Kentucky science teacher Debra Corbett (right, third person from the front) took her students to the Amazon last year to study wildlife.

Debra Corbett, a science teacher at Assumption High School in Louisville, Kentucky, doesn’t just bring animals to her classroom for students to learn about: She takes her students to the animals.

Corbett and her students at the all-girls Catholic high school have traveled to Costa Rica to study leatherback sea turtles and rescue their eggs to help shield the species from extinction. Her students also worked on a scarlet macaw project in which they cleaned and filled nest boxes for nesting pairs and learned about the consequences of the wild bird trade. Other destinations for Corbett’s science-based ecology trips have included the Galapagos Islands and Peruvian Amazon, where students learned about wildlife and worked on service projects.

Corbett’s enthusiasm for studying animals motivates students so much that they are willing to pay their way on the trips. “Our administration does not allow fundraising for student trips,” she explains. “The students raise money by asking family to fund their trip through Christmas and birthday presents.”

In June, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) honored Corbett with its 2009 National Kind Teacher Award, which recognizes a teacher who consistently incorporates kindness and respect for animals into the curriculum. “Ms. Corbett has gone the extra mile to bring animal studies to life and inspire service in her students, locally and globally,” says Heidi O’Brien, director of youth outreach for the HSUS. “Her passion for wildlife and homeless pets has been infectious in her school community.”

“I have always loved animals and have wanted to work with them,” says Corbett. After she earned her bachelor’s degree in fisheries and wildlife biology, she initially considered working with large predators in the wild, such as bears. “But education is the key to the survival of wildlife, so I decided to go into teaching,” she explains.

“Animals give us so much [that] we really need to know and understand them,” she observes. “Our young people are our future, and if I can help them see the beauty in other animals, then I have contributed to the future.”

Her school’s administration is “very supportive” of her work with animals, she notes. “The school has a pet iguana that I take care of. She roams around our science classrooms, and the girls…have an opportunity to observe her behavior and personality. The students are crazy about her.”

Going Wild

Corbett currently teaches general biology, marine biology, and astronomy, as well as a course she designed as an elective for juniors and seniors called Wildlife Biology: Terrestrial Vertebrates. “At Assumption High School, we have a full and varied elective course selection, so our students can really focus their studies on what they are interested in,” she notes. She decided to create the course, she explains, because so many students at her school are interested in biology and animals. “I teach two semesters of marine biology, and I have always had students that tell me they wanted more classes like it.”

To design the course, Corbett says she drew upon the classes she took at Iowa State University while working on her wildlife biology degree. “I had classes in mammalogy, herpetology, and ornithology, so I had a good base for developing the class.”

Corbett’s Wildlife Biology course covers the “basic biology” of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, along with current wildlife management issues, she explains. “The students also learn to identify Kentucky species in the field. One of my goals with the class was to have the girls know [which animal] they were seeing when they were out and about. When people see groundhogs, they many times say, ‘Look—a beaver,’ so I want my students to know the animals they see.”

She uses a variety of materials when teaching the course. “We use Peterson’s guides to [identify] Kentucky species, as well as bird song recordings, old bird’s nests I find, and of course, our school pet, Iggy the Iguana.” Field trips are a crucial component. “We take a field trip to the Fish and Wildlife Salato Game Farm in Frankfort, Kentucky. At Salato, the girls can observe bison, elk, and black bear, as well as other local species.”

Corbett has garnered accolades from students who have taken the course. “I really enjoyed the [Wildlife Biology: Terrestrial Vertebrates] class because the information was explained in detail, yet presented in an easy-to-understand way,” reports student Maggie Gardner, who took the class as a junior. “The class activities we did, such as the poster projects, were a good way to put the lecture information into a different medium. I still use the information I learned in that class in my AP Biology class, and occasionally, I throw out the facts I learned when I work at the zoo or [in] just everyday situations, which impresses people. I’d take it again in a heartbeat.”

Corbett believes learning about animals and the issues they face is important for young people, especially when it comes to endangered species. To teach students about the importance of biodiversity for our planet’s health, she integrates stories of endangered wildlife into the curriculum.

“Humans are the main cause of species loss at this time, and people need to know the ‘how’s and whys’ of this issue and what they can do to make a difference,” she asserts, citing the work of biologist and author E.O. Wilson. “Wilson says that we are entering the ‘age of loneliness’ with the huge number of species being lost, and that humans feel the loss of each species as a collective whole. We do not know what the feeling is, but we do have a feeling of loss. I tend to agree with this.”

Studying animals also inspires environmental awareness. “It is important for people to learn how the choices they make individually can affect animals, and people as well, across the globe. This is as simple as not using a plastic grocery bag, because plastics are a huge issue for marine life,” says Corbett. Such knowledge can empower students “to be sustainable consumers with the products they buy and the food they choose to purchase and consume. Choosing humanely treated food animals increases their health, as well as the health of the animals,” she points out.

She says “a lack of understanding and compassion for other species” is her greatest challenge in teaching students about animals. “I have heard comments from students that ‘animals are not as important as people, and people should spend their time and money on helping people, not animals.’ ” But she believes the more students learn about animals, the more compassion they develop for other species, as well as for other humans. “My students are always moved when we watch [the film] March of the Penguins and the female penguin mourns the loss of her chick. At least one of them always says, ‘I didn’t know that they had feelings.’”

Corbett believes “animals have so much to teach us if we just listen. They teach us to love unconditionally. They teach us how to be in touch with the natural world. They teach us about our place in the scheme of things. They teach us how to work together.”