Winter 2000

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: WINTER 2000.]

Mighty Acorns: School-of-the-woods

By Caroline Arden Malkins

It's a sunny day in March, and a fresh layer of snow blankets the rolling landscape in North Chicago's Greenbelt Forest Preserve. The woods are quiet on this late winter morning, their silence broken only by the occasional twitter of a bird — and the shrieks of a group of 5th-graders on a field trip from nearby Lyon Magnet School.

"We saw a deer!" yells 11-year-old Kevin Womack as he runs into a clearing with three breathless classmates. "We were exploring," he gasps, "and we saw deer tracks, so we followed their footprints, and we found four deer!"

Kevin is a Mighty Acorn, one of 5,000 students in Chicago-area schools learning to explore and restore natural areas in their own communities. Launched in 1993 by The Nature Conservancy in collaboration with the Cook County Forest Preserve District, the Mighty Acorns program was expanded last year by several Chicago Wilderness partners with a grant from the Grand Victoria Foundation. Today, 55 schools in six Chicagoland counties participate in the program.

While Kevin was off exploring the woods with an adult leader, the other half of his class was gathered in a tight semi-circle around Jan Ward, Youth Stewardship Coordinator for the Lake County Forest Preserves. Ward, a petite blond with bright eyes and a pixie cut, is on her knees in the snow with a bow saw in one hand and a giant pair of loppers in the other.

"Always hold your tools facing down," she shouts to the students. "I don't want anyone cutting off each other's fingers."

What Ward wants them to cut off, instead, are branches of buckthorn and honeysuckle — non-native plants that have spread like wildfire in the 518-acre forest preserve, blocking sunlight and preventing the growth of oak trees and native flowers.

"We're making space for the plants that are supposed to be here, and getting out the ones that aren't," says Waukegan resident Alfredo Mazon, 11, as he tosses a buckthorn branch onto a growing pile of brush.

Three times a year — in the fall, winter, and spring — nine Mighty Acorns classes from Waukegan and North Chicago schools spend two hours at the Greenbelt Forest Preserve. They begin with a group activity that illustrates a key ecological concept. Then they split up: half the students work on stewardship activities; the other half explore the area with field instruments like binoculars, tweezers, magnifying glasses, and collection boxes. After an hour, the groups switch.

By visiting the same location throughout the year, Mighty Acorns can observe seasonal changes and see the results of their stewardship.

"Last year, a class removed non-native plants from a small area in the fall and winter," says Ward. "When they came back in the spring, the ground was just covered with shooting stars. They were so excited."

"This program has given the forest preserve a whole new meaning for me; it's not just a place to have a picnic," says Waukegan resident and parent volunteer Lindsay Shepard, pausing for a moment from branch-cutting with his daughter, Lindsay. He thinks the program has helped her "learn how to respect nature and that everything is an important part of the ecosystem here."

When their work is finished, two large brush piles demonstrate to the class how much they can accomplish in a relatively short time.

"Every little bit helps," says Dawn Szweda, a Lake County Forest Preserve volunteer. "Even if the students clear around one oak, next year a little acorn could fall and grow into a new tree because the sunlight can now reach it."

That's what one Mighty Acorn can do.