Fair helps students and animals alike
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
WORKING ON BROCHURES for their upcoming Pet Adoption Fair at the Aroostook Centre Mall are, from left: Presque Isle Middle School seventh-graders Emily Lagerstrom, Andrew Kirk and Bradley Kinney. As part of a KIDS Consortium service-learning project, seventh-graders in Elaine Hendrickson’s and Chelsea Cheney’s classes will hold the fair Saturday, May 12 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. in the former FYE store at the mall and hope to have the community adopt as many of the Central Aroostook Humane Society animals as possible.
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
PRESQUE ISLE — With an abundance of cats and dogs available for adoption at the Central Aroostook Humane Society, seventh-graders at Presque Isle Middle School are doing their part to find safe, loving homes for the animals and to promote spaying and neutering to reduce the number of strays that end up at the shelter.
As part of a KIDS Consortium service-learning project, the students will hold an Adoption Fair Saturday, May 12 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. in the former FYE store at the Aroostook Centre Mall.
“There will be cats there; no dogs, unfortunately, and the idea is to promote adoption,” said student Troy Nadeau. “For smaller children, there will be games and informative centers, and for adults, too, there will be informative centers with lots of education on how to properly care for an animal and how to adopt them. We wanted to make this as fun as possible to keep both kids and adults interested.
“One of the big, big things is educating people because if you adopt an animal and don’t know how to take care of it, the animal is worse off and eventually it will become a stray or you’ll end up bringing it back,” he said. “Educating people about how to take care of the animals they adopt is a big part of it.”
Service learning is a teaching strategy through which students identify, research and address real community challenges, using knowledge and skills learned in the classroom.
“Community service is more like raising money or volunteering your time, whereas a service-learning project is more like students trying to fix the problem rather than collect resources for others to do it,” said Nadeau. “Service learning is a wonderful teaching mechanism. It’s student driven, so we’re the ones who are trying to fix the problem. Our teachers are more pointing us in the right direction and then we go with it. I think it’s a nice change of pace not having someone hold your hand through an entire project. Having this type of constructed freedom is a great learning tool because kids are learning to solve problems on their own which is a skill we’ll need later on in life.
“We had two or three different brainstorming sessions. We took a vote and the majority wanted do so something with animals,” he said. “We had Christine Cowett Robinson from the animal shelter come in and talk to us and she identified some problems they are having trouble with, and after that we brainstormed some of our own and then we voted. The majority of the class chose that not enough animals were being adopted, so that’s the problem we decided to ‘fix.’”
The students, who are in Elaine Hendrickson’s and Chelsea Cheney’s classes, identified various tasks that would need to be completed in order to hold the Adoption Fair. They then formed into groups and began working on those tasks.
“We have a group that’s in charge of publicity, a group that’s working to contact local stores to see if we can put flyers for different pets up, a group that’s making those flyers, and a group getting two DJs there to play music and make announcements when we’re there,” Nadeau said. “Others will be decorating the space to make things look nice, a group working to get the different supplies that each group will need, others are involved with the information centers. There’s three different groups working on that — one for smaller children, one for middle school students, and one for adults.”
Student Alexis Simpson, who has been busy making schedules and attending to details, said the service-learning project has been fun so far.
“To me it feels like I am doing something really good for our community,” she said. “We’ve been working really hard and we’re learning about the whole service-learning process. We’ve had to research the problem and then do the work.
“Our goal is to stop the amount of strays walking around the streets and to get the animal shelter to have more room — by adopting the animals — so when we do find a stray, there will be room,” said Simpson. “Right now the shelter is pretty full. We want to get as many animals adopted as we can.”
Nadeau said there’s been “considerable progress” made since the students began working on Operation Adoption since returning from Christmas vacation.
“We get some class time to work on the project,” he said, “but a lot of work has been done by the students at home. The students have been very dedicated which is great to see.”
This is the first service-learning project Cheney has been involved with.
“I was a little overwhelmed at first thinking that if we [teachers] weren’t directing it as much that it might not go as smoothly,” she said, “but I’ve really seen the kids take ownership of it, so they care about it more than if I was to just tell them what we were going to do. It’s their project and they’re excited about it, which is exciting as a teacher to see.”
Cheney said once the Adoption Fair has concluded, there will be some follow-up activities.
“As a math teacher it will be good because we’ll look at statistics and see if we made a difference,” she said. “We’ve looked at how many animals are at the shelter and how many they adopt in a month, and then we’ll see after the fair if the number goes up. We’ll chart those numbers and make some graphs that will hopefully reflect a positive change.”
Nadeau encourages everyone — whether they’re interested in adopting a pet at this time or just curious about the adoption process — to visit next week’s fair.
“If a family is looking to adopt, this is an absolutely wonderful way to do it because they’re going to learn a lot. If you’re on the fence and aren’t sure, you should still go to this event because it’s a wonderful way to obtain information. You’ll learn a lot about the costs, how to take care of an animal and more,” he said. “Shelter volunteers will be there looking after the animals, but for the most part the students will be the ones answering the questions. They’re perfectly capable of answering questions with a great degree of accuracy.”
“We’re going to be holding a raffle and doing face-painting, as well,” said Simpson. “It’s going to be a lot of fun — and educational — and a good way to pass some time on a Saturday.”
