by Diane D. Jones
Bats have gone from a study topic to a crusade for the middle school students of St. Francis Borgia Grade School in Washington, Missouri, a community of 13,000 on the banks of the Missouri River.
The lesson began with a visit by conservationist Matt Soete, who described the nature of bats for teacher Steve Murrie's sixth, seventh, and eighth grade science classes. Soete, a woodworker, built and installed bat houses along the town's three-mile riverfront trail as an environment-friendly aspect of insect control.
With their frightful misconceptions about bats dispelled, the students decided to spread the word about bat conservation. They've been educating younger children about bats and writing to local agencies and authorities. They even “adopted” a bat through Bat Conservation International.
The effort, says Murrie, a teacher for 33 years, “is an in-depth theme that fits in perfectly with the school's Christian mission. God made all creatures and made them for a purpose - including bats. Bats are misunderstood, the underdog of the animal kingdom. The kids have really embraced that theme.”
Wahlberg's epauleted fruit bat (Epomophorus wahlbergi)
|
Among many other projects, students created bat trivia board games, such as “Bat-opoly” and wrote and illustrated children's books A Week in the Life of Billy Bob Bat. Student essays touting the positive contributions of bats to the ecosystem were published in the local newspaper.
Students wrote to members of the Missouri legislature, requesting a bill to establish an “official state flying mammal,” and they urged the Missouri Department of Transportation to build its bridges with one-inch gaps underneath to give bats safe and inviting roosts.
“We learned a lot about how much bats really help the human populations, said eighth-grader Maggie Light. “We wanted to help other people learn about them, too.”
A life-size picture of the bat the students adopted through BCI - a particularly photogenic creature called a Wahlberg's epauleted fruit bat (Epomophorus wahlbergi) - hangs on a wall of the science lab, it's endearingly chubby cheeks reminding all who pass just how unthreatening bats really are.
Murrie says the lessons learned go beyond bats: “The kids have learned that there are ways to go about getting things done if they know how to approach the right channels.”
Diane D. Jones is a writer in Washington, Missouri.
