Going WILD for Conservation!

West Virginia’s Project WILD brings conservation to the classroom and beyond.

This story was originally published in the March 2025 issue of Wonderful West Virginia. To subscribe, visit wonderfulwv.com.

Written by Tara Wine-Queen

Now and then, a group of West Virginia students goes foraging for scraps of paper that represent fruits, nuts, and meats and puts them in their brown paper “bear stomachs.” The kids are concentrating, laughing, and clearly learning. What’s going on? It’s an educational activity called “Lunch for a Bear,” part of the Project WILD environmental education curriculum. 

For over four decades, Project WILD—Wildlife in Learning Design—has been empowering educators to engage in impactful, hands-on learning about the environment. The initiative was launched in 1983 by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the Western Regional Environmental Education Council, now known as the Council for Environmental Education. It was designed by educators and wildlife specialists to ensure the delivery of quality information through effective curriculums that would get both students and teachers excited about the environment. Though it started in the West, within a decade it had been adopted by all 50 states, each state having its own designated coordinator. 

Emily McCabe is West Virginia’s Project WILD Activities Coordinator, a position she rose to after spending time as an intern. While Project WILD is only a part of her responsibilities, it’s one she’s passionate about. “Being able to plant that seed into kids so they grow up learning about conservation and local wildlife is important because some of these kids don’t have anyone who hunts or does any conservation efforts in their family.” 

Teaching the Curriculum

The three components of Project WILD are Ecological Knowledge, Social and Political Knowledge, and Sustaining Fish and Wildlife Resources, and McCabe’s goal for Project WILD in the state is simple: to bring the topic of conservation to the table so the knowledge and resources are available to students and teachers. “I know a lot of schools lately have been adding in some conservation and local wildlife lessons, but this just gives them more. We give them books and everything, and we train the teachers.”

Helping teachers fit the project into their curriculum and seeing the spark of interest grow in their students is McCabe’s favorite part of her role, and she does much of the hands-on training and leading of activities herself. “Part of our job is going around to classrooms and teaching kids about the local wildlife,” she says. “I have a big passion for teaching kids and then being able to see them grow into it and find their own things they’re interested in.” While McCabe is stationed out of the WVDNR’s headquarters in South Charleston, she has interns across the state who are also trained in Project WILD to ensure every corner of the state is covered. 

Project WILD holds in-person workshops and offers self-guided online courses, and participants can register online for both versions. The courses include a copy of the Project WILD K–12 Curriculum & Activity Guide, which provides the framework and tools like easily copied manipulatives and printables that help students work through projects and activities. In addition to the general curriculum, Project WILD frequently hosts webinars that focus on specific topics for educators to dive into, like Amphibian Week. 

Hands-On Learning

While Project WILD itself is a comprehensive program covering many topics across conservation, workshops like Aquatic WILD, Flying WILD, and Growing Up WILD explore specific themes. 

Aquatic WILD centers around the wildlife found in lakes, rivers, and oceans. Like all of the Project WILD offerings, it highlights the creatures native to the area where the students and teacher find themselves. In Aquatic WILD’s “Fishy Who’s Who,” for example, students discover the fish that populate their local waterways and create biographies for the different species. The “Living Research: Aquatic Heroes and Heroines” activity asks students to find individuals who have worked to conserve aquatic environments in their area to see how real people improve quality of life for the animals who call the water home, and also for the people whose lives depend on the health and preservation of that water. 

Flying WILD celebrates the birds we share our skies with. One popular activity is the “Bird Behavior Scavenger Hunt,” which asks students to use their observational skills to study behavioral adaptations. While trying to find birds exhibiting specific behaviors, students learn about important aspects of bird life, including migration, feeding, finding a mate, and more, all while enjoying the great outdoors. 

Growing Up WILD is designed for children ages 3 through 7. Activities engage young kids with the natural world on their level, teaching them to be observant while using movement, art, and music to ensure that the children are engaged and excited. In the “Looking at Leaves” activity, for example, little ones compare leaves they find in their area, use pine needles to paint, and do a tree dance, tactile learning that benefits their growing minds and bodies. Perhaps most importantly, it’s fun, and the fun makes learning feel more manageable, setting little minds up to associate environmental education and science with enjoyment. 

Young kids especially like the activity “Lunch for a Bear,” according to McCabe—the one with the brown paper “bear stomach.” “We have cut-up sheets of paper—little squares that have fruits, nuts, and meat written on them—that we scatter on the ground. And then there’s also cut-up squares of different colored construction paper that have nothing on them.” After the papers have been scattered, the kids are asked to interlock arms and given different challenges bears might experience in the wild, such as one of them having just fallen out of a tree and unable to use one hand. They get 30 seconds to pick up as much paper “food” as they can. 

When the kids take everything they’ve collected out of their bags, it’s revealed to them that the blank colored construction paper is actually trash—not the nutritious foods found on the other sheets—and they learn how trash and human food can be dangerous to bears. Then they play the game again, trying to get items from each of the food groups for their bears so they have happy tummies and don’t endanger themselves or the humans around them. The activity teaches students about limited resources and how animals have to fend for their food. 

“We’ll talk about how bears have to find things like shelter and water and have to compete with other bears and human life. We express the importance of not feeding wildlife and throwing your trash away, because the bear doesn’t know that a piece of trash isn’t nutritional for them,” McCabe says. “The little kids really, really love it. We’ll teach preschoolers up to college-age kids, so you kind of have to see who your audience is.” 

A Lesson for Everyone

While most of the attendees at McCabe’s training are teachers and college students studying education, Project WILD is intentionally designed for use beyond formal education settings. Non-educators and educators alike can enroll in the courses and implement the lessons available through them. Active learning is prioritized, and hands-on interdisciplinary activities make Project WILD perfect for local youth leaders who are looking to give the children in their care educational experiences that take advantage of the Mountain State’s vast natural offerings that can be done outdoors. 

Project WILD has a bright future in West Virginia, with many exciting offerings already in place for the year ahead. McCabe especially looks forward to working with similar curriculums to give attendees “more bang for their buck.” One of the already-planned offerings is the Trifecta Wetland Workshop of Project WILD and two other programs, which will take place June 17, 2025, at the Mercer County Gardner Center. “We’re working with Project WET and Project Learning Tree, and people can come and get all three in one day. Working on streams ultimately benefits West Virginia, and learning about trees also benefits us. Even though we’re all separate, we all have the same goal.” 

McCabe emphasizes that she is more than willing to hold additional workshops for those who are unable to come to the ones already planned or who are looking for a more specific service. “If they’re interested in a training and we don’t have any set up, people can feel free to email me and set one up with me. If they want one on a certain day in a certain place, we’re more than happy to come to them.”