ALGONQUIN — A day before their prom and with beautiful, summerlike weather outside, students in Jacobs High School science teacher John Sevener's first-period class last week were understandably keyed up.
Fortunately, Sevener didn't have to hold their attention with a classroom lecture. He handed them shovels and led them to a muddy, 5-acre field behind the Algonquin school.
There, the students, most of them seniors, in Sevener's conservation class planted trees and marked off areas to survey for wildlife native to northeastern Illinois.
Across the field, fellow science teacher Cliff Doll directed his students, armed with weed-pulling poles, to patches of wild parsnip, white clover and Queen Anne's lace.
"They're aliens," he said. "Yank them."
The scene has become familiar in the two years since Jacobs received a $5,000 grant from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Chicago to restore the field to its state before it became a farm and, later, schoolgrounds.
"It's a lot better coming out here than sitting cooped up inside taking notes," said Jacobs senior Katie O'Brien, 17. "It's fun, and it's easy," O'Brien said of the project, in which a total of five science classes are directly participating this year.
But make no mistake, teachers involved in the restoration work said that there is serious learning going on amid the fun. Probably the most striking lesson is how protean an ecosystem is.
"This whole area was tallgrass prairie before the pioneers got here," Sevener said.
A century ago, 90 percent of the state was prairie, he said. Today, that portion is less than one-tenth of 1 percent.
In addition to farming, paving and building on the prairies, European settlers brought with them plant species with few natural enemies in the Midwest. The Jacobs field, for example, teems with multiflora rose, which Sevener said farmers used as a natural fence to pen in cattle but which also choked off many native plants.
But students have discovered species that held their ground. More than a dozen native plants have been identified so far, including goldenrod, cattail and horsetail, which Jacobs science department head Dave Haraburda said was "one of the first plants on the planet."
"Our consultant at Morton Arboretum (in Lisle) tells us the field is quite a little gem," Sevener said.
He said it contains particularly diverse species because of widely varying sunlight and soil-moisture levels. One area is actually a type of swamp.
To give the native species an edge, the classes have conducted three controlled burns. The fires have been aimed at destroying invasive plants but leaving native ones, which have deeper roots.
On a continuing basis, the students reintroduce species that likely thrived there long ago. Last week, for example, Doll's classes planted black-eyed Susans and asters.
Science students are not the only ones learning from the project. Classes in history, English and other subjects receive lessons at tables that were set up in the field last year as an outdoor classroom.
"They'll come out to talk about the history of prairies or for inspiration as they write poetry," Sevener said.
He said teachers try to instill in students a sense of ownership of the prairie.
Even graduates who had participated in the project visit when they're in town, said Sevener.
"They come back, and the prairie is the first place they go," he said. "They want to see the mark they've made."
Ultimately, though, he'd like to see the students' sense of responsibility grow beyond Jacobs' field.
"Wherever they end up, I hope they've gained an appreciation for their natural surroundings and will be less likely to do things that damage them."