| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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IN PURSUIT OF SCIENCE Showbirds In Fourth Grade Greta Lorge
A flock of fourth-graders filled the upper level of the theater at San Francisco’s Randall Science Museum. The 90 or so students sat carefully to avoid crushing the elaborate costumes they had made out of paper, felt, paint, glitter and feathers. In the hall’s lower level, parents with cameras slung around their necks vied for seats. Over the shuffling of feet, one father remarked to another, with a mixture of exasperation and pride, “I must’ve heard that quail call fifteen hundred million times in the last month and a half.” Months of preparation—making costumes, learning facts, and practicing calls—have all led up to this: the second annual San Francisco Nature Education bird-calling contest. Now in its fourth year, the Nature Education program uses the city’s parks and open spaces as natural classrooms, giving third and fourth grade classes from participating San Francisco public elementary schools the opportunity to study native birds in their natural habitat. The program is the brainchild of San Francisco attorney and field ornithologist Nancy DeStefanis. She was inspired by her observations of great blue herons in Golden Gate Park to create a program for school children to study nature in their own backyards. “Birds are so beautiful and interesting,” DeStefanis says. “They are the perfect vehicle to introduce children to the excitement of being out in nature.” DeStefanis says the program has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. By its fourth year, over 2,000 students had gone through the program, and three schools competed in the bird-calling contest. This year the contest will be held on May 21. The contest is the culmination of a year-long program that combines classroom lessons about avian natural history with field trips to local parks and open spaces. The bird unit replaces the regular science curriculum from March until May, allowing the fourth grade students to prepare in earnest for the contest. Last year, 27 teams from three schools—E.R. Taylor, Lakeshore, and Sunnyside—competed in the semifinals. There, the competition narrowed to just nine teams, three from each school. Each team, or “clutch,” is composed of three or four students. Students pick their own teammates and select their own bird. The only rule is that it has to be a local bird. “They have to be into the bird, or there’s really no point,” says Rich Mertes, a fourth-grade teacher at Lakeshore Elementary School. “And it has to be a local bird so they get an appreciation for something they actually see.” Mertes says the unit on birds inspired a “trading card energy” among his students, who spent every free moment poring over bird guides. “It used to be Pokemon, now it’s birds,” he says. Erik Butler’s son Kyle, a student in Mertes’ class, has become an avid collector of bird facts. Kyle carries his bird books with him wherever he goes, Butler says. “He’ll say, ‘Hey dad, did you know the albatross’ wingspan is ten feet? Did you know the pelican can fit six gallons of water in its beak?’” Butler says the program has heightened his son’s senses and made him more aware. “When I look at him now, he’s not just sitting and staring—he’s observing.” Virginia Dold, principal of E.R. Taylor Elementary, says the contest is about more than just birds. It gives students an opportunity to speak in front of a group and to develop stage presence. “You don’t expect some of the kids to step up and take a role, especially those who are really shy,” she says. But the students surprised Dold, and she was thrilled to see them blossom. “You can see the confidence in the rest of their day.” First to take the stage, in orange-red track pants and white bicycle helmets, was a pair of white crowned sparrows from Lakeshore Elementary School. Fourth graders Curtis Lam and Marco Cespedes demonstrated the rhythm of the bird’s call—two longish whistles followed by four short rapid ones—by chanting, “we neeeed some cream cheese now.” The other teams followed: rock doves and great horned owls, northern mockingbirds and California quail, red winged blackbirds and Steller’s jays. Sporting turquoise mylar streamers and purple bibs, Marlon Barajas, Marvin Larios, and Brandon Romero of Sunnyside Elementary strutted and cooed, puffing up their chests to demonstrate how male rock doves attract a mate. Sabreen Khalil, Jacky Wong, and Tina Yang of E.R. Taylor, in paper-bag masks with huge yellow google eyes, rattled off facts about great horned owls. “Our eyes may not move but we can move our heads around 270 degrees.” Kyle Church, Troy Wade and Darius Webb-Edwards from Lakeshore demonstrated the northern mockingbird’s unique ability to imitate almost any sound: other birds; music; even cell phones and the whee-ooh, whee-ooh, whee-ooh of car alarms. “Most of the calls were dead on,” says contest judge Allan Ridley, chair of the education committee for the Golden Gate Audubon Society. “There was a lot of give-and-take among the judges.” Many factors were taken into account, Ridley says, including the quality of the songs, the pains taken in crafting the costumes, and the integration of factual material with the dramatic component. Contest judge Carol Tang, senior science educator at the California Academy of Sciences, was impressed with the creative methods the students used to present information about the birds. Tang says, “The idea of kids teaching other kids what they learned is very effective.” “Their knowledge of ecology and bird behavior was most impressive,” says judge Mo Flannery, also of the Academy. “And they were very entertaining.” During the awards ceremony, the students were so excited that their mouths dropped open and they gripped each other’s hands as their names were called. Every student received a ribbon and each school was awarded a trophy. The winning team’s class was given guardianship of the coveted bald eagle statue until the next year’s contest. The winners were a trio of California quail from Sunnyside. Dressed in hooded sweatshirts covered with feathers made from various shades of brown felt, fourth-graders Ivy Yu, Maggie Chen, and Jessica Ardon danced a 1920s Charleston while crooning “chi-ca-go, chi-ca-go, chi-ca-go,” an approximation of the quail’s call. After the awards ceremony, the girls confessed that quails were not their first choice; they originally wanted to do a whistling call. "They wanted to do the red-tailed hawk, but I said I couldn't whistle," Yu explained. "So I said the California quail." "At first we didn't want it," added Chen, "But then Nancy (DeStefanis) said you don't have to whistle, you just talk. It sounds like 'Chicago', that's it." "We could have been the red-tailed hawk," said Ardon. "So I'm glad Ivy couldn't whistle." Naturalist Jack Laws, who has worked on the program since its inception, said the level of bonding the students feel with their bird gives them a unique perspective. "When they're in their costumes, they are the bird. They have a level of empathy, a connection, and they're never going to forget that." Participants from the previous year's contest were a testament to the lasting impact of the program. Fifth-graders Jessica Casteneda, Philip Secondez and Amber Dominguez from Sunnyside remembered much of what they had learned a year before. "We liked hawks," Castaneda said. "Their eyesight is 20 times as powerful as a human's." Castaneda also remembered what it felt like to be on the stage. "When me and Philip were called up for second place, our hearts just stopped for a minute." For Dominguez, winning runner-up as an Allen's hummingbird was just the beginning. "We've got binoculars," she said. "Now, every time I go to the park I take them with me and I look for birds." For more information about San Francisco Nature Education's activities, visit www.sfnature.org or call (415) 387-9160 Greta Lorge is a freelance writer living in San Francisco, California. |
