Through the Mountain Lake Research Project, the Field Studies Program in the Education Division of the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco, CA) provides middle school, high school, and undergraduate college students an opportunity to participate in a real-world, long-term ecological monitoring project by collecting data, processing and analyzing results, and presenting their findings in a community symposium. Two Field Studies staff train teachers, students, and community volunteers to collect data on (1) water quality, (2) zooplankton, (3) birds, and (4) reptiles/amphibians at Mountain Lake, a natural freshwater lake in the city of San Francisco. The lake is heavily impacted by past and present anthropogenic influences, and a consortium of city, private and federal organizations are currently implementing an ecological restoration of the area.

Program activities are age-appropriate and tailored to the needs of individual classes; however, staff oversee weekly data collection, and rigorous sampling protocols and training procedures are used in an attempt to maintain a high level of accuracy and consistency in the data. Students are also trained to use spreadsheet and presentation software to enter their data, graph their results, and present their findings as posters or talks. Although students focus their data collection on one of the four components, when framing their research questions and interpreting their results, students are encouraged to think ecologically: to consider how all four components are interconnected and how human actions influence the system.

This program is staff-intensive and requires a high amount of contact hours, thus relatively few students are served (~160/year). However, initial assessment of the program indicates that the small student-to-staff ratios and repeated visits build trust between students and staff such that students feel comfortable taking risks for personal growth and learning. While the inherently repetitive nature of sustained, long-term monitoring provides some challenges to maintaining excitement throughout the year, students take great pride in the accuracy of their data, and they also develop a strong sense of community awareness, a feeling of engagement with the lake and its fauna, and a sense of environmental stewardship.