LINCOLN – When Mattanawcook Academy science teacher John Norris instructed the 32 students in his classroom to design a map of the fictional Dragonfly Pond development, he probably didn’t envision the mess they’d create.

Then again, perhaps he did, knowing some of these students as well as he does.

While those students representing a conservation group carefully placed buildings around the wetland with wildlife in mind, the rest of the class, acting on the part of businesses, laid down buildings and farms with reckless abandon. Then, like the children they were at heart, they improvised further, adding unassigned items.

Draw in a dump, and put it near the farm feed, because every area needs a dump,” one suggested.

And we’ll need a Wal-Mart,” another added.

Don’t forget the smiling [yellow] face,” a third cracked.

In the end, Norris was more amused than annoyed at their disobedience, as many of the students were his coworkers.

The group of 33 educators spent last Monday at Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln learning how to integrate information about wetlands, aquatic wildlife, and conservation into their daily lesson plans. Their instructor, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife educator Lisa Kane, introduced the teachers to the Project WILD Aquatic curriculum.

Project WILD, which stands for Wildlife In Learning Design, is a national program started in 1983 by the Council for Environmental Education, which was founded in 1970. Kane said Maine is the 47th state to adopt the program, and has introduced 5,000 Maine educators to the environmental education program that is applicable to all disciplines.

Workshops are scheduled year-round for school districts or for individual schools and Kane incorporates information specifically on Maine’s wildlife and natural resources.

The ideas and concepts are applicable worldwide,” Kane said. It started in Maine with a grant from the Outdoor Heritage Conservation Lottery Ticket. Using wildlife as the hook, it helps to teach students. Kids are pretty interested in learning about bears and whales.”

Kane also runs the Wild School Sites, a program in which she works at individual schools, creating an environment where wildlife can thrive. She has worked with five schools statewide enhancing their schoolyards for wildlife, leaving each school with an outdoor classroom to study and use.

I created one at the school in Monroe,” Kane said. I rode my motorcycle by there recently and there were birdfeeders and benches. It had really grown. It looked great.”

The group projects and activities in Project WILD were designed for grades K-12, but clearly, even adults over 40 enjoy an excuse to draw whales on pavement, confront monster beetles, and write limericks about the environment, as one teacher proved with the verse:

There once was a salmon from Lincoln, who thought that the water was stinkin’, so he swam upstream, to find water more clean, and get rid of all the dioxins.”

A few teachers came to the seminar already having incorporated conservation and wildlife into their course work.

Wendy Cole, who teaches math at Mattanawcook Junior High School, has made her class draw life-size whales to make use of scales and grids, as well as to identify whales.

They all know about sperm and humpback,” Cole said. But other than that, they don’t know anything [about whales].”

Many of the activities Kane taught last week helped to put some of Maine’s worst conservation problems in perspective, such as the lesson on Atlantic salmon, in which she had the teachers assume the role of smolts, which are young salmon leaving fresh water for the sea.

In their attempt to make it through an obstacle course that was made of objects representing a dam’s hydro-turbine, commercial fishermen’s nets, predators and poachers, some of the teachers were left winded in their journey to the open ocean.

Out of 30 young salmon dashing through the deadly obstacle course on their way to the ocean and back home to spawn, nine fish survived.

That’s a very good return,” Kane said. Out of 3,000 Atlantic salmon, figures show that only two return. There are a lot of factors why. You could do a whole unit and use every subject matter covering the Atlantic salmon.”

For more information on Project Wild or Wild School Sites, contact Kane at 287-3303 or visit www.projectwild.org.

Supporting safe rides

The Cusack family, owners of Coffin’s General Store in the Portage Lake area, hope to provide safe snowmobile trails this winter by donating 1 cent for every gallon of gas sold from Jan. 1 through March 31, 2001.

The store reports that an estimated 75 percent of all first quarter gas sales come from snowmobiling, whether from sleds or tow vehicles. The donations will help the Portage Lake groomers care for 62 miles of trails.

Coffin’s store is located on Route 11 at Portage Lake at the intersection of ITS 85 and 90.

Outdoor Calendar

The Sportsman’s Congress, sponsored by the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday at the Elks Lodge on Route 27 in Augusta.

The sixth annual event is open to the public and includes display booths, a discussion led by fish and wildlife officials, and an optional luncheon at a cost of $10. The panel will focus on issues expected to be of interest in the coming year.

Reservations can be made by contacting SAM at 622-5503 or by e-mail to members@samcef.org.

Sugarloaf/USA will kick off its 50th anniversary season by holding the Sugarloafer Ball on Dec. 2. For information, call 237-2000.

Deirdre Fleming covers outdoor sports and recreation for the NEWS. She can be reached at 990-8250 or at dfleming@bangordailynews.net.