Each year, OWL’s seventh graders explore the question “What makes a community thrive or suffer?” through Fall Fieldwork. This year’s class, the Class of 2031, spent a night at Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center learning about the plants and animals that live in Minnesota, then explored prairies, deciduous forests, and coniferous forests at Belwin Conservancy with thermometers, photometers, anemometers, and sketchbooks in hand.
Back at OWL, each student chose a Minnesota species to illustrate in Kent Miller’s art class, from the American toad and lake sturgeon to the snow bunting and the pink lady slipper. In Akira Mally’s science class, they researched how climate change is affecting their species’ phenology, the timing of its seasonal activities, and wrote about what they found. The result is this calendar: twelve featured drawings, a gallery of every student’s species, and their writing on how Minnesota’s plants and animals are responding to a warming climate.
Inside, Kent also shares how he approached the art: giving students plenty of time to revise their own work and the freedom to choose their medium. The cover features Marina’s monarch butterfly, and Melita and Louden made up the student publication team.