Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994 TAG: 9404220190
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 VIRGINIA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MELISSA DEVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wander inside and you might hear third-graders giving mini-lectures on the "The Wonder of Water Birds," second-graders talking about how to design habitats that will sustain wildlife and first-graders drawing pictures of how a healthy world should look.
Environmental education is a common thread through all grades at Fishburn Park, and it brings the pupils together in working toward one ambitious goal: to save the world, one kid at a time.
"We have to live on this planet, and we're just kids - but we'll be the ones responsible for it when we grow up," fifth-grader Fernicia Patrick said. "We've got to do something now."
And do something they have. Teachers, parents and Principal Tom Dunleavy decided the school needed a mission, an underlying theme they could teach in interdisciplinary units.
"I remember a teacher saying, 'Hey, we've got over 10 acres of land here - we can do something different,'" said third-grade teacher Dina Richards. "It took off from there."
Each pupil who passes through Fishburn Park spends one year studying air, another studying water and a third studying land. A pupil who attends Fishburn from kindergarten through fifth grade will go through the cycle twice.
"It's a neat thing, because I expect by the second cycle the kids will actually start using the things they've learned," Dunleavy said.
Thanks to all the land at the school, the pupils' environmental projects are able to grow each year. At first, they mostly recycled cans and paper. But "everybody can recycle, and it might mean nothing to them," said fifth-grader Angela Marshall. "You have to do more, and you have to care about it and really want to help."
Now the children are doing hands-on work - creating scientific experiments in their own backyard, so to speak. The campus is dotted with projects, such as a migratory bird habitat, a wetlands pond and bog, more than an acre of wildflowers, and a rock garden. An outdoor amphitheater is practically completed, and plans are under way to build a greenhouse and a mini-windmill so the kids can study the power of the wind.
"I got a little behind on the windmill project because it snowed so much," 9-year-old Adam Peters said.
Although the underlying theme of Fishburn's curriculum is environmental education, Dunleavy said, the pupils are not missing out on other necessary subjects.
"Environmental education is just the vehicle through which we teach," he said. "It's like spices. Education is the food, and the environment is the spice of that food."
The best part of the program, he said, is that the kids are getting an across-the-board education without realizing that their digging and bug-picking and planting are real work. The added bonus is that they also have become strong advocates for the environment.
Fifth-grader Brad St.Clair was bored one sunny afternoon. So he called a friend and said, "Hey, let's go pick up some trash." They headed outside, armed only with trash bags and a determination to make their neighborhood a better place.
"We just were looking for something to do," said the 10-year old, "and it was a warm day, so we did it."
Adam said he knew litter was bad, not because his parents had told him, but because of an experiment he did in class two years ago.
"We put trash and things in the dirt and are watching to see how long it takes to rot," he said. "I check it all the time, and cigarette butts and stuff stay in the ground forever."
The work the children have done at Fishburn has not gone unnoticed. In 1992, the school was awarded the Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence, the first school from Roanoke to receive that award. Community members, parents and businesses have heard what they're doing and have donated time and money to help.
"We don't use any paper-and-pencil money for these projects," Dunleavy said. Instead, the school has received grants from businesses and agencies from as far away as New York.
"There's one reason this has worked, and that's teamwork," said Richards, the third-grade teacher. "I just want the children to be good stewards of the Earth; and I think everybody else does, too."
by CNB