Ten-year-old Karen Suelen’s “Eagle Poem” hangs in the hall outside her classroom at Transfiguration School on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
Brave eagle
Alive, energetic, powerful
Flying
Gracefully, brilliantly, vigorously
Suelen and her 5th-grade classmates have been studying the American eagle for more than six weeks: writing poetry, learning folklore and even adopting a real bird from the Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center.
Friday morning, their textbook lesson came to life.
Buddy, an American eagle from the center, visited the school’s 240 pupils.
He’ll be in town through Monday as part of the “Discover Alaska’s Inside Passage” exhibit at the John G. Shedd Aquarium.
Teacher Carol Cleland, whose 5th-grade class adopted Buddy, became interested in the center on a summer cruise to Alaska in 1992. The center is located in Sitka, a popular port on Baranof Island.
She wanted to teach city kids to appreciate and feel responsible for the environment. So she brought it to their own back yards.
“We’re exploring the world here from Chicago,” she said.
“Welcome to our school, Buddy” and “Buddy’s our best friend” posters decorated walls at the school Friday. The youngsters leaned forward earnestly, waving their arms in the air to ask the center’s veterinarian about the bird.
Center spokesperson Kari Gabriel said she was impressed by their questions.
“They do their homework before they come,” she said.
The class had adopted a different bald eagle at the center named Volta, but the center can’t use that wild bird for educational purposes the way it can Buddy. Five-year-old Buddy was not raised in the wild, so he is comfortable around people.
The center says the bird may have been taken illegally from his nest as a chick and raised by humans. He was later abandoned in the small Alaskan village of Kake, where he followed around elementary school children, begging for food from their lunches.
Police “arrested” Buddy and brought him to the rehabilitation center after he scratched a boy that was playing with a red rubber ball. Buddy may have mistaken the ball for meat.
The rehabilitation center, a non-profit organization in southeast Alaska, specializes in the care of injured birds of prey, primarily the bald eagle.
To adopt the eagle, the class raised $75 by selling baked goods and raffle tickets.
The rest of the school, at 5044 N. Rockwell St., raised $55 by holding a “red, white and blue day.” Pupils who donated money didn’t have to wear the Catholic school’s required maroon and gray uniforms for the day.
But that wasn’t the only payoff from Buddy’s visit. Ann Hetland, 11, said she had learned the importance of protecting the environment, especially the national bird.
“If we didn’t take care of it,” she said, “it would die.”
