Call of the wildlife lures students

By THERESA HOGUE
Gazette-Times reporter

It was as if Jefferson Elementary's science books had suddenly been thrown open, and the contents of their pages had come to life and spilled onto the classroom floors.

Slithering snakes curled quietly in the embrace of wide-eyed children, as other students rooted through the debris of a forest floor, searching for slugs.

Still others fought for the privilege of holding a leech on their hand, while in a nearby classroom, children gathered to pet stuffed, silent songbirds.

The annual 4-H Wildlife Stewards Summit is held at a different participating school in Linn or Benton County each year, and this year it was Jefferson's turn. Participating schools are all members of the 4-H Wildlife Steward program, an OSU Extension program that helps bring science projects to students using nearby outdoor learning sites.

At Jefferson, Dixon Creek provides a perfect outdoor laboratory for students to learn about biology, botany and other sciences.

Maggie Livesay is a 4-H outreach and education coordinator and helped organize the summit. As she walked through the Jefferson gymnasium, looking at the displays each school had prepared to demonstrate what they're learning in the program, she explained that the best presentations would go on to the State Fair.

She was excited about the summit because it brought so many local organizations to Jefferson to share science education with children.

"The idea is it's all hands-on for these kids," she said.

Although 10 schools participate in the wildlife steward program in Linn and Benton counties, only six participated in the summit. But it was enough to create crowds of children roaming the Jefferson campus, dashing from the forest room to the aquatic room to the aviary room.

In the forest room, Andrea Myhre of the Avery House Nature Center knelt before a large wooden box filled with forest debris. It was meant to imitate the leafy, woody forest floor, and had mushrooms and pieces of log sticking out at odd angles. A group of Inavale fourth-graders gathered around, poking into the box, as she explained their task.

"We're going to talk about something really cool today," she said. "What does a forest need to grow?"

"Soil!" someone shouted. "Water," someone else added.

Myhre explained that water, sunlight and the nutrients in soil help the forest grow. As she began to explain about the compost that helps trees grow tall, student Helen Nikoulina piped up.

"Dead things can make nutrients," she said. Myhre smiled broadly.

Her next question was a little unexpected.

"Have you heard about the FBI?" she asked. Another student volunteered that the FBI are secret people who spy.

"Well today," she said, "you're going to become secret decomposition spies."

In Myhre's terms, FBI stands for fungus, bacteria and invertebrates, all things that turn vegetative debris into soil. For instance, banana slugs alone turn 10 percent of forest debris into dirt.

The children were given charts and asked to dig through the debris until they found something from the FBI group that processed debris. Then they had to draw a picture of it, and identify which group it belonged to.

Zoe Dilles, who was quick to spout terms like "invertebrate" and "fungi," drew a snail in orange-colored pencil on her chart. She and her fellow students all received FBI badges when they completed their pages.

In the bird room, Kate Mathews of the local Audubon Society watched students follow a bird migration path along the wall. Each student was chosen as a different bird, either an osprey, a barn swallow, a western tanager or a turkey vulture, and by reading the clues along the wall and making different choices, they each followed a different migratory path.

"At three of the stations, they die," Mathews said. If the children's bird dies, they can go through the path again, making different choices.

The most popular point along the path was the opportunity to get "banded," where a ribbon was tied around their ankle to represent a band a scientist would attach to a bird's leg.

"I lost my card," a boy said, suddenly appearing at Mathews' side. He explained that he was an osprey, but the little decorative card indicating his species had disappeared. She patiently pulled another osprey card from her collection and handed it to him.

"Hang onto it, so you know who you were," she warned, as he dashed off in the direction of the taxidermy collection, but he was already out of earshot. Ospreys move fast.

Theresa Hogue is the higher education reporter for the Gazette-Times. She can be reached at [email protected] or 758-9526.

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