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Student Honored For Trying To Save Birds

Klint Lowry/SUNCOAST NEWS

State Senator Mike Fasano congratulates Seven Springs Middle School student Matt Nuzzo on his initiative in contacting his office while working on a school project to protect sandhill cranes near his home. Matt's project partner, Jake Ponce De Leon, looks on.

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: January 19, 2008

TRINITY, Fla. - TRINITY, Fla. - Seven Springs Middle School eighth-grader Matt Nuzzo wanted to do something about the sandhill cranes he saw being killed by traffic along Trinity Boulevard.

A nice idea, but what's a young man going to do about it? Write his state lawmaker? Get with it, this is the 21st century.

He called instead.

As a result, state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, paid a visit Tuesday to Matt and his classmates in the middle school's Lead the Pack program.

"I want to congratulate this class," Fasano said, acknowledging all the various service projects they were engaged in, including Matt's.

Lead the Pack is a "service-learning" program, said teacher Cindy Tehan. "It's a philosophy of teaching," Tehan explained.

In a service-learning program, concepts are taught in the traditional manner, then implemented by the students in real-world public service projects. The idea is that practical application and tangible results leave more lasting and positive impressions on students than a simple explanation of the machinations of bureaucracy.

The Lead the Pack program gets funding from Florida Learn and Serve, a federally funded grant program dedicated to the support of service-learning educational programs across the state.

Each year, students in the Lead the Pack Program create their own public service programs or select existing programs they want to assist in some way. They learn how to write grant proposals and then implement their plans.

Matt and his project partner, Jake Ponce de Leon, wanted to get signs posted that would warn drivers to watch out for sandhill cranes. They researched the birds so they could better explain their case.

Sandhill cranes are migratory birds that fly down to Florida from all over the United States and Canada. But in family groups, they often stay on the ground, since sandhill cranes can't fly until they are about 10 weeks old.

"The adults don't fly, because the babies don't fly," Matt said.

Sandhill cranes are mostly gray, so when they cross streets, they aren't very visible.

Armed with this knowledge, Matt said he spent four days learning that games aren't just for kids as he was introduced to such adult pastimes as "phone tag" and "pass the buck."

"I made many phone calls to many agencies for assistance," Matt said. Many of his calls weren't returned. Other agencies referred him, often erroneously, to other agencies.

Finally, Matt decided to go straight to the top, so he called Fasano's office.

"When I get a call, I try to respond," Fasano said. Matt's call struck a personal chord.

"I travel that road often," Fasano said. "I've noticed the cranes."

Trinity Boulevard is a county road, so Fasano brought the issue to Pasco County Administrator John Gallagher.

Although there is no word yet on whether the signs will be erected, Fasano liked the initiative Matt showed. It prompted him to emphasize the point by coming to the school to say so and to present certificates of achievement to the Lead the Pack students for all their achievements.

"Every citizen has a voice," Fasano told the students.

That's no small thing, he added. Most people in the world don't have that. In this country, any person can do what Matt did, which is take an idea and try to get his government to do something about it.

All of our laws started out simply as someone's idea, he pointed out.

Learning this now, Fasano told the students, and learning how government works, will help them all be better informed citizens and the kind of adults who know how to make their government work for them.

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