'They blew me away:' South Daytona Elementary 4th-graders finish coral reef project

SOUTH DAYTONA — Dorothy Featherston’s fourth-grade students were excited, focused and ready for art class Tuesday morning at South Daytona Elementary.

This was the day they would finally assemble a coral reef project they'd been working on for approximately eight weeks — a journey that took the help of a Futures Foundation mini-grant to complete.

Boys and girls took their seats at the tables spread across the room and, with their teacher's guidance, began adding the various parts of their project to a blue insulation foam base.

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One by one they attached each element using toothpicks or wooden skewers: soft “fan” corals made from shelf liners; “lettuce” corals made from coffee filters; barnacles made from acorn tops; and sea urchins made from Styrofoam and toothpicks.

The students used other materials to add more details to their individual models.

Coral reefs are massive limestone structures that support approximately 25% of all known marine species, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Reefs provide homes for more than 4,000 species of fish, 700 species of coral, and thousands of other plants and animals.

The idea for the project was one Featherston had learned about during an art teacher conference four years ago, the same time she started teaching at South Daytona Elementary.

“I love repurposing. I love making new things out of old things,” Featherstone said. “It was so exciting to find things that the kids even get excited and say, ‘That does look like that,’” Featherston said. “If it’s fun for me, I can imbue that fun into the kids.”

Featherston said she was confident the project would be successful when she noticed some of her less enthusiastic students were excited about the new assignment.

“For me, it really helped my relationship with the kids to show them I was really trying to do something fun with them,” Featherstone said.

Why is learning about coral reefs so much fun?

Featherston chose to create a coral reef model not only to reproduce their colorful nature, but also to also teach students about their role in the environment.

“They are endangered,” Featherston said. “Our first day (of the project) was educating the kids on the importance of them.”

One of her students, Townes Dance, said he liked learning about a large stretch of coral reefs off the coast of Australia.

His favorite part of the project was “seeing the colors and all the cool things that people don’t get to see often."

Dance said sea urchins were also one of his favorites, especially the fact that everyone chose a different color for their versions, which made them less “scary” than their natural dark and spiky appearance.

Violet Keith, whose coral reef model features colorful seashells, said that corals are “delicate” creatures that need to be protected.

She listed several shark species, clown fish, hermit crabs and other animals that live off of and benefit from coral reefs.

She said she would like to see a real coral reef one day.

“I have actually seen barnacles in the shells I found,” Keith said. “It had like a cave area — they were really hard to get out.”

The fact that Featherston’s mother was a science teacher also plays a part in her desire to incorporate the subject into her work.

Importance of the Futures Foundation's donation

In-depth classroom projects take a financial toll on the educators, Featherston said, which is why she decided to apply for the Futures Foundation’s “Superintendent’s Most Creative Mini-Grant Award.”

“Every year that I have worked, I’ve spent about $4,000 of my own money, which I don’t begrudgingly do whatsoever — I love my kids, and I love being able to give to them,” Featherston said. “But I thought, ‘That’s a lot of money. Maybe I should start applying for some grants.’”

The Daytona Beach-based nonprofit was founded in 1985 “to increase business/community involvement in public schools and to provide programs and activities beyond the financial capabilities of the school district,” according to its website.

Featherstone said she was happily surprised to learn that she won the grant in November.

She also mentioned how donations like these are important for schools to continue providing students with opportunities to work on projects like the coral reefs.

“The other passion is advocating for the arts, more funding for the arts,” she said. “We do depend a lot on donations and the teachers to really go out and find support.”

Although she is planning on having the students return to drawing for a few weeks after more than a month hard at work assembling coral reefs, Featherstone hopes she and her students get to work on another exciting project soon.

“Everything just came together beautifully,” Featherston said. “They blew me away.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: South Daytona Elementary students finish colorful coral reef project