PARISH, NY – The APW Conservation Club has already begun the new school year with a series of exciting projects and events that speak to their passion to build a better world.
On Oct. 4, Leo Rode and Ben Trowbridge of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo were invited to an APW Conservation Club meeting. Their purpose was to speak on animal enrichment — the idea of improving a captive animal’s quality of life by providing them with new toys, challenges and experiences.
Between discussions of sneakers designed specifically for elephants and the not-so-indestructible nature of toys for big cats, students were also able to interact with several of the zoo’s smaller residents that Rode and Trowbridge had brought with them. A tenrec (a small, hedgehog-like animal native to Madagascar), a chuckwalla (a lizard native to the American Southwest), and a pair of Madagascar hissing cockroaches were all in attendance.
Students even had the opportunity to design obstacle-filled mazes for the cockroaches who, despite their small brains, still benefit from the effects of enrichment.
In the four years of the club’s existence, club advisor Jessica Halsey and her students have a lengthy list of accomplishments. In August, the group celebrated the 50th birthday of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Sanctuary Department with a series of beach cleanups at Chimney Bluffs, Fair Haven, Selkirk Shores, and Sandy Island, where they exceeded their goal and gathered more than 55 pounds of trash.
“We are always looking at new ways to give back,” Halsey said. “The club has also donated to groups like Partners in Conservation, the Wolf Conservation Center, The Hawk Creek Wildlife Center and — more locally – Kindred Kingdoms of Pennellville.”
Other past projects include massive recycling efforts to benefit local conservation and wildlife groups. Those projects have netted more than 9,000 candy wrappers and dozens of old cell phones to be recycled.
Actions like these helped to earn APW its status as an “Ocean Guardian School” for the second year in a row. The Ocean Guardians program – run through NOAA – asks students to carry out conservation-minded activities, present research findings, and reach out to their communities on important issues. APW students focused their own efforts on the dangers of single-use plastics and their threat to the environment. The banner awarded by NOAA hangs proudly outside of Halsey’s classroom.
After four years of such a robust extracurricular program, Jessica Halsey is still proud to lead the group. “I continue to be the advisor because it’s really a passion of mine,” she said. “I love seeing the kids become passionate and excited about what we do.”
Throughout the year, APW’s budding conservationists will continue to work toward building better relationships with the natural world and the many species that share it.
The club meets every Tuesday in Halsey’s classroom.
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