Cape St. Claire School Promotes Local Ecology

As third grade teachers at , Debbie Yates and Melissa Cressman don’t just teach their students the three ‘Rs.’ Instead, they have taken a step further to educate children in their classes about the connection to the world around them.

Thanks to the teachers’ participation in the Chesapeake Connections program at Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center in Millersville, Md., students in their classes have the opportunity to learn the importance of preserving the Chesapeake Bay. As the outdoor education program of Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Arlington Echo works with county educators to bring environmental programs to more than 25,000 children each year.

Recently, students in Cressman’s third grade class have learned about the way unfiltered water runoff contributes to pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. One way to combat such runoff is for homes to install rain barrels to collect excess rain water from downspouts that can be instead used to hydrate lawns and gardens in warm weather.

To that end, Cressman’s students sold nearly 30 rain barrels last month through Arlington Echo to raise funds for Cape St. Claire Elementary’s increasing green initiatives. The barrels were available either as plain white or painted with student-designed artwork. Last week, Cressman and three volunteers from her class stayed after school to sand and prime the barrels to be painted.

“Fifth grade art students are responsible for actually decorating the barrels,” Cressman reports. “Seven different designs were chosen from the students’ sketches and they will be working on them every Monday in class—they are very excited about the project!” The plain or painted barrels will then be distributed on Friday, April 29.

As part of an in-school program, Yates’s third grade students have been busy with their own environmental project—raising a pair of terrapins right in their classroom. As a type of turtle native to the Chesapeake Bay, terrapins have their own unique place in the local ecological system as they help to preserve important salt marshes.

Through Arlington Echo’s Terrapin Connection program, Yates participated in special training to learn how to raise the Maryland state reptile prior to receiving the two-month old hatchlings.

Once the turtles arrived in Yates’s classroom earlier this year, her students became responsible for their care, including collecting growth data and monitoring behavior. All the supplies and food have been provided by Arlington Echo, which also has a veterinarian available in case the reptiles need medical assistance.

The pair of terrapins will stay with the class for 12 to 15 weeks before being microchipped and released into the Bay.

Yates, who is now in her second year of raising terrapin hatchlings, has seen the positive effect on her students. “The students have enjoyed tracking the terrapin’s growth and development," she says. “The turtles started from about the size of a quarter and have grown so much.”