Ginny Rosenberg-Stern taught for fifteen years at George Middle School in Portland. Service learning is a cornerstone of education there, and many projects engage students in the life and welfare of the community. A plan for how to make a school and community ecology connection came to Ginny as her ideas often do: “I tend to walk through the community and see opportunities,” she says, “I visited the Audubon Center one day and saw a brief, handwritten summary of the urban wildlife injury data. I talked to a volunteer at the center, and found the staff didn’t have the resources or time to analyze their records, let alone report conclusions and recommendations to the community.” Ginny saw a nice fit between her program goals and the needs of Portland Audubon Rescue Center.

Back at school, Ginny’s idea was met with enthusiasm. Carol Gonzales, a fellow teacher, and Judy Carter, a technology instructor, saw promise in the plan, and together the teachers set it in motion. The first step was to persuade the Rehabilitation Center to release its data to a bunch of middle-school kids! Bob Sallinger, director of the center, helped establish how the data would be used, and made plans to visit the school and contribute to the environmental education that preceded the data analysis.

Three sets of thirty students in grades six, seven, and eight participated in the project. They started by studying animal adaptations, urban wildlife issues, and predator/prey relationships. They made predictions about the causes of wildlife injury, and learned to enter data into spreadsheets.

Gathering Injury Data
Bob Sallinger invited the students to visit the Rehabilitation center. After coaching them to move carefully and remain utterly silent, he allowed the students into the hospital section of the center. It wasn’t the kids who caused a fuss that day (they comported themselves perfectly, Ms. Rosenberg-Stern says) but an earthquake! Animals hopped around in agitation, and it was a memorable day for all. Before leaving the center, the students were given copies of five years worth of injury records.

Analyzing Data
Back at school, Judy Carter, used an easy-pro projector to present the data entry procedures, and every student entered a share of the data into the spreadsheet. Ginny and Carol taught students to develop meaningful graphs from the data. “I’ve noticed that when using spreadsheets kids can make incredibly beautiful graphs that say absolutely nothing. There was a lot of back teaching about graphs that was great. We taught students to think out how to create graphs so the information in them could be understood at a glance.”

Presenting to the Community
After they analyzed their results, students set to work developing presentations for the community. Ginny says she’s amazed how fast kids learn technology skills, especially in comparison to adults generally slow acquisition. “Students were using Microsoft Excel* in fifteen minutes, and it was the same with PowerPoint*— given the barest tutorial, they were off and running almost immediately.” Each student was going to make a page of the PowerPoint slideshow for a single class presentation, but instead each ended up making his own. “When I imagine doing the project again, I think it’s a toss up—for efficiency’s sake it it’s better to have each kid do a small part of the cumulative project, but on the other hand, their pleasure in making their own slideshow and pride in presenting it made the extra time worthwhile.”

Students held community meetings where they presented their research. They printed large posters of their graphs and charts and hung them around the meeting rooms. The student’s work was met with enthusiasm and respect.

Making a Difference
One great outcome of the project was a new coordinated effort between different agencies concerned with animal welfare. Because of this student project, communication channels were established between the agencies concerned with animal welfare: Metro (the regional governing agency of the greater Portland area), the Oregon Humane Society, and the Audubon Society are making a coordinated effort in urban wildlife management. The Audubon Society of Portland has made a link on their Web page to the George Middle School, and another group of students went on to study animal overpopulation with the Oregon Humane Society.

After teaching for many years at George Middle School, Ginny has moved to a new school. There is little technology at the school-- there is no computer lab, and few classrooms have more than a single computer. Ginny is eager to develop more projects like “What Happened to Robin,” but sees limited technology resources as a serious impediment. “Technology was integral to the success of Robin,” Ginny says, “The technology didn’t just enhance the program, it allowed it to happen.”


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