Real-world Learning Makes a Real Impact

IT’S THE AGE-OLD QUESTION: CAN ANY OF US REALLY AFFECT CHANGE?

 This year, ninth graders in the Biology CoLab class learned they can, as long as they’re willing to try. The ripple effect began, as they all do, with a single drop. Upper School Science and Biology CoLab teacher Joel Allen was out birding at an abandoned airport field over the summer. The land, which had been unofficially folded into a local farm and tilled, experienced a shift in its biodiversity when pools of water began to collect in the empty crop rows. They attracted rare birds during migration season, making it a hot spot for bird enthusiasts like Allen. “One day I was standing next to another birder who said, ‘It’s such a shame they’re going to build over this habitat,’” said Allen. “And I thought ‘This is what I’ve been looking for!’”

He presented the challenge to his Biology CoLab: how to save a burgeoning habitat and still make room for new enterprises. The class began reviewing data and sightings gathered by Allen and others tracking the migratory patterns of the birds.

To accurately determine the right balance for a biodiverse habitat, students ran equations that measured the effects different plants might bring to an environment. “It’s so modular,” says Allen. “They had to consider ‘What’s my ethos? What do I think is important, and what’s the evidence that supports that?’”

The results? Students learned that the right plant combinations in the right places could maintain the same biodiversity in a fifth of the space. A few weeks later, they presented their incredible findings to a panel of legislators at Maryland Heights City Hall, including the local Planning Commissioner and, unbeknownst to them at the time, the project manager of the construction project threatening the habitat.

Moved by their words and their research, the project manager took the CoLab’s findings back to his team, hoping to rethink the project’s landscaping. But he wasn’t the only one affected. The students’ research also inspired the city’s Planning Commissioner to rethink laws around land stewardship, ultimately encouraging him to make Maryland Heights a “Bee City”—a city that creates safe habitats for pollinators. “It was a great reminder that we, as humans, have the opportunity to be phenomenal stewards and caretakers of this planet,” says Allen. “That we can make a difference if we care enough to take that first step. The learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door. We take it into the world, and we teach our students to leave the world a little bit better than they found it.”