In this article in Language Arts, Oregon instructional coach Willow McCormick describes
what happened when, during recess, several first graders discovered a small
bird that had flown into one of the school’s windows and fallen to the ground
dead. Their teacher scooped up the bird with some papers, brought it back to
the classroom, and put it under the document camera for a closer look: feather
patterns, scales on its feet, a small broken beak. The class’s paraprofessional
reported that she’d found another fallen bird in the same spot a few weeks ago.
Kids were full of questions: Where was it going? Why did it crash into
the window? Why didn’t it see the glass? Are more birds going to die? Why is
there blood on the beak? We need to put up a mattress or pillow on the window
so they won’t die. The teacher, a lover of birds and the outdoors, told
students that birds colliding with glass on buildings is a worldwide problem,
especially in cities. “Curiosity led quickly to passion,” says McCormick, “the
students appointing themselves avian protectors.”
Their teacher saw an
opportunity for a project that sprang naturally from students’ earnest
concerns. She handed out paper and had all students draw the bird – its folded
wings, black eyes, a small dot of blood on its broken beak. Students continued
to brainstorm ways to prevent other birds from meeting a similar fate, and one
suggested that they write a letter to the principal. The teacher wrote some key
words on the board and by lunch, a stack of earnest letters was delivered to
the office. One of them read: To Ms.
Wilson. Sad news! Birds crash into the windows. Solution! Paint the windows a
see-through paint.
The bird stayed in the
classroom for the rest of the day, and when it began to decompose, the teacher
buried it near a Douglas fir outside the classroom window. As she drove home
that evening, she mulled over ways to extend this experience. Her first move
was to invite the director of a local environmental science center to talk to
students about local birds. “The presence of an expert puffed the students up,”
says McCormick, “affirming the importance of their own growing expertise.” Two
other classes squeezed into the room to look at photos of birds, notice
differences in size, color, and special features, and hear recordings of their
distinctive calls, which students imitated in unison.
A few days later, students
watched a TED talk about how billions of birds die every year when they become
disoriented and mistake buildings’ mirrored glass for trees and sky beyond.
“The children were incensed,” says McCormick. “Children have an inherent sense
of justice, but few chances to practice
making the world more fair.” They gathered ideas from the TED talk and
elsewhere on ways to retrofit buildings to mitigate the problem. It quickly
became apparent that putting mattresses on the windows wasn’t going to work.
When the principal visited the class, she challenged the students to be
scientists and gather more data. Was this the only place where dead birds had
been found? Did collisions with windows have something to do with weather
conditions – bright sunny days, for example? Students decided to visit other
classes in pairs and ask if students or adults had more data for them.
The challenge was how to
empower students to come up with their own solutions, rather than turning the
problem over to an adult “decider.” Some ideas, including stained glass, were
too expensive and elaborate, involving fundraising, parent volunteers, and an
artist in residence. “Methods that emerged from student research and
imaginations were sloppier, more haphazard, but more immediate and much
cheaper,” says McCormick. Students zeroed in on window paint, decals, and
reflective tape.
The teacher decided to go with
these, and students wrote to the superintendent with their ideas, along with a
list of windows around the school that were having the most bird collisions. A
few weeks later, students gathered outside and watched the building engineer
climb up an extra-tall ladder and attach decals the class had ordered from the
Audubon Society. He had to wipe away grime and use tape to make the decals
stick, but he got them up there.
“The year wound down,” says
McCormick, “and the bird decals stayed up. No additional carcasses were
reported.” On Earth Day, the class shared its learning in an assembly, complete
with a trifold board documenting the steps of their inquiry with photos,
graphs, and text. The teacher had no difficulty justifying the project in terms
of first-grade standards: data collection and analysis, research, information
and opinion writing, art, and simple engineering. The superintendent and deputy
superintendent visited their class to praise the students’ efforts. “The boss
of all the schools cared about our letter!” enthused a boy afterward.
“Sloppy, precarious,
imperfect,” McCormick sums up. “When inquiry is authentic, rooted in real
problems, that capture the hearts and imagination of children, the learning
matters. And when students have the chance to wrestle with and enact solutions,
large or small, to complex problems, they begin to see themselves as change
makers. Following the passions of students requires critical listening,
thoughtful planning, and strategic collaboration. It doesn’t mean throwing
curriculum maps out the window, but recognizing and growing moments that can
serve as vehicles for real-world learning.”
The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)
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