Middle Gate Students Teach Others

About Threatened And Endangered Animals

By Eliza Hallabeck

An Asian elephant has a four- to five-foot-long tail and a komodo dragon’s tail is as long as its body, as parents learned from their second grade Middle Gate students in Heather LeBlanc’s class on Thursday, May 20.

The class’s message was clear. Everyone in the room on Thursday could help each of the animals presented as either a threatened or endangered species.

As students presented, one after another, a PowerPoint presentation on an animal of their choosing, each slide shared facts, photos, and ways people can help.

“My parents were really happy about it,” student Madeline Stites reflected on Monday. “It was just in time because I was really sad about endangered animals because I had seen a movie at that time.”

Madeline said her parents were proud of her for her PowerPoint presentation delivered on Thursday.

The class began studying their threatened and endangered animals in April, according to Mrs LeBlanc.

Students first choose their animal, then began searching books for references and taking notes, according to second grader Wright Frost.

Wright choose the blue whale to study, because he had seen a full- scale model of one in a museum previously. He had trouble finding references to blue whales until a fellow classmate told him he found one book that mentioned them.

“For our report we choose facts about how we could help our animal,” said JP Ford.

Mrs LeBlanc said it was a nice project that taught the students about current topics and communicating that something can be done about it.

After creating their reports, the students started working on the second part of the project, the PowerPoint presentation. The reports will be turned into books for the students to bring home with them, and the presentations were shared with parents who visited the school Thursday.

“If you don’t help them,” said second grader Adam Trompetta, “they could become extinct. And if they become extinct, there will be no more left.”