Two awards from a conservation based group recently made their way to the Panorama School District.

Middle School Science Teacher Mark Dorhout says that the Izaak Walton League of America, a group he is also a member of, named the Panorama School District a recipient of their Iowa Honor Roll Award, which recognizes groups or individuals who have achieved outstanding accomplishments involving conservation, public education, or publicity efforts in keeping with the League’s goals. Dorhout mentions that the League also presented his past, present and future students with the Conservation Youth Award, which is given to a youth or group of youths under 21 years old who have done outstanding work in conservation activity, such as: wildlife study/management, forestry, planting, improvements to soil, and water.

Dorhout tells Raccoon Valley Radio something he’s noticed from the students in the last four years since he took over the outdoor classroom project.

“Well, first off, they like it. They like spending time outdoors. They appreciate that we’re taking the classroom and we’re spending some time in the classroom prepping for the work that we do out there. And then when we go out there, we understand more completely. Like erosion. We’ll do some research about erosion, how it happens, why it happens, the different forms of erosion. Then we’ll go out and look for examples of it out there. So kids enjoy being outside of a classroom, in a prairie.”

Dorhout mentions that the project consists of 11 acres of prairie land, with three acres sitting on top of the geothermal system on the west side of the elementary school. He explains that the program got started roughly 25 years ago, but was shortly thereafter somewhat abandoned and a cedar patch began growing. Dorhout continues that six years ago the Izaak Walton League conservation group in Panora rounded up some funds, along with some expertise on similar projects, and worked with the school to return the area to its original intended prairie environment.

Dorhout’s classes work on helping keep the prairie healthy, as well as checking water quality, and building bird houses that they put up around the community surrounding the school buildings. Dorhout shares that regarding the birdhouses, there are roughly 200 scattered throughout the community, giving their avian neighbors safe homes.