"Seeing Through the Smoke" is a collage of words and thoughts about fire created by the SLE junior high students. It is on display in the junior high wing and will become part of a traveling art show this fall.
SLE eighth graders presenting how fire affects different forest communities to the first grade class.
SLE junior high students raking needles in a common area between homes in Chipmunk Court. This was a service project to bring awareness to the need to Firewise homes and mitigate the fuels around them.
SEELEY LAKE – Seeley Lake Elementary was abuzz during Wildfire Awareness Week, May 14-18 where students took field trips to explore the Rice Ridge fire, engaged in various activities and learned more about living with fire from the FireWorks curriculum developed by fire scientists at Missoula's Fire Lab. Spearheading the week was SLE Junior High Science and Math teacher Patti Bartlett Gladstone. She felt due to the events of last fall, this discussion about wildfire will help empower students of all ages.
"I devoted a week of science classes to Wildfire Awareness Week because there are many things that students can do to help their families and our community become more Firewise," wrote Bartlett Gladstone in an email. "Living in the Wildland Urban Interface allows our students a unique opportunity to learn how complex wildfire actually is."
Bartlett Gladstone prepared lessons from FireWorks for each grade level preschool - sixth to use in their science classes throughout the week. It was up to the individual teachers when they worked it in, but all were engaged.
The seventh grade class summarized an essay on a particular organism and created a paragraph and a realistic image of that organism to teach the first grade students about habitat and that organism's adaptations to fire. The first graders then wrote two sentences about their organism's habitat and its response to wildfire, along with coloring their image.
The eighth grade students gave flannel board presentations on different forest communities and how fire affected those communities to the preschool, kindergarten, first and second grade students.
"Both were excellent examples of cooperative learning," wrote Bartlett Gladstone.
In addition to the lessons taught during science class and the outreach to the younger grades, the junior high students participated in Firewise presentations by Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Clearwater Unit Fire Manager Cory Calnan, a community service project by cleaning up a common area between homes on Chipmunk Court and a field trip to the Rice Ridge Fire guided by Helen Smith from the Missoula Fire Lab.
On Friday, junior high students took part in a "Seeing through the Smoke" art activity presented by University of Idaho Art Professor Stacy Isenbarger followed by a Humanities Montana program on the Yellowstone National Park's Fires of 1988 by John Clayton.
Isenbarger is working with UI Professor in the College of Natural Resources in the Forest, Rangeland and Fire Science Department Penny Morgan on a project entitled "Conversations Through the Smoke." The intent is to bring together a variety of creative expressions from fire practitioners and artists affected by wildland fires by displaying a traveling show of their work in various locations in the Northwest Region.
"Working with students in Seeley Lake is just one way we want to help build dialog. There is much to confront when addressing our feelings on the subject of fire especially [due to recent impacts of fire and smoke on the community as well as the history of it the community has faced]," wrote Isenbarger in an email. "It's a large discussion with a mix of opinions on how to confront it, find control within it, find new perspectives, etc. We want folks to feel welcome to express them and as an artist, I'm trying to offer opportunities to share these creatively."
Isenbarger asked the junior high students to think about what they've dealt with in the past and then incorporate new perspectives they have gained throughout the week's discussions.
"Through our educational experience, we typically don't just find a simple this to that exchange of own "new" perspectives; we find some a bit more messy and definitely more real. We have lots of thoughts and perspectives to dig through due to our personal experience, what we hear in our community and what we learn from experience and research elsewhere," wrote Isenbarger.
The students created a collective Smoke Message generated through visual word play on layers of share fabric pieced together similarly to a quilt. It contained words about fire evoked from the students, both from a place of fear and one of hope.
The students' Smoke Message will be on display at SLE. It will then become part of the Conversations Through the Smoke traveling exhibition that will return to Seeley Lake sometime between August and October.
Isenbarger and Morgan are currently seeking art from fire managers, fire fighters, volunteers and others artists influenced by fire's reach on public and private lands- before, during and after wildland fires. Submissions are encouraged from novices through professional artists. More information is available at https://form.jotform.com/81185949084165
The website states, "With 'Conversations Through the Smoke,' we seek to foster conversations that will help all of us adapt to our future living with fire and smoke."
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