TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) – Students at a local middle school are helping protect wildlife with a project for their engineering class.
Seventh graders at Sarah Scott Middle School are making boxes for wood ducks. The goal of creating the boxes is to help protect the wood duck population.
First, the students learned all about the species. Student Zahara Roblero even used her artistic skills to draw a picture of a wood duck.
“I didn’t know what a wood duck was, so it was pretty cool learning about it. I actually enjoyed it, looking up the research and stuff,” said Roblero.
With help from the Vigo County Education Foundation and Ducks Unlimited, the class got materials to make the boxes.
Engineering Teacher Martin Nagy said the project introduces the students to building skills and using simple tools.
“It lends well to other career fields, so specifically anything in construction. The earlier you can get their hands on tools and it becomes more intuitive to them, so it’s kind of like second nature,” said Nagy.
He added the class has enough funding for every seventh grader at Sarah Scott to make a duck box.