Students Saving Snakes

I just read an article about this amazing program at a high school in Arkansas.  Young conservationists are given the innovative opportunity to help save one of the country's rarest species - the Louisiana pine snake - through captive breeding and research.   Just think of how many high schools, and community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities there are in this country.  Obviously, they aren't going to managing California condors or Mexican gray wolves - but think of how many endangered invertebrates, and small freshwater fish, and reptiles and amphibians and very small mammals there are.  That's not even touching endangered plants.  Different schools around the country could each adopt a local endangered species - some schools could work as a coalition to care for one species.  If even only a very small percentage of facilities were to opt into a program like this, the collective impact could be enormous.

Besides the conservation impact, imagine the benefits for the students.  Not only the skills learned, but the knowledge and experience that, before you were even a legal adult, you worked to help make such a dramatic difference to make the world a better place... at least for pine snakes.

High School Makes History By Repopulating Rare Species