1. Summary of Land and Water Assessment Data
Fall 2014
IslandWood Homewaters
Haley Rutherford

3. IslandWood Homewaters Program offers three programs to Seattle Public School teachers that
fit into and reinforce certain science units (STC kits); namely Ecosystems for 4th grade and
Microworlds and Land and Water for 5th. For the purpose of this summary, the Land and Water
program assessments will be evaluated. This is a one-day three and a half-hour program that
includes four stations concerning water quality, water velocity, salmon habitat surveying, and
salmon habitat mapping. The focus of the science unit is erosion and deposition, with students
manipulating a stream table to study influence to- and effects of- water on land. Homewaters’
program enhances this by taking students to a stream in their neighborhood and using salmon
as a framework for investigation of the health of the stream. Since our main assessment goal is
to track change over time, assessments were only evaluated if they had a matching pre- and
post-assessment from each student. Therefore, the numbers represented in this report are
percentage increases between specific pre- and post-assessments, rather than as a whole.
Based on the evaluation of these assessments, over 96% of the students showed some sort of
increase in knowledge or behavior change.
Every teacher that brings a class to the Land and Water Field Study is provided with
assessments to be completed by students before and after participation in the program. The
assessments are designed to assess Homewaters goals of:
1) improving students’ science learning by reinforcing and expanding concepts they are
taught in the classroom, and
2) increasing student’s environmental awareness and stewardship by increasing their
awareness of their connections to their local ecosystemand helping them discover ways
that people affect ecosystems.
Specifically, the assessments are designed to engage and evaluate student’s knowledge of
erosion, deposition, scientific processes, and local environmental awareness and stewardship.
While some questions are evaluated on a standard point system, others are coded for types of
answers offered. The questions are posed and scored as follows:
1) Pre: What are you excited to learn about during the Land and Water Field Study?
Post: What did you learn during the Land and Water Field Study?
Coded for answers, see Table 1.
2) What is the difference between erosion and deposition?
2 points possible- one for characteristics of erosion (fast water, weathering,
water moving/pushing, channel formed, etc.); one for characteristics of
deposition (slow water, dropping off of land/dirt/sediment, mouth/delta, etc.)

4. 3) Fill in the blank: “If I were to visit a creek, I would want to_____ because _____.”
Coded: “1” for playing/no stream, “2” for an observation-related answer (touch,
learn, look for something scientific, etc.), “3” for a scientific answer (test,
investigate, etc.), and “4” for a stewardship related answer (pick up litter, help
the stream, etc.)
4) “If I was a salmon, I would want to live in a stream in my neighborhood…” Check
yes/no/maybe and “Why?”
Coded: “1” for a random answer (no stream, it is cold, close to family, etc.), “2”
for an answer related specifically to stream or park (too much litter, lots of
plants, etc.), and “3” for an answer related directly to topics covered in program
stations (evidence, salmon needs, chemicals, turbid water, etc.)
5) Add to the list of things people can do to help a stream
4 points possible- one for each added to existing examples (picking up litter and
scooping dog poop) of things that would help the stream and/or salmon, or
changes to the stream that could help
6) What are the steps scientists take to answer a field study question?
5 points possible- one for each (possible answers include observe, predict,
procedure, test, investigate, analyze data, conclude, make a model, etc.) or for
examples of questions or form of procedure
7) Read the three statements below and circle on answer per statement
a. I believe that I or my family could do things in our daily lives to help streams
b. I want to know more about my local streams
c. I think about the thing I do that might help or hurt streams
Coded: “1” = strongly disagree, “2” = disagree, “3” = neutral, “4” = agree, “5” =
strongly agree
Since assessments are administered by teachers, Homewaters staff has little control over when
or how the assessments are administered, which may influence the reliability of the results.
Possible influences include but are not limited to: proximity in time preceding or following the
field study, how far along the class is in the Land and Water STC kit, encouragement, and
assessment environment and guidelines (individual work, time allowed, etc.) In an attempt to
encourage completion and return rates, teachers are given a pre-paid envelope for post-
assessments if pre-assessments are brought to the field study, and a $25 Target gift card is
supplied when both have been returned to Homewaters. Because of these methods, we found
a 39% increase in return rate since last year, from 6% to 44%. While this is significantly higher
than the Fall 2013 season, it has decreased since fall 2012 which saw a 60% return rate. Out of
849 students taught in the Land and Water Program, 376 completed and returned a pre- and

5. post-assessment. While this can certainly be improved, it is a large enough pool for us to
appropriately evaluate our influence on Seattle students’ science learning and stewardship
behavior.
Question One: What are you excited to learn about/did you learn during the Land and Water
Field Study?
For question one in the pre-assessment, we saw a large variety of types of answers. It was clear
that while some students were far along in the unit or had a teacher who was prepared and
perhaps attended our program before, others were unprepared for the field study. The answers
were coded and majorities were grouped together as shown in Table 1, with percentages of
students whose answers related to that topic. These answers are not correlated but simply
show the most common responses and could influence the development of this program and
its’ pre- and post-lessons.
Table 1. Percentagesof mostcommonanswersforquestionone (Whatare youexcitedtolearn
about/did youlearnduringthe Landand Water FieldStudy?) groupedtogether.Pre- andpost- answers
are notcorrelated.
Pre-Assessment Post-Assessment
16% erosion and/or deposition 23% salmon habitat needs
16% salmon 20% water quality station³
12% land and/or water 12% water speed/velocity
8% stream¹ 8% salmon
7% real life² 6% erosion and/or deposition
¹ Answers relatingto the stream. Examples include how streams work, where they go, etc.
² Answers includelearningoutside,relationsto stream table, etc.
³ In the water quality station,students test the temperature, turbidity,and pH or the water.
Question Two: What is the difference between erosion and deposition?
Based on reflections from the 2013 Fall program assessments summary, question two was
adjusted from “What causes erosion and deposition in a stream?” with one point allotted for an
answer addressing each process. We saw a 6% increase of one point and a 25% increase of two
points for this question. This is a significant amount seeing as many students were unable to
gain additional points because they were awarded the total amount (two) on the pre- and post-
assessment. While this re-wording addressed the problem of students only answering for one

6. process, it proved to be difficult to evaluate answers that indicated the relationship between
erosion and deposition (i.e. different speeds).
Question Three: Fill in the blank: “If I were to visit a creek, I would want to ___ because ___”
The third question was coded and evaluated for behaviors students would demonstrate ranging
from playing to observing to participating in something scientific to acting as a steward. We
were looking for changes from playing or observing to the Homewaters-specific goal of making
science accessible or IslandWood’s overarching goal of stewardship behaviors. From “1”
(playing) or “2” (observing), there was a 12% change to scientific actions and a 22% change to
stewardship. Once again, some disparity can be attributed to students who answered a “3”
(scientific) or “4” (stewardship) in the pre- and post-assessment. Looking forward, it may be
interesting to see if students would answer the question differently they were asked to imagine
themselves visiting the creek as a scientist. This may engage them to think more about
investigations and observations, rather than resorting to answers they may personally enjoy or
find silly (i.e. go swimming because it is fun).
Question Four: “If I was a salmon, I would want to live in a stream in my neighborhood…”
For question four, the change in points was recorded as well as coding for pre-assessment
answers. It also incited a large range of answers, from never having been to a stream to the
neighborhood being dangerous to being familiar with their surroundings. The largest reason
stated for not wanting to live in their local stream at 21% was dirty water/pollution/litter. Most
other answers were random, majority including something about being eaten or being in
familiar surroundings/close to family. In the future, re-wording is needed to adequately clarify
to students that it isn’t asking if they want to be a salmon, but where they would choose to live
if they were already a salmon.
Question Five: Add to the list of things people can do to help a stream
Question five is a fairly open-ended assessment of human influences on a stream. A 7%
increase of three to four answers was found. While some of the discrepancy can be accredited
to students given three to four points in the pre-assessment, other examples include an
absence of discussion within the students field study group, lack of understanding of the
question, or an addition of one to two answers to the list. Since 7% is not a significant number
(26 students out of 376) and human influences relate directly to one of Homewaters’ goals, in
the future a lesson could be dedicated solely to human influences.

7. Question Six: What are the steps scientists take to answer a field study question?
Understanding of the scientific process is something Homewaters strives to encourage and
reinforce in students as a way to indicate scientific learning. There was a 9% increase of three
points for students, a 4% increase of four points, and a 1% increase of five points. Looking at
the increase in points awarded, it seems that the scientific process should either be more
present in the lessons or eliminated completely for a different assessment of science learning.
Question Seven
After assessing the answers provided for question seven, Homewaters is re-evaluating the value
of them. While they provide interesting knowledge, many students went backwards in points
(for example from “agree” to “disagree”) and it is unknown whether it was because they simply
did not remember their previous answer or if in fact they actually were less interested in those
topics. Rather, there could be a simple question of engagement included in its’ place assessing
students’ desire to visit the stream or park. This would fit better into our goals as an
organization, as well.
While a substantial amount of students (96%) showed some form of learning or behavior
change, the change was not as significant in detail (most was in the form of one additional point
or step). Looking ahead, adjustments to the program lessons and teaching techniques will be
considered to improve student learning on a more weighty scale. Efforts will be put towards
emphasis on human influences and the scientific process as well as the return rate of
assessments fromteachers. Perhaps this can be done in a more financially sustainable manner
through the use of pre- and post-lessons administered by a Homewaters Educator in the
classroom. This would reduce teachers’ responsibility, which is presumably one of the factors
influencing the likelihood of receiving assessments. However, the learning revealed by this
assessment analysis proves our goals, as well as the teachers and school districts’ goals, are
being met and in some cases surpassed.