Teaching Geography Workshop 8: Global Forces Local Impact – Part 2: Oregon and
Pennsylvania
JIM BINKO:
Any look at the interaction of human societies and the environment must
take into account the profound part played by water resources. As we’ll
see in our next case study, competition can be fierce when water is
scarce. Such is the case in Northeast Oregon where farmers and Native
American fishermen both lay claim to the precious water vital to their
existence.
This contest is a direct reflection of the changes that occur in the
meaning, use, distribution and importance of resources. A solid
understanding of how resource use changes over time is crucial to
comprehending this struggle.
Often the problem is of our own making. This case study makes clear
how human actions modify the physical environment. We will see
how dams and irrigation in Oregon interfere with the salmon fishery that
Native Americans and others depend on.
As you watch, evaluate the ways in which technology has expanded
our capacity to modify the physical environment and think about the
long-term effects of these modifications. To explore the salmon problem
in Oregon, we investigate the characteristics and spatial distribution
of ecosystems on Earth's surface. The water's path from tributary to
river to ocean is at the heart of the salmon's ecosystem. Here, the idea of
a watershed is useful. Where does the water flow? Where does it start?
Where does it go? Since we all live in watersheds, teachers can create
environmental lessons with a local, hands-on component. After the
Oregon case study, we will see two classes that do this in different ways.
NARRATOR:
Not long ago, millions of salmon returned each year to spawn in the
Columbia River. Native Americans here once depended on the fish for
their survival. Now their nets are often empty. The salmon have almost
vanished. Forming a natural border between Oregon and Washington
state, the Columbia River and its branches provide precious water for the
people and wildlife along its path. This is the story of one Columbia
tributary: the effort to restore salmon here, on the Umatilla River in
northeast Oregon. How can geography explain competition over a scarce
resource?
In the early 1990s, Indian biologists like Ken Hall began an ambitious
project to revive the Umatilla for salmon breeding. Here in the mountains,
there is plenty of water, but human activity left the river uniformly shallow,
like this. Good for minnows, but not salmon. By piling up rocks like this,
the tribes created deeper pools.
HALL:
And now we have some depth and some cover for the adult salmon. We
know we've got a couple of hundred up in this system.
NARRATOR:
So some fish have returned. The problem is the way they now travel here
from the ocean. The fish have to be trapped and driven in trucks from
locations downstream.
Here is where they are trapped. There is sufficient water here. And here,
near the reservation, is where they breed. Again, there is enough water
for the salmon. The problem is here, in the river's midsection. The fish,
and even the water here, have all but disappeared. In the nearly dry
riverbed, tribe member Roberta Joy Wilson now walks where the salmon
once swam.
WILSON:
The rivers are the lifeblood of the land, and slowly, that's being drained
away. It's just a real devastation to our way of life.
NARRATOR:
So where did the water go? This dam provides a clue. Now, as water
flows down the Umatilla, instead of continuing along its original course,
the dam diverts it into this canal. The canal flows west, to dozens of
places subsidized by the government. They are best seen in a satellite
photograph-- hundreds of circular, irrigated fields in the lower Umatilla
Valley. One of these farms is owned by Chet Pryor.
Decades ago, the government provided water to farmers like Pryor,
hoping to stimulate economic development in this region. It has been a
great success. With center-pivot irrigation, Pryor grows carrots, wheat,
alfalfa, and potatoes.
CHET PRYOR:
This is a Russet Burbank variety that we use for the French fry industry
here. The reason we use this variety is because it's ideally suited variety,
along with our growing conditions, to meet the high standards that the
French fry industry demands now, not only for our domestic market, but
also for our export market.
NARRATOR:
Pryor grows over 15,000 tons of potatoes a year. Most of them are
brought here to the Simplot Company, where they are processed before
shipment to McDonald's. In one year, the Umatilla Valley produces
almost $100 million of agricultural crops. But the salmon are also a
valuable resource here. Why isn't there enough water for both?
(\wind rumbling\)
NARRATOR:
Below the reservation, the Umatilla River flows through a near desert.
The natural vegetation is sagebrush and scrub. The lack of water plagues
and even defines the Western Mountains region. But in several places
here, with lots of federal spending, farmers have made the desert bloom.
Their success has come at the expense of the Indians and the salmon.
WILSON:
Water has become a very, very valuable commodity, but the place that
it's most valuable is right where it should be, and that's in the river itself.
NARRATOR:
Below the farms, unused irrigation water eventually flows back into the
Umatilla, which explains why there is enough water downstream. But
here, in the river's midsection, two different ways of life compete over a
scarce resource. The farmers' water rights go back to the 1920s, when
the government funded irrigation canals like this. But the tribes' water and
fishing rights are based on 150-year-old treaties that include these
historic locations on the Columbia.
Armed with the senior water rights and a desperate desire to restore
Umatilla salmon, the Indians threaten legal action. If they want, they
could destroy the farm economy here.
PRYOR:
ANTONE
MINTHORN:
Without water in this area, we virtually are, have no way to raise any kind
of a crop that we're producing now, except dryland wheat, which is not
really viable in this area.
It's not that we will not litigate, it is that we want to try to work it out first,
but if we have to litigate, then we will litigate.
WALTER FITE:
To say the least, these negotiations have been like the world's largest
roller coaster. There's huge ups and huge downs, and even upside-down
loops. Right now, I would say that we're into one of those dips and the
negotiations have basically broken off.
NARRATOR:
As long as the tribes and the farmers both fight over the Umatilla, there is
little hope for compromise. The mutual solution is to find a different
source of water.
Eventually, they find it here, in the Columbia River. But it is miles away
and lower in elevation. With both sides yearning for a settlement, the
feuding locals unite to lobby the U.S. Congress. The result: 50 million
federal taxpayer dollars completes a major engineering project in 1999.
The plant pumps water up the hills through a 5-foot pipe, dumping it into
this pool near the irrigation districts. From here, it flows by gravity in these
canals and feeds the farms in three of the four irrigation districts. Now
more Umatilla water stays in the river year-round.
Fish bred in hatcheries upstream have returned to a river with much more
water. These spring-run salmon are channeled into a special fish
elevator, and lifted up here where technicians count, measure, and learn
the sex of the fish. Then, most of them pass out the pipes to continue up
the river. The tribes are cautiously celebrating their initial success.
GARY JAMES:
We began releasing salmon in the early '80s, and I remember our first
return of 13 fish. We were elated with the spring Chinook run. Here in
2000, today, we're celebrating a salmon return to the Umatilla Basin. This
year, we'll probably have 5,000 spring Chinook salmon returning.
NARRATOR:
While the prospects for salmon have improved on the Umatilla, the fish
are ever more endangered on the larger Columbia. The biggest problems
are the dams themselves. There was an organized movement to actually
tear some of the dams down. The western energy crisis got even worse
in 2001, making hydroelectric power even more essential. These issues
will have to be resolved through the political process, and a spatial
perspective is key to understanding the past and the future. Most of the
electrical power comes from dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in
the Western Mountains. But the transmission lines lead to the consumers
of electricity in another region, and they reveal the location of political and
economic power.
This is where many decisions about water use will be made. These are
the growing urban centers near Portland and Seattle. The cities lie in a
region geographers call the Pacific Coast, and the difference from the
Western Mountains is dramatic: population density; the location of major
manufacturing. But why are these features so unevenly distributed? The
area's physical geography is revealed at a different scale.
The Pacific Coast receives plenty of rain and snow. As moist air moves in
from the Pacific Ocean, the Cascade Mountains force it higher. As it
rises, the air cools and condenses most heavily in areas shown in dark
blue. The east is left in an arid rain shadow. This is where geographers
draw the boundary of the Western Mountains. It's a line we should etch
into our mental maps. On one side, the growing population along the
Pacific Coast has become more protective of its lush, natural
environment, including the salmon. Now, as more nets come up empty,
commercial fishermen and environmentalists on the coast have formed
an unlikely alliance with the Indians of the Western Mountains. However,
the demand for energy by growing populations, coupled with increased
environmental awareness, will force people in both regions to face some
hard choices over a scarce resource.
GIL LATZ:
As we saw in Oregon, geographic regions don't always correspond with
political boundaries, like state or national borders. Rather, geographers
define regions according to broad areas of physical, cultural, or economic
similarities. Some geographers, for instance, include maritime British
Columbia not with the rest of Canada, but in this region that runs most of
the way through California.
Within Canada, most geographers agree on the significance of one subregion in particular. To the east, Quebec is a French enclave in otherwise
Anglo America. Although it will remain for now in Canada, Quebec may
someday form its own state. In any case, its strong French history and
character mean its neighbors can never take its integration for granted.
Elsewhere in North America, regional definitions are changing. The old
manufacturing belt is shifting south, in part to find lower wages, friendlier
unions, and more room to cluster new, just-in-time assembly systems.
Automobile makers and their suppliers have moved to southern Indiana,
South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. For a geographer, regions are
not frozen in place, not fixed on a map. Rather, they are flexible concepts
to help categorize and analyze our ever-changing world.
SUSAN HARDWICK: This case study was especially interesting to me, because when I first
moved to Oregon, I mainly pictured green, forested mountains, forgetting,
like most newcomers from California, that the largest part of the state is
desert. This Eastside Oregon story is about conflict over water resources,
and it's about how geographic insights may help resolve such issues.
Resource disputes happen all over the globe. Conflicts over ocean fishing
rights are an ongoing source of international tension. In the South China
Sea, a host of countries are trying to take control of potentially vast
underwater oil, gas, and mineral deposits. And, in one of the most wellpublicized conflicts over land use and resources, global environmentalists
are pitted against agricultural settlers in the Brazilian rain forest. The
environmentalists' push to preserve the rain forest may seem
irreconcilable to the settlers' struggle for economic survival, but a
geographical analysis may be pointing the way toward a workable
compromise. A spatial analysis of forest regeneration has shown that an
adjustment of the land-use pattern can speed forest recovery
dramatically. Hope for the resolution of the world's water- and land-use
conflicts depends in part on the insights that geographical analysis can
provide.
BINKO:
We know that most of the earth's surface is covered by water. That is the
good news. We are reminded, also, that less than one percent of that
water is available for human consumption. That is the scary news. Is it
little wonder then, that water is now a very hot topic for examination by
students in many academic disciplines? In our next segment, two
teachers will show us how they are making this vital resource a topic of
real significance and importance to their students.
First, we join Marlene Brubaker’s ninth grade earth science class on a
walk through Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Here, we see first-hand how
Philadelphia’s development has changed this important water resource.
Next, Mary Pat Evans of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania leads her students in a
scientific inquiry into the factors affecting water quality in their community.
Her students use field research and GIS technology to develop and test
hypotheses about the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
We will see both teachers advocate a problem-solving, first-hand
observational, field-based approach to investigate water issues.. As you
watch, look for ways to explain the use of first-hand observation, field
research, and GIS to show how human actions modify the physical
environment.
NARRATOR:
Historic Bartram's Gardens, located on the outskirts of Philadelphia. At
Historic Bartram’s Garden, Marlene Brubaker’s environmental science
class will see the dramatic effect that humans have had on their city’s
water resources. Bartram’s guide Debra Olsen explains.
DEBRA OLSEN:
As you go to the different sites that are involved in the Peopling of
Philadelphia Program, the idea is to try and piece together how the city
grew over time and how it changed and how people impacted the
environment.
NARRATOR:
Their tour takes them to the banks of the Schuylkill River, an important
water resource throughout Philadelphia’s history. As they walk, students
come upon striking evidence of how the river has changed. Along the wall
here, can anybody tell me what this is?
GIRL:
The... where the water was.
BOY:
Level. How can you tell?
(\various answers\)
OLSEN:
What does it say? Okay, can you read the date?
BOY:
Seventeen... eighteen... Eighty-two. Eighty-two.
OLSEN:
1782-- there's another one here but the date's been cut off. Yeah. Okay,
so 1782, this is where~ the tide came up... so none of this was here. All
right?
BRUBAKER:
Well, I could tell a kid, and we could read in a book, "Yes, the Schuylkill
River now is no longer as high as it used to be." But if you go down to the
riverside and you get to see these markings... they can see for
themselves and now they completely understand, "Ah, yes, something
has happened."
OLSEN:
Now from 1850 to 2001, how much water did we lose?
CLASS:
Pretty much.
OLSEN:
Wherever the tree line is, that’s where the water stopped. We've lost
about eight feet.
GIRL:
Damn!
OLSEN:
What’s going to happen if we keep pulling water out of this river?
GIRL:
It’s eventually going to dry out.
OLSEN:
The thing with Philadelphia is our population is shrinking in the city.
Everybody is moving to the 'burbs. People who live in an urban
environment use much less water on the whole. We're actually kinder to
the earth than people who are living out in the 'burbs in their, you know,
big houses. And so, you know, it’s not bad to live in the city. Actually,
we’re very, very kind to the earth, and I love the city.
BRUBAKER:
Well, when students leave ninth grade, I like them to have a distinct
stewardship attitude towards their planet-- they can be part of the
solution, that they’re not necessarily part of the problem. A lot of
students, especially inner-city students, are often told they are part of the
problem. And doing these sorts of classes shows that they can actually
be part of the solution.
NARRATOR:
90 miles away in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, students study watersheds
through a mix of high and low tech. Here, geography is taught in a
science class.
EVANS:
We’re going to try to get some measurements here. We want to know
what’s going on with the pH and the alkalinity.
NARRATOR:
Teacher Mary Pat Evans involves her students with these scientists from
ALLARM, a statewide water quality monitoring project.
EVANS:
What are you looking for, Michael?
MICHAEL:
The color, try and match up the colors.
EVANS:
Right, match up the colors, good. He’s... he's good at this.
EVANS:
What do you think?
MICHAEL:
Seven.
EVANS:
The pH is seven. And Robbie, you’re going to keep this data for us in the
ArcPad.
NARRATOR:
Evans gets all the students involved-- recording their data using low-cost
GPS receivers, Palm Pilots and digital cameras. It’s an effective
approach, even with paper maps and pads.
EVANS:
They’re making observations. That’s part of science inquiry. It’s got to
begin with a good observation. Good observations lead to good
hypotheses.
NARRATOR:
When the class gets back to school, they first review the inquiry question
that organizes their lesson.
EVANS:
Why is pH and alkalinity so important to Pennsylvania watersheds?
Katherine?
KATHERINE:
Because of the acid rain.
EVANS:
Good, that’s right because of acid rain. And the pH measurements that
we see here could end up in the Chesapeake Bay. What kinds of things
are in the Chesapeake Bay that we want to protect? What kind... Daisha?
DAISHA:
Fish. The fish that are there, that’s right.
NARRATOR:
Evans then links the large watershed back to the students’ own streams.
EVANS:
So acid rain would be in measurements below five. Have we been finding
pH values of five when we do this?
STUDENTS:
No.
EVANS:
What are the pH values you usually get when we go out on the Greenbelt
and do our measurements?
STUDENTS:
7.5.
EVANS:
Yeah, usually around 7 or 7.5. That’s a good thing.
NARRATOR:
Good because high pH neutralizes or buffers acid rain. Thanks to
geology, much of Pennsylvania is luckier than most states.
EVANS:
If we look at our... look at our paper here, okay, it says that most alkalinity
comes from... the underlying rock in this area, and, in particular,
limestone.
BOY:
Yeah. Okay. I remember that.
STUDENTS:
Remember we talked about that when we were out doing the Snapshot
2000? Okay. Let’s go to our database. Now, if we go over here to site
number three, four and five, those represent the Paxton Creek
watershed. Now, number five, we’ve got a really strange measurement
there-- an average of 4.8, that doesn’t seem right. Okay, and really low
alkalinity measurements there, too, compared to the other sites.
NARRATOR:
To put this measurement into context, the students review their data in
ArcView, a Geographical Information System, or GIS. They first look at a
scale where they can see a source of acid rain.
EVANS:
Okay, now we see all of the watersheds that are located in Pennsylvania.
Let’s grab the map, and let’s see what other states are close by to
Pennsylvania. Click on that state, let’s see what it is.
BOY:
Michigan.
EVANS:
What state is it?
BOY:
Michigan.
EVANS:
Michigan, that’s right. Detroit is located in Michigan. What kinds of
industries are in Detroit?
BOY:
Um... I don’t know.
EVANS:
Anybody want to help him out? Robbie, do you know?
BOY:
Steel?
EVANS:
Steel.
BOY:
They make cars!
EVANS:
They make cars. And if the prevailing wind is northwest, and it’s coming
from that direction, where are a lot of the pollutants coming from?
BOY:
Michigan and Ohio.
EVANS:
Right, Michigan and Ohio, very good.
NARRATOR:
Then Evans changes scale and brings it down to the local level, always
allowing the students to control the technology.
EVANS:
First of all, you can see that this is the state of Pennsylvania. We can see
our data is right in the middle where Dauphin County is located. Danisha,
do you see where our points are?
DANISHA:
There.
EVANS:
Okay, that’s where our data is. Now I’d like to drill into, go close to our
county and then use the hand tool and bring it to the middle of the
screen. Good, Robbie, that’s right. Okay, now you can see the green
points are representative of our water monitoring sites.
NARRATOR:
Evans’ questions encourage critical thinking in her students.
EVANS:
Okay, Robbie, why do we have just a few~~ sites close together
compared to what you see ALLARM has measurements all over the
county?
ROBBIE:
Probably because we don’t have the time, or access to long-range
transportation.
EVANS:
That’s right, as a school... any school group that might want to go out and
do GIS, they have to pick sites close to each other. And, actually, we’re
lucky in central Pennsylvania to have a couple of different watersheds
close together.
NARRATOR:
Finally, after laying the geographical groundwork, Evans introduces the
factor that may explain their one unusual measurement, the one so high
in acid.
EVANS:
Let’s add the streams by clicking on the stream layer. There’s a lot of
water-- a lot of watersheds, a lot of creeks in our area. And so, let’s now
go and add the roads. Look at the network of roads you can see. All of
that development is going to affect the watersheds in this area.
NARRATOR:
Development, roads. Why would they contribute to acid in the streams?
So often in GIS, or any map exercise, there’s a crucial next step.
EVANS:
And it really takes going out and doing the ground-truthing. When we got
out there, and the students sat down next to the creek... (\cars whooshing
on highway\) And then they started hearing the cars on the highway and
saying, "Hey, you know it might be that this highway's right here."
EVANS:
Do you remember from when we were talking about this back at school?
What kind of pH values we got for this site?
BOY:
Yeah, we got, like, 5.8
EVANS:
Right, we got really low values, Alex. Right? We got like fives and sixes.
What do you think's going on here? What do you think, Alex?
ALEX:
I think it’s the road.
EVANS:
You think it’s the road causing the difference? What else could be going
on here? What do you think, Katherine?
KATHERINE:
The acid rain from, like... it goes down on the road and then falls into
the...
EVANS:
Okay, so you think maybe the acid rain, when the water comes down, hits
the road, it doesn’t have a chance to percolate through the ground here.
Right. It goes right into the creek?
KATHERINE:
Right.
EVANS:
That’s a good... I mean, there are a lot of highways around here. 81’s
right there, interstate 81. Pennsylvania Route 322 is right there. There’s a
lot of intersections of major highways in this one location, so that’s a
good hypothesis. That’s perhaps what’s going on.
EVANS:
The observation about the highway being close to our site that had the
low pH value leads to asking more questions, and more spatial questions.
And that requires them to go out and use the scientific method, test the
hypothesis, test those locations, and then map the locations. It involves
asking where things are and then why that’s affecting the environment. It
has to do with geography.
EVANS:
You know, there’s limestone here, but unless the water gets a chance to
hit the limestone, you’re not going to have any buffering of the pH. Okay.
Thank you.
BINKO:
Several salient features of good teaching and solid geography are
apparent in the efforts of these two teachers. First, it is important that the
content be relevant to students’ lives, like their own watershed.
Geography makes more sense this way, and it makes it easier to learn.
Second, learning geography is more effective when it is intended to solve
real problems and is guided by the inquiry process in the hands of a
skilled teacher. Racing through facts simply doesn’t do it, and it never did.
Third, technology can open new venues for geographic investigation,
many previously thought impractical or impossible. And finally, the
classroom climate must be such that students can take the risk to ask,
speculate, and answer questions about why things are the way they are-to be the analysts and the critical thinkers we say we want them to be.
These are the features of the education valued and exercised by Marlene
Brubaker and Mary Pat Evans. Throughout this series, I hope you have
seen that inquiry learning can be applied in a variety of ways, and that it
can flow naturally from the principles outlined in the National Geography
Standards. Using the inquiry approach and drawing on the standards
provides students with an engaging learning environment, and
encourages them to take ownership of the learning process. And when
students make learning their own, they develop critical thinking skills and
attain true understanding of the concepts so crucial to being
geographically informed citizens. And, as educators, our role is to guide
them on that path. Thank you for joining us on our global journey.