Mira Loma High School is a comprehensive public school in the San Juan Unified School District, located in Sacramento, California. As an International Baccalaureate (IB) school, our science department has developed an interdisciplinary ecological monitoring project that includes over two hundred fifty students each year who are enrolled in IB Biology, IB Physics and IB Ecosystems and Society classes. With the help of six IB science instructors, these motivated Mira Loma students are involved in a multi-year study integrating core scientific principles being taught in our classes to a natural outside laboratory, Arcade Creek, a nearby neighborhood waterway.

Now in its tenth year, this project has eight scientific studies plus three ancillary groups for a total of eleven active teams. At each of seven permanent study sites, teams of students, led by trained senior and junior leaders, work collaboratively on their particular study throughout the school year. Our current site studies include the following:

In addition, we have a Technology and Data Analysis team handling all the data for the entire study as well as keeping up our web page, video and power point presentations. Recently we have added an Outreach team to coordinate with local agencies and schools and help in fund raising. And finally, our Restoration team works on issues related to the creek and human impacts. Students from all studies work cooperatively alongside our Restoration team to systematically remove invasive species from the riparian corridor and help keep the watershed clean and natural.

Working within our local scientific community, training has been done by a variety of agencies ranging from federal, (U.S. E.P.A., U.S. Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Geologic Survey) to state (Dept. of Fish and Game, Water Control Board and Air Resources Board) to local entities (Sacramento County Storm Water Monitoring and Urban Creeks Council). We receive further technical assistance and support from the University of California at Davis, California State University at Sacramento and American River College as well as several local and national environmental consulting firms. Volunteers from local conservation and natural history groups (Audubon Society, California Native Plant Society, etc.) have also been helpful in assisting our students, especially in native/exotic plant taxonomy and vertebrate identification. We all appreciate and value the collaboration with our community that helps make this project so inclusive, giving students the opportunity to see how science truly is an integration of multiple disciplines. Reciprocally, local environmental consulting firms and governmental agencies have used the data collected by our students for their own reports and studies.

Over the years the Arcade Creek Project has earned many honors and awards at federal, state and local levels including the Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award (GEELA) and the Urban Creek Council's Stewards of the Year Award. Students have been featured in many news articles including the cover article for the California Teacher's Association magazine in March 2007. Our students have earned numerous grants and monetary awards ranging from local grants from student-run organizations such as GABY to a large federal grant from the Department of Education and most recently the SeaWorld Environmental Education Grant. Each of our students earns credits for their participation in this project as interns in a Natural Resource Management course. Most of our students go on to four-year colleges and many have earned degrees in Ecology and Natural Resource Conservation. Now these students are working in these ecological fields and some are actually helping us with the newest batch of Mira Loma students.

We continually seek to make the Mira Loma Arcade Creek Project a scientifically rigorous and thorough ecological study by fine-tuning the efforts of our students and sharing our data with the community and various governmental agencies. As our project has gained clarity and refinement, our protocols and techniques continue to include the input and expertise of scientists within our community. We appreciate the support of our community and school district and the collaborative benefits appreciated by hundreds of students who experience the value of working outside the traditional classroom.

Please visit our website:  www.arcadecreekproject.org