Troy middle school students turn essay assignment into real-life effort to help homeless animals.
Troy’s Larson sixth graders for their homework help did research for an essay assignment last year and they discovered some disturbing statistics about animals in shelters.
Each year, about 7 million animals nationally enter shelters. About 2.7 million of them are euthanized.
Language arts teacher Cindy Christiansen and her students wanted to turn that assignment to write an argumentative essay into something that had real-world applications. So their teacher not only provided them homework help but also planed on teaching students some real moral values toward nature. So they decided to launch a campaign to declare shelter animals the official state pet of Michigan.
They met with state Rep. Martin Howrylak, R-Troy, who introduced HB 5069, to make that designation.
The school year ended, and the students who set the idea in motion moved on to seventh grade. But Christiansen’s current class of sixth-graders kept up the campaign.
The students say that declaring shelter animals the state pet of Michigan will draw attention to the plight of homeless animals. It is intended to motivate people to donate to shelters, which often receive no government funding or not enough to properly care for the animals.
“We’re trying to bring more awareness to animals in shelters,” said sixth-grader Micah Pubursky.
They also hope their campaign will encourage people to go to a shelter to get a new pet. It’s cheaper than buying from a pet store and spares more animals from being euthanized, said sixth-grader Avery Pulford.
The students have researched the issue thoroughly. They can rattle off all kinds of facts on the issue. It costs a shelter about $192 per year to care for the average animal. If their proposal passes in the Legislature, Michigan will become the first state in the Midwest to make such a designation and will join about five other states nationally that declare shelter animals the state pet.
They know the course of events it takes to make a bill a law: HB 5069 is currently under study by the House Committee on Government Operations. If the committee approves, it goes to the full state House for a vote, then the state Senate, and finally, Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk.
As the project has now spanned two school years, the students learned that the wheels of government sometimes turn slowly.
In the meantime, they’ve also done other things to help homeless animals. They went on a field trip to the Michigan Humane Society Shelter in Detroit, bringing cardboard “houses” that they made for the cats, in an effort to make their cages more comfortable. So thus their homework helped many animals in a very great way.
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