The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Nature's Way
Sierra Club honors Saline students
By Sheila Pursglove, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: November 29, 2007
Fifth-graders at Heritage Elementary School in Saline got their feet wet in a big way this year -- and in doing so, earned an award from the Sierra Club.
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Teacher Erica Peplinski's 62 students recently completed a wetlands research project as a part of an eco-systems science unit. They researched a wetlands topic of their choice and wrote summaries.
Working in groups, the students then selected the most important information for a group summary, and e-mailed questions to biology professors at Eastern Michigan University.
"We learned a ton about the wetlands," said fifth-grader Elaine Schwingel. "Before we started, I had never heard the word 'wetlands.'"
The class enjoyed a field trip to Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor for an actual experience of a wetland.
The children also created a slide show of the wetlands project, and presented it to parents and friends after school.
Peplinski encouraged her pupils to hold a fund-raiser. After tossing around ideas, the children decided to throw a karaoke party, and raised $100 to donate to the Sierra Club to help preserve wetlands.
"The Sierra Club was so impressed by their efforts that they have decided to give us the Huron Valley Group Chair's Award of Merit," Peplinski said. "We are very proud of all of their hard work."
Although the Huron Valley group gives several awards each year, this is the first time it has given this -- or any other award -- to a student group, said Doug Cowherd, chairman of the group. Past recipients have included former state House Rep. Lynn Rivers; Bill Hanson, executive director of the Washtenaw Land Trust; and state Sen. Liz Brater.
The award presentation will be held during the Dec. 18 meeting of the Sierra Club at which time the children will also present a short slide show.
"I can't believe how much we were able to help," Jacob Gleason said. "And just by doing something so little, we can help so much. I liked that about our project."
This also is quite a coup for Peplinski, who taught third grade for two years at Woodland Meadows Elementary School, and is in her first year as a fifth-grade teacher.
"I was mostly inspired to do this project because I wanted to show kids that what they do can affect the world around them in a positive way," she said.
"I also feel very strongly about the importance of keeping our environment clean, and this was a wonderful opportunity for me to teach this to my students, and it fit right in with our curriculum."
The Internet part of the project -- online research and e-mailing EMU professors -- was inspired by a class Peplinski took over the summer, "Teaching with Internet Technologies." She set up e-mail accounts for her students through www.e-pals.com, a safe, monitored site for children to use.
The wetlands project clearly has had a huge impact on her students. For Amanda Zylstra, the project was a wake-up call about how people throw things away.
"I learned that people are destroying the environment by littering and pollution, and that we need to help the living things like the wetlands," she said.
Hannah Burkhart learned that without wetlands, the balance of life would be harmed.
"Now, I think better about marshes, bugs and frogs," she said.
Without wetlands, 3 percent of fresh water in the United States would be lost, Alaina Horwood said.
"I also learned that wetlands provide food and shelter for animals. It's a place for animals to migrate and reproduce," she said.
Christina Fosheim-Hoag discovered that plants are more than just pretty faces, and she has a new respect for the environment.
"I knew before to treat the environment with care, but I never knew so much about what it did," she said.
Tyler Schaefer thinks people should stop littering and take good care of the environment.
"Everyone needs to help because I believe that, if we did, we could make our environment a better place," he said.
Kathleen Reuter echoed the sentiment.
"The project made me learn and stick in my mind that wetlands help us a lot and if we don't treat them well, we wouldn't have all of the great stuff we want and need," she said.
While the project itself was interesting, Ryann Felton best enjoyed the end result, "because it was so cool to see what all the hard work we put into the project accomplished," he said.
Heritage Principal Steve Laatsch, who performed an Elvis impersonation for the karaoke party, praised Peplinski's efforts to raise student awareness about the environment.
"This project will help reinforce the importance of conserving our wetlands and protecting our valuable land," he said.
Sheila Pursglove is a freelance writer. She can be reached at bingley51@yahoo.com.
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