Port Aransas South Jetty

Going wild

Getting a head in education STAFF PHOTO BY DAN PARKER Jennifer McClaren displays an alligator head while giving a talk on wildlife to a class at H.G. Olsen Elementary School on Thursday, Sept. 27. McClaren is an official with the Coastal Bend Wildlife Photo Contest, a creation of the Coastal Bend Wildlife Habitat Education Program. Things got a little wild recently at H.G. Olsen Elementary School.

But in a good way.

On Thursday, Sept. 27, the school received 40 books, Wildlife in Focus III, as a donation from the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, a non-profit group that works to protect the health of area bays and estuaries while supporting economic growth and public use of coastal areas.

The books went to the fourth and fifth grades. Each book contains 171 glossy pages of photos from the Coastal Bend Wildlife Photo Contest. Wildlife in Focus III normally retails for $40.

The contest was created by the Coastal Bend Wildlife Habitat Education Program to promote cooperation among businesses, private landowners and wildlife photographers.

The Coastal Bend Wildlife Habitat Education Program operates in a partnership with the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program.

The books came with a curriculum guide that teachers can use for lessons in nature, eco-systems and photography.

The books were donated to H.G. Olsen Elementary School as part of a one-week series of workshops attended by Olsen teachers Julie Findley and Gina McKeever during the summer at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. Titled "Living on the Edge," the workshops provided the teachers with lessons on teaching children about ecosystems, especially where watersheds are concerned.

The Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program paid for the workshops.

As part of the book donation sept. 27, two speakers visited Olsen Elementary and made classroom presentations about wildlife and ecology in the Coastal Bend. They were Jennifer McClaren, an official with the Coastal Bend Wildlife Photo Contest; and Flora Caylor, of the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program.