Iowa
Wetlands and
Riparian
Areas
Conservation
Plan
Award-winning volunteers prove
that
kids can make a difference
(Roland-Story School Fourth Grade, Central
Iowa)
A Roland-Story School fourth-grade class proves that you don't have to be grown-up to make a difference. These ambitious grade-schoolers organized raffles and auctions to adopt a wetland and provide a home for a pair of federally endangered trumpeter swans.
In 1994, Linda Scheuermann's class organized a raffle and auction of donated items to raise money for the conservation of endangered species. With that seed money, the next year's class decided to continue the tradition. They adopted a 100-acre wetland that belonged to a classmate's family. This wetland now serves as an outdoor classroom where the students have fieldtrips and learn about part of Iowa's natural heritage. Assisted by the high school industrial technology class, they also made wood duck nesting boxes to place in their adopted wetland with the help of Iowa Department of Natural Resources (see pictures above). Some of the wood duck boxes were donated to other conservation organizations or sold at auction.
The 96-97 fourth-graders enhanced the previous classes' endangered species protection campaign by providing for trumpeter swans, a federally endangered Iowa native. Trumpeter swans are migratory and were plentiful across the Upper Great Plains and Canada, but now traditional wintering and breeding grounds are only found in the Rocky Mountains and from coastal British Columbia to Alberta. Wildlife restoration programs are reintroducing the swans to areas where they no longer exist because of overhunting and human disturbance. To ensure that the released swans live and raise cygnets in the area, their flight feathers are clipped. Clipping a swan's flight feathers is like cutting your hair -- they grow back. Since the swans can't go south for the winter, their new pond needed a de-icer and an electricity source to keep the water open during freezing weather. In November 1996, a pair of trumpeter swans was released on a pond that had the necessary equipment provided by these fourth-graders' fund-raising money.
Their hard work has paid off. Roland-Story's Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project raised a total of $27,000 in three years and won the Governor's Volunteer Recognition Award in 1996 and 1997 (see picture below). Besides donating to wetland projects, the students also donated a portion of the auction proceeds to organizations such as the Wildlife Care Clinic in Ames, Costa Rican rainforest conservation efforts, and Project Computers Helping Integration and Learning Development (CHILD) a project which proposes to build a rainforest dome and aquarium in Des Moines.
Contact:
Linda Scheuermann, fourth-grade teacher at Roland-Story School
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