St. Elizabeth Ann Seton students are `wetlands protectors'

The St. Elizabeth Ann Seton fourth graders agreed it was the most memorable “board game” they had ever played.

Equipped with a range of small items, such as miniature houses, strips of artificial turf and plastic sticks, the youngsters were asked to create two different scenes on a peg board: Louisiana coastal protection as they wished it were – rich in soil-anchoring “speed bumps” like barrier islands, marshes and trees; and Louisiana coastal protection as it exists today – full of holes due to the erosion of these natural barriers, and greatly reliant on levees and pumping stations in the event of a storm surge.

“We built a levee out of clay and trees out of sticks to protect from floods,” explained fourth grader Kyle Chung during his class’ April 3 field trip to the “Grow Dat Youth Farm” in City Park.

Unlike some wetlands-related field trips, however, the April 3 visit wasn’t designed to fulfill a passing interest in coastal restoration. For the last two years, fourth, fifth and sixth graders at the Kenner school have been immersed in the topic through the “Youth Wetlands Program,” an in-school curriculum developed by the LSU Agricultural Center and 4-H.

“The more I got into it, the more (local experts) I found. It was like a big snowball! It got so exciting!” said school librarian Charlotte Rizzo, noting that the curriculum is taught once a week during fourth and fifth graders’ library time and during sixth graders’ science period.

“This year we have adopted a sea turtle; last year we adopted a brown pelican,” Rizzo said, referring to a National Wildlife Federation program in which students donated money to efforts to save these marsh animals.

“We’re trying to get our students aware of what’s out in our waters, what needs help, and what they need to do,” Rizzo said. Asking parents to buy Dawn dishwashing liquid, for example, is an easy way families can donate to wetlands restoration, Rizzo said.

The sea turtle will be front and center at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s May 20 “Wetlands Day,” at which fifth graders will teach their schoolmates in grades K-6 about the wetlands at several hands-on stations, and roll out their school’s impressive collection of pelts, turtle shells, skulls and cypress knees. The day will also have them planting cypress seeds for future relocation to area marshes.

“So many animals perished (as a result of the oil spill),” Rizzo said. “The sea turtles that lay their eggs in our sand actually imprint their eggs in the marsh – that’s how they know to come back,” she said, noting that after the spill, these sand imprints were replicated in manmade materials by environmentalists and moved to cleaner waters off Florida’s coast.

“We tell the students, ‘You are the leaders. You need to know when you grow up who to vote for, that these (officials) care about the wetlands; they care about Louisiana, and they’re not just out for themselves.”

In year one of the curriculum, Rizzo’s students became so passionate about the topic, they complained to the Jefferson Parish sanitation department that curbside Christmas trees were being pulverized instead of being collected for the promised purpose of coastal restoration, Rizzo said.

In the final weeks of school, St. Elizabeth’s fifth- and sixth-grade classes will take their own working field trips to Tickfaw and Bayou Segnette state parks to plant marsh grasses and test the health of the water.

“I told them that their generation is the generation we’re going to depend on,” Rizzo said. “The excitement in the children is what makes my day. I think they’re going to be wetlands watchers. I think they’re going to be wetlands protectors.”

The curriculum is available free to any fourth- through 12th-grade teacher who signs up for the program. For more information, call 736-6519.