Jan 28, 2008 4:49 pm US/Central
Fort Worth Students Save Beavers, Stop Flooding
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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KTVT / KTXA
A band of busy beavers has been hard at work at a Fort
Worth school. Students and teachers like
having the beavers around, but there's a problem: their dam has almost made the
pond on campus too big.
They didn't want to evict the beavers from their
home. But they also didn't want a flood.
So the students and teachers at All Saints Episcopal
School worked together to find a solution.
Kimberly Long teaches writing to ninth graders. "I just think it's incredible that we
have this experience to see this happen and be a part of it," she said.
The students did some research and found an answer that
works for the people and the beavers. It's called a "beaver deceiver." They installed a pipe with one end in the pond
and the other end about 50 feet away. The
end of the pipe in the pond is positioned in such a way that it keeps the water
at a constant level regardless of how big the beavers make the dam. The pipe is also shielded with a wire cage to
keep the beavers from blocking it.
Now everybody wins: the beavers get to stay in their pond,
the pond doesn't flood and the students learned by doing.
"We can do things in the classroom and we can talk
about all kinds of stuff but until they get outside and see and be a part of
it," Long said, "they have no real conception of how wonderful this
is."
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