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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2022
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Ukraine
Continued from Page 1A
“With this, it all came together and
they made these connections,” Peton
said. “Suddenly my students were like,
‘Oh, this is why you wanted us to know
about NATO. This is what alliances do
when things happen on the world stage
today.’”
Peton has continued to give students
time to discuss, process and ask ques-
tions, as well as incorporating what is
happening in Ukraine into her recent les-
sons. In the last couple weeks, she’s cov-
ered the end of Apartheid, tying discus-
sions of how economic sanctions were
used against South Africa back then to
how nations are using them against Rus-
sia now.
“These connections between what is
happening in the world and what has
happened are important. Those echoes
from the past really influence things that
happen today,” Peton said.
Fostering curiosity
Daniel Correa, a social studies teacher
at South, spent a class period in the days
leading up to Russia’s invasion taking a
deep dive into Ukraine and Russia with
his students. Students were assigned
questions to research and present, like
what NATO is. Then they were given the
space to ask questions themselves.
“They showed a high interest in [dis-
cussing the war]. They understood that
this doesn’t happen over the course of
two weeks and they were able to ask:
how did we get to this point? What
events took place that led us to Russia
wanting Ukraine?” Correa said.
Since then, Correa has started every
class period allowing his students to ask
questions and giving them time to dis-
cuss things they had seen or read about
the war.
“I can’t say enough how important it
is for kids to discuss things happening in
the world around them and understand
what is going on,” Correa said.
The human element of war
Correa and Nickel found that their
students are drawn most to the human
elements of the war. Framing the inva-
sion through that lens and discussing vi-
ral stories, helped students better under-
stand what was happening, Correa said.
More coverage:Salem couple from
Ukraine joins rally for peace: ‘We cannot
sleep, we cannot eat’
Students wanted to know if Ukrai-
nian farmers were really stealing tanks
or if the videos of Russian soldiers call-
ing their parents were real. And these
stories can lead to important larger dis-
cussions.
A few classes ago, Correa’s students
had questions about the Ghost of Kiev,
which sparked a discussion about prop-
aganda. In Nickel’s class, one of the stu-
dents has Type I Diabetes, which led to a
discussion on how people in Ukraine are
dealing with medical conditions that re-
quire specialized medication.
“Numbers are numbers, but bring in
first-person accounts, people who are
talking about what it was like in Uk-
DJ Correa teaches a U.S. history class at South Salem High School on Thursday. PHOTOS BY BRIAN HAYES/STATESMAN JOURNAL
raine... That’s the thing that matters,”
Nickel said.
Fighting misinformation
Peton, Correa and Nickel all pointed to
social media as a huge influence on stu-
dents and their understanding of the
events in Ukraine. Coming into class,
many of the students had only con-
sumed information from their social
media feeds and that posed a hefty set of
challenges.
For one, students have little control
over what is in their feeds – it’s all algo-
rithmic.
So, information flooded students’ so-
cial media in the first days of the war,
without them having to do anything, and
now it’s almost completely faded from
many of their accounts, Correa said. For
Correa’s students, the shift in the
amount of Ukraine content being shown
to them was so dramatic that they dis-
cussed it in class.
“We talked about how all of a sudden
now we don’t see as much about the war
on social media and we were trying to
figure out why. Is it because it’s been go-
ing on for a longer time? Is that just how
fast the news cycle turns over?” Correa
said.
On top of this inconsistency in the
amount of content, it’s extremely chal-
lenging for students to be able to verify
the validity of things they see on social
media.
Nickel has used the war to help teach
students how to find and verify informa-
tion they see online. They’ve discussed
the unreliability of social media and the
importance of thinking critically about
how and where they get their informa-
tion.
“We talked about what makes news
sources good and why social media is a
bad example. I had students sharing ex-
amples of things that they had found on
social media that their own devices had
been pushing to them,” Nickel said.
Nickel’s students have learned how to
confirm stories across multiple plat-
forms and they’ve come up with systems
to sift through the information they find.
Continuing the discussion
As the war and discussions have pro-
gressed, Nickel has seen engagement in
his students grow. The other day, one
student pulled out notes she had taken
on things she’d seen about the war in the
past 48 hours.
“My job is to get them to become criti-
cal thinkers and to give them informa-
tion that they can take to then draw con-
clusions for themselves. And they’ve
come up with great questions,” Nickel
said.
The students want to know about ref-
ugees and what was happening to them.
And they’re curious about native Rus-
sian perspectives and what they think
and know about the war.
They want to know what the possibil-
ities are going forward in the war, and
what could happen afterward. And
they’re curious about how to verify if or-
ganizations asking for donations for Uk-
rianians are actually providing them to
Ukraine.
“These are great questions that
they’re asking, and, as a teacher, I get to
count that as a big win because they’re
doing the critical thinking piece,” Nickel
said.
An important opportunity
Correa noted that the kids lack of
knowledge when the crisis started point-
ed to a larger gap in the current social
studies educational model. There are
more than 30 years of modern history –
from the Cold War on – that are rarely
taught in classrooms, Correa said.
But, incorporating current events into
social studies classes can help close that
gap.
“Some of them were like, well, we re-
member learning about the Cold War,
but then their history in high school
stops there... There’s 30 something years
of modern history that they don’t get a
whole class on. So, this is kind of filling in
those buffers,” Correa said.
Nickel is using the refugee crisis in
Ukraine to pivot and discuss other refu-
gee crises across the globe in recent
years – Afghanistan, Syria, Columbia.
And he doesn’t want them to stop draw-
ing connections there.
Nickel, Correa and Peton all want
their students to take the information
and skills they’re learning as they talk
about the war in Ukraine and use them to
understand what is happening, even
when they aren’t in class.
“The door to our classroom is not a
barrier, it’s a gateway. And when we
learn something in here, you don’t leave
it behind,” Nickel said.
Trees
Continued from Page 1A
The guided tree climb, open to any-
one 8 and older, typically takes about
four hours and starts at $149 per person.
There are more exotic options, including
a sunset climb, an advanced climb, and
a kid’s camp.
The business is on a special use per-
mit from the Oregon Parks and Recrea-
tion Department that seeks to diversify
recreation at state parks. Each business
gets a 1-year pilot year to see if the recre-
ation is a good fit for the park. If not, the
agency can cancel the contract.
“The goal is to have multiple things
for people to do while they’re here, and
this adds a nice new option,” interim
park manager Chris Gilliand said. “Ev-
erybody knows and loves the Trail of 10
Falls, but this is a way to bring people
out and take them into a different part of
the park.”
A guided horseback riding trip, which
started in 2019 and was also on a special
use permit, was impacted by the CO-
VID-19 shutdowns and hasn't returned
to business, Gilliand said.
Rosen-Fischer has offered guided
tree climbing for over 10 years in Wash-
ington — and he still runs trips up there
— but said the chance to expand to Sil-
ver Falls was too good to pass up.
“Silver Falls is an amazing place to
begin with, and it has some glorious and
huge trees in the backcountry,” he said.
“It’s some of the best old-growth located
closer to big, urban centers like Salem
and Portland, so it was a really good lo-
cation for this.”
There are usually two trips offered
per day — one beginning at 9 a.m. and
another at 1 p.m. There’s usually four
people per climb, plus the guide.
The trip starts in the Howard Creek
and Buck Mountain trailhead parking
area. That’s where Rosen-Fischer gets
climbers used to the harness and equip-
ment, does demonstrations and even
“Everybody knows and loves the Trail
of 10 Falls, but this is a way to bring
people out and take them into a
different part of the park.” Chris
Gilliand said.
Climbers ascend into the canopy at Silver Falls State Park following a new
business that takes people to the tops of nearly 300-foot trees.
PHOTOS BY LEO ROSEN-FISCHER / TREE CLIMBING AT SILVER FALLS
Climbers ascending into the canopy at
Silver Falls State Park.
How to get started
Website:https://www.treeclimbingatsilverfalls.com/
Email:info@treeclimbingatsilverfalls.com
Phone: 206-914-8613
has them practice climbs on a smaller
tree, working on ascending the ropes
and rappelling back down.
Then, it’s onto the big trees, with a
five- to -15 minute walk to one of four
trees that rise to heights that range from
200 to 300 feet tall. The tallest is about
280 feet, Rosen-Fischer said.
Climbers use hand and foot “ascend-
ers” to move up ropes that are set up in
the trees.
“It’s kind of like doing a squat to
move up the rope,” Rosen-Fischer said.
“Most people can do it, but it does take
some physical work. We have extra
equipment that includes a battery-pow-
ered ascender if someone isn’t physical-
ly able, that basically pulls you up the
ropes.”
(The battery powered ascender costs
an extra $75 since it can eat up the ropes
more rapidly).
The view from the top includes the
forest, rivers and mountains in the dis-
tance — and the sun setting over the
Willamette Valley if you take the sunset
climb. None of the waterfalls are visible,
however.
Rosen-Fischer said he takes the time
during the climb to talk to guests about
the ecology of old-growth forests and
canopies.
“It really is one of the most unique
adventures that you can have,” he said.
“A lot of people don’t think about climb-
ing trees, but there really is nothing like
being at the top, especially in a place like
Silver Falls.”
Zach Urness has been an outdoors re-
porter in Oregon for 15 years and is host
of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To sup-
port his work, subscribe to the States-
man Journal.Urness is the author of
“Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hik-
ing Southern Oregon.” He can be reached
at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or
(503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at
@ZachsORoutdoors.