THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 7, 1995 TAG: 9506070460
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WINDSOR LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
Senior biology students at Windsor Middle/High School don't have time these days to peer at bugs under microscopes or to dissect frogs.
They're too busy blazing trails, digging wells, checking groundwater, monitoring the growth of trees and shrubs and depositing data they collect into a computer report that goes straight to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
What sounds like an official job actually is unofficial volunteer work, apparently the first of its kind in Hampton Roads, intended to teach students environmental lessons - and save a lot of money.
The class project for eight senior, dual-biology students started before the new school in Windsor was even built, when the Isle of Wight School Board selected a tract of land near the center of town for construction.
The school's design required destroying a small tract of wetlands, which the corps deemed environmentally significant. If the construction destroyed it, the corps said, the land must be mitigated - or replaced elsewhere.
``Wetlands are important to the habitat and to water filtration,'' said Kathleen Russell, one of the students. ``Wetlands filter water that runs into major rivers. The land gets a lot of sediments and pollutants out of the water.''
Of the 50-acre campus, 19 acres were wetlands, said Billy Almond, a landscape architect with Shriver and Holland Associates, the Norfolk firm that designed the school.
The firm tried to minimize the impact on those wetland areas, he said, reforesting a meadow and offering about 15 acres to the corps to develop a wildlife preserve.
Almond planned the exchange between the school and the environment. He envisioned trails, feeding stations, wildlife observation areas, an outdoor environmental laboratory equipped with everything necessary to successfully complete the reversal process in the mitigation area.
The School Board decided the students should be a part of the project, said Steve Martin, an environmental scientist with the corps.
``We thought involving students was an exciting idea. One of the biggest problems associated with the long-term monitoring of this kind of project is the cost. Most property owners want to be done with it in five years or so. The school is not going to go anywhere. The students can watch this project for years.''
Thus saving everyone a lot of money.
Last fall, the contractor replanted the two-acre area with swamp white oaks, red maples, sweet bay, chokeberry, winterberry and sweet pepper bushes.
Then the students started to work.
They installed groundwater monitoring wells, cut paths through the woods and began to lay mulch for walking trails. Since then, they have collected data state and federal regulations require.
Recently, the students planted a dozen spindly bald cypress saplings. Little more than twigs now, the trees someday will grow into mammoth wetlands specimens, and the students can watch it happen.
``It's nice to see the class doing something this year that we'll be able to come back to when we get out of college,'' said Ned Flemming, a student who works on the project. ``It will continue on - and we started it. I've learned more about wetlands than I ever thought I'd know.''
Over the next 10 years, Windsor High students will continue their important work: measuring and monitoring groundwater, setting up photography points and, about four times a year, taking panoramic photos to monitor plant and shrub growth.
The project will be handed down from one class to the next.
Everything, senior biology teacher Julia Perkins said, will be done according to the specifications of the environmental agencies involved and according to Mother Nature's master plan.
``Plant it, and they will come,'' she said, smiling as she looked over the newly planted wetlands forest recently and brushed an insect from her arm. ``Three of the shrubs planted all have berries or seed pods that hang on a long time in the winter. Very attractive to birds. I was walking back here the other morning and jumped a deer. We're seeing rabbits, squirrels - all kinds of insects. Everything is happening the way we had hoped it would.''
And all the while, Perkins said, her students will be able to observe animals, insects and reptiles, study the growth rate of trees, conduct soil studies and timber estimations.
``Next year, we're going to be offering an environmental course and a joint social studies/science course,'' she said.
In the stormwater retention pond near the front of the school, another facet of the environmental plan, a blue heron, already has taken up residence.
There, Perkins plans for her students to conduct water quality and pollution studies. To go along with the natural studies, a weather station has even been installed on the new school's roof.
``We're going to have a pretty comprehensive environmental/ecological lab out here,'' Perkins said. ``These students are going to be manipulating real-time science data right here in Isle of Wight County. It makes education a great deal more realistic.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JOHN H. SHEALLY II/Staff
Jennifer Svenson, left, measures the ground water level as teacher
Julia Perkins shows Cater Georger, right, how to record the data on
a laptop. In the background are Christin Cowell, left, and Bethany
Rose.
by CNB