“Pikas live here,” eighth-grader Josiah said, pointing to a massive pile of rock known as a talus alongside Big Meadows Reservoir. He was in the middle of hiking around the lake during his second day of a Pagosa Peak Open School (PPOS) middle school camp trip.
While he couldn’t point out a pika in that moment, he would have the chance to do so the next day.
Students had hiked the Continental Divide trail earlier in the trip, continuing their work with Keith Bruno from the Audubon Society on a state-wide project referred to as PikaNet (aka, the Colorado Pika Project). After starting this work with Bruno in October 2019, students were eager to get back to keeping an eye on this local creature.
“This particular project calls on us layfolk to keep tabs on these furry friends of the high country with advancing average temperatures and climate change concerns,” Bruno said. “And though COVID-19 has put a huge damper on what we do with schools for the last year and a half, these students – now eighth-graders – realize that the show must go on.”
According to Bruno, during their work in 2019, the class of then sixth-grade students walked up on the Continental Divide to characterize and initiate their own American pika (Ochotona princeps) monitoring plot in a large talus field near Wolf Creek Ski Area.
“We saw many pikas and their hay piles,” Middle School Science Teacher Kesley Scott said about the group’s most recent Continental Divide hike. “The next day, the eighth-graders were supposed to go up and collect their second set of data on the pika, however; due to weather we chose to study the pika closer to the campsite and at a little lower in elevation.”
“Students now have two locations where they will return one to two times a year to monitor occupancy, and size-up the health of pika populations (and their school mascot) in the southern San Juan Mountains in perpetuity. I think it’s an awesome project and one that can be passed down from class-to-class over the years at PPOS to ensure we monitor a likely beacon of a changing environment,” Bruno said.
The trip gave the students a chance to do more than merely continue their research.
“We are hopeful that the time together reinforced old friendships and created new ones,” Middle School Humanities Teacher Brooks Letchworth said. “We’re confident that we all made lasting memories of life at – and outside of – PPOS.”
Emily Murphy is School Director at Pagosa Peak Open School, the first District-authorized charter school in Archuleta County. Prior to her appointment as School Director, Emily filled various roles at PPOS including Project-Based Learning advisor, instructional coach, and assistant director.