Bunnies named Mister, Shawn and Ruby, a Florida box turtle named, inevitably, Yertle and a leopard gecko that goes by Sammie are all part of the education at Horizon Science Academy Elementary School on Morse Road, courtesy of the Washington, D.C.-based
Pet Care Trust’s
Pets in the Classroom program.
Horizon Science Academy Elementary was awarded a grant from Pet Care Trust earlier this year after reading instructor and librarian Kara Putinsky applied for it.
The grant helped pay to place some pets in the school’s classrooms and for a new enclosure for dear, old, slow-moving Yertle in Jennifer Duffy’s third-grade class.
“She found the grants for us,” said Krista Seagraves, instructional coordinator for kindergarten through second grades.
“It’s been a great experience for them,” Duffy said of her students being able to watch Yertle grow from the size of a half-double to her current three and three-quarters inches. “Because we deal with life cycles and life science itself, I’ve used her in many lessons on life cycles.
“We talk about her habitat — she’s one type of turtle, but do other turtles have the same kind of habitat?”
“I definitely think it gives the students a sense of responsibility,” Seagraves said. “I also think it’s a calming effect in the classroom, having the pet.”
This is especially true, she added, for some of the special needs students at Horizon Science Academy Elementary.
The Pet Care Trust, which was incorporated in 1990, is a nonprofit, charitable, public foundation.
“The purpose of the Pet Care Trust is to help promote public understanding regarding the value of and right to enjoy companion animals, to enhance knowledge about companion animals through research and education, and to promote professionalism among members of the companion animal community,” according to the organization’s website.
The Pets in the Classroom grants are offered to both public and private schools, and are limited to grades K-6.
“These grants are intended to support pets or aquariums in the classroom for the purposes of teaching children to bond with and care for their pets responsibly,” the website states. “The welfare of the small animals involved is of paramount importance. These grants must not be used for the purposes of research or experiments of any kind.”
The welfare of the pets obtained or maintained with the grant received by the Horizon Science Academy Elementary School is also of paramount importance to the students, teachers said.
Kristy Brown, a second-grade teacher whose classroom is home to Mister, the rabbit, takes him to her house on long weekends and over breaks. When it was raining hard on the Monday after the Thanksgiving break, Brown said she decided to leave the bunny at her place instead of risking him catching cold.
“Where’s Mister? Where’s Mister?” the children all wanted to know.
“He’s part of our classroom,” Brown said.
Brown is in her sixth year as a teacher, but this is the first time she’s ever had a pet in her classroom.
“I definitely saw it was a learning opportunity for the students,” she said. “It also kind of teaches them responsibility of taking care of something other than themselves, and what happens when you don’t take care of something.
“It’s just brought joy, so far.”
But if, as can happen with the sometimes-fragile health of pets, Mister should head off to the great hutch in the sky, “it will teach them some hard lessons of life, teach them something else about life,” Brown said.
“I see it as a motivation,” commented Ashley Wright, a special-education teacher whose classroom charges include one of the rabbits, “The students know in my classroom that when they are focused on the lessons and participating, then they have a chance for Ruby to get out and run around the room, but they also know that if they get distracted, she has to go back.”
“She does walk around the classroom,” third-grade teacher Duffy said of the turtle, Yertle. “She is tiny, but they know how to be careful about her.”
Duffy is in her fourth year as an elementary school teacher, but she taught preschool for the eight years prior to that.
“And I’ve had animals in every one of my classrooms,” she said.
Kindergarten teacher Mara Clark has the rabbit Shawn in her room, and in fact has the students deliver their homework to a box in front of his cage, according to Putinsky.
“Not only does Shawn help my students make connections to our curriculum and give them an understanding of living things, he is a most-loved and enjoyable member of our classroom family,” Clark was quoted as saying in an announcement about the Pets in the Classroom grant.
“You can go so many ways, having pets in the classroom,” Seagraves commented.
