Eighth-graders dig into wetlands

RALEIGH -- Every Friday for a year, a group of 25 Exploris Middle School eighth-graders waded into the city's Walnut Creek armed with boots and binoculars.

They brought along cameras and waterproof journals, taking careful note of every critter wriggling in the Southeast Raleigh woods. Leopard slugs. Crab spiders. Creek chubs. A rare sea lamprey.

Now their findings are compiled in a field guide to Walnut Creek, a companion to a $1.6 million urban wetlands center Raleigh will build nearby.

"Nature is right here in Raleigh," said Frank McKay, their teacher at Exploris, "and the animals in this guide are testament to that. Coyotes. Minks. Sea lamprey."

The wetlands hug Walnut Creek as it crosses South State Street about 2 miles south of downtown.

Last year, another set of Exploris students interviewed the people who grew up around those wetlands and woods, who grew strawberries and vegetables on farms paved over decades ago.

From the 1890s to the 1940s, Raleigh dumped raw sewage into that section of Walnut Creek, said Norman Camp, who grew up in the area and helped found the nonprofit Partners for Environmental Justice.

Twice a year, Camp said, volunteers still pull mounds of trash out of Walnut Creek.

"I really applaud you for doing what I did when I was a kid -- getting out and enjoying the wild," Camp told the students during a celebration Friday at City Hall. "Hopefully, these are not the last kids in the wild."

A city greenway path snakes through the area, and the sounds of birds and bugs can cover the roar of passing cars.

The center will be at the corner of State and Peterson streets, anchoring 59 acres of wetlands where the Exploris students' work will go on exhibit.

At first, the students winced at the idea of spending Fridays in the damp, dark woods, cataloguing tree frogs and turkey vultures -- even with gear provided by REI.

"I was a little disappointed," Lindsey Urena said.

But her tune quickly changed upon finding tadpoles and garden snakes.

"I had a blast," she said.

The students' 72-page guide looks slick and professional, complete with drawings, photographs and descriptions of every beast. It even features a short account of each sighting: The lamprey had its head in the Walnut Creek sand; the mink was discovered as road kill on State Street last year.

Their slide show Friday showed students proudly pointing at captured animals and fishing an old boot out of tall grass.

"We found a lot of trash in the wetlands," said student David Cookmeyer, "and we occasionally got wet."

Such are the strains of science -- sharper than a lamprey's tooth.