Target 2 – Leadership in a Student Centered Learning Environment. FWSU will foster development of teacher and student leaders who provide innovative opportunities for local and global student-centered learning.

Action Step -Provide multiple avenues for students and staff to lead, advocate, and serve within the school and community.

Indicator of Success – Student voice will have the power to impact the perceptions of others.

BFA High School students Alex Ferguson and David Legris with Science Teacher Thomas Lane participated in four-day workshop at Saint Michael’s College this past summer.

Dave Legris (left) grinds plant material while Alex Ferguson examines stomatal density.

What Alex Ferguson sees in the microscope. He is counting the number of stoma per unit area.

The Leaves of Green workshop was an opportunity for high school teachers and students to explore how carbon is assimilated and partitioned by plants and how these processes affect agriculture, global climate change, and biofuel production.

The workshop incorporated class lecture, laboratory work, use of laboratory equipment and activities with other high school teams. The culminating event featured oral presentations on research conducted by each team.

Our students are continuing to develop leadership in this important area of scientific research.

Dave Legris and Alex Ferguson measure respiration rate using specialized flasks.

Alex Ferguson and Dave Legris measure transpiration rate of the plant suspended in the foreground using a Vernier gas pressure analyzer.

Alex Ferguson and David Legris present their results comparing stomatal density, transpiration and photosynthetic rates between C3 and C4 grasses. (C3 grasses evolved much earlier than C4 plants) to other high school teams and instructors at SMC.