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The Force Is With Twin Lakes Students

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By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR

cpastor@tampatrib.com

Published: October 29, 2008

TWIN LAKES - A classroom project on bird watching blossomed into a quest to improve wildlife habitats, with students researching animals, tracking tortoises, growing plants and seeking money for their environmental efforts.

Students at Twin Lakes Elementary began the project as fourth-graders last year and plan to continue this year as fifth-graders, adding plants and including an additional focus on clean water.

Earth Force Inc., an environmental-education nonprofit group, and the Staples Foundation for Learning honored the school on Thursday for its work with an award and $500 worth of eco-friendly classroom supplies.

Teachers Gini Frissell and Patricia Cayton oversaw the project, but the students came up with the idea and did the background work and implementation.

That's what Earth Force hopes classes will do, said Scott Willis, executive director of Suncoast Earth Force. The local branch works with 44 Hillsborough and Pinellas County classrooms. The organization and the teachers connect students with the resources they need, and the children do everything else.

"That really instills buy-in with the kids," Willis said.

Students started paying attention to the animals on their campus by watching the birds and teaching younger children how to use binoculars. They wanted to build on that.

"We started thinking of eco-friendly projects," said 10-year-old Adaliz Maisonet, now in fifth grade.

They had seen gopher tortoises around their campus and nearby Caminiti Exceptional Center, and they wanted to protect them. Biologist George Heinrich met with students to teach them about the gopher tortoises and what their habitat required. He showed them how to use GPS devices to keep track of where the burrows were, so they could monitor their efforts.

"We built our school on their grounds," Adaliz said. "They have enemies, like lawnmowers and stuff."

Eliot Vigil, 10, said the problem with lawnmowers and landscaping is that workers wind up cutting down grasses and plants that the tortoises eat.

The students applied for grants that covered field trips to Boyd Hill Nature Preserve and Lettuce Lake Park and paid for plants that could feed and protect the tortoises.

Angelica Garcia, 10, said the class considered other animals as well. They selected trees, bushes and ground cover that would appeal to the birds and butterflies.

A "zoo of opportunities" they set up in a classroom last year educated other Twin Lakes students about the campus wildlife. Students could look at displays about local plants and animals, watch birds through a bird-viewing station, view slideshows and read books. The students performed a play about the tortoises and took some of the displays to the Florida State Fair as well.

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503.

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