Service learning helps to foster responsibility and can easily be integrated into an academic curriculum to enhance the learning experience, as you will see in the following story about a project conducted by third graders at South Elementary School in St. Peter, Minn.
To find out how your school can participate in such a program with The Raptor Center, please contact Gail Buhl at 612-624-3261 or gailbuhl@umn.edu.
A Community Inspired by Raptors
The central purpose of The Raptor Center's service mission is to compel people to take action to ensure the health of raptors and the world we share. The almost 500 students of South Elementary School in St. Peter, Minnesota, did just that during the past school year.
The idea came from Karen Ferrington, a third-grade teacher. Inspired by the bald eagles that frequent the riverbanks of her community, Karen designed a yearlong service-learning project focusing on the bald eagle. Called the "Year of the Eagle," the curriculum focused on the bald eagle and other raptors. In math, students studied population and migration, in language arts, they read and wrote stories about raptors, and in science, they studied raptors and the environment.
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Students created a bald eagle mosaic out of coins.
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They also set a goal to raise money to help The Raptor Center pay for the care and release of an injured eagle back to the wild. Two large- scale community fund-raising events were planned. The first effort involved the students collecting coins to create a bald eagle mosaic on the gymnasium floor. The students not only brought in money from their own piggy banks, they encouraged neighbors and family members to put out collection jars at work. The local bank donated gold coins for the eagle¿s eyes and talons, and a math professor at Gustavus Adolphus College assisted the students in translating an eagle drawing into the large mosaic.
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The community rallied to support an environmental festival called "Raptor Rendezvous," a free event featuring the bald eagle mosaic, artwork, and displays created by the students and 18 environmental organizations. These organizations included The Raptor Center, which provided a live raptor-education program featuring a bald eagle. The fund-raising portion of the evening was a spaghetti dinner. The food was donated by the community and served by members of the local Kiwanis Club, so the parents could have time to enjoy the event with their children.
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Laura Ellis presented a bald eagle program to students at South Elementary School in St. Peter, Minn.
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Together, these efforts generated more than $2,600. The majority of the proceeds were used to purchase Raptor Center education programs and support the release of a rehabilitated eagle. The students will use the balance of the funds for a raptor event during this coming school year.
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TRC volunteer Carol Banks handed a rehabilitated bald eagle to St. Peter, Minn., teacher Karen Ferrington for release.
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The yearlong project culminated in the release of a bald eagle on the school grounds on May 19. After a powerful toss by Karen Ferrington, the teacher who started it all, the eagle turned 180 degrees, swooped right over the heads of the squealing students, and circled overhead a few times before flying off toward the river. It is moments like these that only nature can create -- moments like these that we hope will cement these students' passion for raptors and inspire them to walk with an eye to the sky and a commitment to protect these amazing creatures forever.
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