Nailing shingles to roofs, sealing cracks and painting walls, the students reflected on their accomplishments as they worked outside the school Wednesday.

Jacob Kaplan, 11, said the project involved more sweat than he anticipated.

"I thought we were just going to get some wood and nail some doghouses together, but it's taken a lot of hard work that I didn't know it was going to take," he said.

Lauren Milliet, on the other hand, knew from the start she'd roll her sleeves up high.

"I really hoped to have it just perfect for them," said Milliet, 11, referring to the intended recipients.

Once completed, the doghouses will be used as shelters for wolf hybrids at WolfWood Refuge, near Ignacio.

Gene Taylor, a Fort Lewis College professor who helped spearhead the project, smiled knowingly as he watched the students work.

"I learned a long time ago that the way to the head is through the heart and the hands ," he said. "The goal is to teach children to use their hands to learn all kinds of good things and to do all kinds of good things."

A packful of lessons

The construction of wolf-sized doghouses at Riverview has been the centerpiece activity of a multidisciplinary unit about dogs put together by teacher Anthony Bonanno.

Over the course of the semester, his students have researched the history of various dog breeds; read Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls' classic novel about a boy and his champion coonhounds; organized a school-wide fundraiser resulting in the donation of 800 pounds of dog food to WolfWood; and visited with local search-and-rescue and guide dogs.

A student research grant from the FLC Office of Academic Affairs and donations from parents and local businesses funded the project.

Taylor, who collaborated on the curriculum with Bonanno, said they selected dogs as the unit topic because of their universal appeal and the topic's ability to support learning across disciplines.

"(Dogs) keep generating questions, they keep generating ideas and they're something you can probably study the rest of your life," he said.

Bonanno said the students have embraced the work.

"I was really impressed with the commitment the students showed and involvement they took in their learning," he said. "The depth and quality of their research, as well as the emotion I saw as they paged through their novel, unable to put it down, was really great to see."

Power tools and patience

Building doghouses came with a spectrum of challenges for the fifth-graders.

For Jenna Glasgow, 10, learning how to use a power screwdriver was the first.

"It hits the screw, then it goes crazy," she explained.

As the project progressed, the students learned that things don't always go as planned, Bonanno said. They were surprised when pieces they cut did not fit together or errors turned up in the blueprints.

"Minor inaccuracies or lack of attention to detail on one piece caused problems in the entire shape of the house and how it fit together," he said. Sometimes the students had to make modifications on the fly.

Still, the fifth-graders stuck with the work and discovered they could often rely on their own ingenuity.

"They have learned a lot about teamwork, patience, planning and problem-solving within a real-life, hands-on context. I have seen a lot of my students discover talents and leadership they did not know themselves they had within," said Bonanno.

FLC students join in

Taylor not only brought his expertise and enthusiasm to the project but so did a group of 12 FLC students working toward their teaching licenses.

The FLC students have been attending Bonanno's class twice a week to assist with construction and teach lessons in their areas of specialty. Hours spent at Riverview go toward fulfilling field-study requirements for graduation.

FLC senior Greg Walton, who plans to teach elementary school children, beamed along with the fifth-graders last week as he coached them in applying finishing touches.

"It's been a really neat experience," he said. "We love the kids."

One of the tasks assigned to Walton and the other FLC students was to make sure that by the time the doghouses were done, the fifth-graders would have completed several lessons supporting Colorado educational standards for math.

"They will be able to measure, estimate, convert, build," Taylor said. "They'll be able to do all these things, the hard stuff, the standards stuff."

Thinking civically

The fifth-graders have also learned about something less tangible than hard math - the need to help others. With the project drawing to a close, the students are eagerly awaiting the chance to give the doghouses away.

From 4 to 6 p.m. April 16, the students will present the first two doghouses to WolfWood representatives in the Memorial Student Lounge, in the College Union Building on the Fort Lewis campus. The public is welcome.

Bonanno hinted that some of the canines might be there as well to check out their new homes.

Kaplan, who visited WolfWood last January with his classmates, feels good about the prospect.

"They're pretty nice dogs, I would have to say, and I think they deserve it," he said.

Herald Staff Writer Karen Boush is a student in Gene Taylor's class. Click here to send an email to the author