Elementary students’ lessons on economics, philanthropy culminate in a donation to the Bird Sanctuary

The W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary has a little more cash on hand, thanks to a generous group of fourth grade students.

The class from Ealy Elementary, which is in Michigan’s Whitehall School District, recently donated $400 to the Sanctuary as part of a multifaceted lesson that included ecology, economics, art and charitable giving.

Their teachers, Gabe Knowles and Britney Christensen, have each been involved with W.K. Kellogg Biological Station for years through the KBS K-12 Partnership. In 2019, Knowles was a teacher-in-residence through the Teaching Science Outdoors program, which was organized by Kara Haas—then the KBS Science Education and Outreach Coordinator—and funded by the KBS K-12 Partnership and the KBS Long-term Ecological Research program, or LTER. Both teachers also participated in the KBS LTER Research Experiences for Teachers program in 2021 and 2022. Knowles and Christensen co-teach two fourth-grade classes at Ealy, and collaborated on the lesson and related activities.

According to Knowles, he and Haas worked together this year to secure three grants totaling more than $20,000 for the class to take on two pollinator garden projects at their school—building a rain garden in a drainage ditch and improving on an existing native pollinator garden located in the school’s courtyard.

 “I realized we were fortunate to receive all of this funding for our stewardship effort to build pollinator gardens for our public school and community,” said Knowles. “I wanted to find a way to pay it forward.”

Giving back and paying it forward

Inspired by companies like Patagonia and Cotopaxi, that donate a portion of their proceeds to charitable causes that focus on their mission objectives of environmental stewardship and fighting poverty, Knowles and Christensen devised a lesson.

The class partnered with Nicole Draft of More Love Collective and learned about Nicole’s business, which sells handmade bracelets and donates a portion of the profits to local organizations.

After the students made and sold their bracelets, they researched local nonprofits that fit their mission, and voted on how much money to give each nonprofit. Knowles said, “Students were given fake money in $5 bills to put into different “piggy banks” labeled with the names of the nonprofit organizations.” Those bills counted as votes for which nonprofits each student thought they should support. The Kellogg Bird Sanctuary received $400 from the students, as a result of receiving 80 five-dollar votes.

Congratulations to Gabe, Britney and their class for doing great work on a wonderful project, and we thank them for their kind donation to the Sanctuary!