Sacramento fifth-graders win Disneyland trip for environmental project

Students at Phoebe Hearst Elementary in Sacramento got a fast lesson on how learning can be fun and pay off. A fifth-grade class at the school won the grand prize in a statewide environmental education competition.

During an assembly Thursday, Mickey Mouse delivered the surprise announcement to teacher Sylvia Rodriguez and her students, who snatched the top award – beating 45 other entries – for their project to preserve and protect the American River watershed.

Rodriguez and students jubilantly gave each other high-fives, jumped up and down and cried.

The 2008 Disney's Environmentality Challenge asked students to design and carry out a classroom project that would spur environmental stewardship.

Accepting a plaque, Rodriguez said, "I'm all choked up."

She said the students came up with the idea to preserve the watershed and chose the activities.

"The value of this kind of project is finding out what (students) care about," she said. "It makes teaching easy and learning fun. They want to be here. They care."

Students visited the Effie Yeaw Nature Center and learned about the waterway's ecosystem.

Student Nick Rolph, 11, said they learned about how American Indians used the land and plants.

"We decided we wanted to plant native plants to cover the land and prevent erosion," Nick said.

The blue wild rye and purple needlegrass that students planted in the nature center garden use less water and provide habitat for animals.

"It took a lot more work, but it really paid off," said 11-year-old Zack Bahm. "We helped the environment by planting native plants and we won the prize."

The competition is sponsored by the Walt Disney Co., and all winners will get a free trip to Disneyland in Anaheim.

The class didn't stop at sprucing up the landscape: They organized a student fair, wrote and performed a play to educate other students about the watershed, and produced a short documentary about their project.

Anthony Leon, 10, said students edited their own footage using Apple's iMovie. Evelyn White, 10, said editing the film was her favorite part. "I love to work with computers," she said.

To produce the 10-minute documentary, students used equipment donated by Channel 10 and others, Rodriquez said. The film also encourages students not to litter.

Fifth-grader Isabelle Flores-Jones said the project has made her more aware of how her actions affect the environment.

"After we did all this work, we learned how Native Americans cared for (the river)," she said. "No way is it ours. No way do we have the right to pollute it and change it. It belongs to the earth, Mother Earth and to itself."

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Ngoc Nguyen at (916) 321-1041.