We sat down today to talk about problems in our community.  Honestly, this is quite common among us friends, and probably among teenagers in general, to complain about the issues with the world.  I don't know why exactly, but suddenly someone spoke up about the book Hoot.  She was talking about the thoughtless and selfish deeds of humans, using construction companies as an example.  For those of you that don't know, Hoot is about a group of students that band together to help save endangered burrowing owl habitat from destruction by a construction firm.  It speaks about the beauty of the environment, the vulnerability, and the role of even the smallest creatures (like burrowing owls) in it.  Our friend talked about an article she'd read about the burrowing owl's threatened status in California, and I jumped.

"There are burrowing owls in California?"  I wasn't the only one that asked this.  She seemed surprised, and then started to explain.

As it turned out, there are less than 90 burrowing owls left in California, now, which explains why almost none of us had ever seen one.  We were surprised to find out about its steep declines in our state.  It was, as our friend explained, because of construction companies as well.

It went really quiet for a while.  As anyone who's seen teenagers knows, it takes a lot to get a group of them to be quiet.  After we finished lunch, we went off, but we were all thinking about burrowing owls and the environment.  I think a new idea was forming, but I don't think any of us really knew what was going on.

-Alice Wu
John
5/2/2012 05:45:23 pm

Good luck with this project!

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