue and in Baxter Woods, across the street.

Working with partners and carrying clipboards, about 20 students divided into two groups and watched as either Little or Backus inserted the metal probe of a pH meter into the soil. The students helped to read the meter and judge whether the soil was acidic, basic or neutral.

"We're learning what an important resource soil is and why it's so important to protect it," Backus said.

The lesson wasn't lost on Sofie Deoliveira, a sixth-grader who took careful notes on the research site in Baxter Woods.

"It's fun to get out of the classroom and move around," she said. "What we do with the tools, it's fun and makes me feel like a real scientist."

As much as Backus' students are learning from Little, Tilburg highlighted the mutual gains of the fellowship program.

The graduate students regularly share information about their own research projects. Little's graduate thesis topic is the recent return of Atlantic sturgeon to the Saco River, after an estimated 100-year absence.

Williams is studying fish called skates. Bozeman is studying the use of geographic information systems to map watersheds.

"Many scientists are not able to communicate their ideas," Tilburg said. "This is giving training to a new group of scientists who will be able to communicate more readily. The kids can see that scientists aren't all old men with wild white hair. They're normal people. They are active role models."

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at:

kbouchard@pressherald.com