A little bird told me
By Andrea P
Zorro the American Kestrel is way out of his element. Were he a normal raptor, he would be soaring over Iowa's fields and prairies.
Instead, he is in front of the fifth grade classes of Hoover Elementary School in West Branch, Iowa.
Yet Zorro is in control of the situation. Every child's eyes follow the 8-inch-tall bird as he flicks his tail and hops jauntily onto the arm of Jodeane Cancilla, executive director of the Iowa Raptor Project. Save for one drooping wing, the result of an accident in the wild about 15 years ago, the pearled brown bird is the picture of health. And the center of attention — every child is sitting silent and still as Cancilla begins to speak.
This is one of the 380 lectures the Raptor Project, funded jointly by Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and the Recreation Services Department at The University of Iowa, puts on each year. The project, and those like it, are part of a movement that is changing the way Iowa's educators approach environmental learning. If successful, the method, called Place-Based Education, will transform the way a whole generation of Iowans views the environment.
In the past, the most popular way to instruct children about the outdoors was to teach indoors, according to Dr. Christy Moroye, assistant professor and specialist in environmental education. Chemistry experiments, memorization of textbooks, the collection of data on weather patterns, and other pursuits based on the scientific method, were (and in many cases, still are) standard.
Teach the children
But as the sustainable development and conservation movements find their footing in the mainstream, merely telling children they should love the environment is not enough. A result is Place-Based Education, which focuses on teaching kids about sustainability and conservation through encounters with the creatures with which they share their world. The theory states that through interactions with their habitat, children will develop a love for the environment, and thus a desire to help sustain and nurture it in whatever ways possible.
"With the birds the kids can relate the lessons to real life," said Cancilla. "They can see it and put the pieces together and care about their surroundings instead of just driving down the road."
These children care about what Cancilla has to say. They are riveted on her words, motionless until she asks for questions, whereupon almost every hand is raised. The sudden movement does not ruffle Zorro, though he immediately appears more alert, and emits a soft screech. The kids ask relevant, concerned questions. His wing looks hurt, what do you have to do to make it better? How long until it heals? What should I do if I find a hurt raptor on the ground? Many children know the names and injuries of several other raptors at the center, and ask after their health.
Later, Cancilla introduces the class to Duchess, the Great Horned Owl. She is much more imposing than Zorro, standing about 20 inches tall, with binocular yellow eyes and powerful talons. Her left wing is held akimbo, the result of flying into a power line many years ago.
This is Place- Based Education at its best. The children can learn to love the world outdoors by interacting with Zorro and Duchess, and at the same time they must come face-to-face with issues of the health and well being of these birds. When Cancilla explains how humans can minimize their impact on raptors' habitat, they listen. If the theory holds true, these fifth graders will be more likely to want to make environmentally sound choices in the future.
Take A Hike
It is worth noting that Place-Based Education is not limited to animals — habitats can also be an effective teaching tool.
At Soaring Eagles Nature Center in Clinton County, Naturalist Chuck Jacobsen teaches children about the environment at the center's 40 acres of forest and restored tall grass prairie.
To get messages across to younger generations, Jacobsen said, one must avoid sounding preachy or threatening.
"Our approach to education about pollution is directed at the students’ ability to effect some change," he said. "We don't harp on the troubles the planet faces but rather first those of the students' backyard, then neighborhood, town, county, state, country and finally world."
At Soaring Eagles Nature Center, the children catch insects on the prairie, fish in the pond and go hiking through the forest. During these excursions, Jacobsen leads them in simple activities for improving the quality of their natural surroundings, hoping to shape a mindset of action. In this way, children come to realize that, although they are but a small part of the earth, their efforts can contribute to large-scale change.
Still, not every child gets the opportunity to experience Place-Based Education through the public school system. Though environmental education is required by the state of Iowa, there are no set regulations for what specifically must be taught. Each school district determines what is to be included and how. Because of No Child Left Behind laws, districts often have focused instead on subjects sure to be on the states' standardized tests, relegating environmental education to one science class period on Earth Day or Arbor Day.
"Many of the concepts that can be taught to large groups of students to meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act do not develop the creative skills or the problem- solving skills as well as studies that have integrated environmental education," said Bradley Freidhof, naturalist with the Johnson County Conservation Board.
If education about the environment is taught on only a few days of the year, or confined to a sterile biology lecture, it is unlikely to produce young environmentalists. Place-Based learning theorists seek to foster children's sense of the importance of sustaining their surroundings and preserving the world around them. If this teaching method is correct, environmental lessons must be woven into every part the curriculum in order to translate into greater overall academic success.
A plan in action
Such a shift is already under way in many Iowa schools. In the Iowa City Community School District, two high-performance schools have been built to rigorous environmental design standards: James Van Allen Elementary School, completed in 2005, and North Central Junior High School, completed in 2006. These standards — meeting Silver LEED certification — require maximum quality of space while minimizing costs, maintenance and environmental impact. Geothermic systems heat and cool the building and the urinals in the boys' bathrooms require no water. Natural sunlight illuminates almost every room through skylights, giving the structure a glowing ambiance.
On Feb. 29, Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, toured Van Allen Elementary, peppering Principal Brad Laures and two members of student government with questions: How does this work? Do you mind not having paper towels in the bathroom? How much water do these measures save?
A teacher asks her class: "Our building is special, do you know why?"
And they all respond, "The lights! Recycled furniture! The heater!" In this building, sometimes the students educate the adults.
Though the lights pulse on and off, depending on the levels of brightness coming through the skylights, students take no notice. To them, environmentally sound architecture is becoming a way of life.
Loebsack is learning the environmental lesson as well: on March 27, he introduced the Green Schools Improvement Act in the House of Representatives, which would provide $2 billion to states for environmentally friendly improvements to old schools and toward building new green schools.
As with all legislation, the act must pass its way through the governmental pipeline before even preliminary steps can be taken, but its introduction is a start.
A call to action
A half hour after opening up discussion, Jodeane Cancilla is still answering questions from Hoover Elementary fifth-graders. She has placed Zorro back in his small wooden box, and has Duchess on her arm.
"OK, time for one last question," she says, selecting a boy from the back row.
"How good is Duchess' hearing? If I tap my foot on the floor from all the way back here, *tap tap tap* could she hear it?" Tap tap tap tap tap! Before Cancilla can answer the room is filled with the soft patter of three-dozen sneakers.
"Before I can answer your question," says Cancilla, "I'm going to wait until everyone is comfortable and quiet." The room falls silent. "Thank you. Both Duchess and Zorro can hear your tapping shoes, and almost every move you make. Sometimes lots of movement makes them nervous, so it's best to be very still."
No one squirms for the rest of the session, including the teachers. The only sounds are Cancilla's voice and the occasional hoot from Duchess.
