Deb's Elgin High School students learn from the ground up by monitoring Poplar Creek, a tributary of the Fox River. By recording what they find in the creek, from litter to dragonfly larvae, they discover what helps -- and hurts -- a watershed.

"Whatever's in this creek will go into the river, so if there's a lot of junk in the creek, it'll continue to pollute the river," Perryman tells her students, adding that right now the Fox River is very polluted.

Service Learning is a hands-on approach Perryman uses to give her students an opportunity to be leaders. Service Learning posits that students acquire knowledge, experience, and confidence by getting involved in their communities, by rolling up their sleeves, by sharing what they have learned with others.

In 2004, the Illinois State Board of Education chose Perryman as Teacher of the Year from a field of hundreds of educators, dubbed "Those Who Excel." The experience has reinforced another aspect of Service Learning: the value of working together.

"I'm very blessed," Perryman says. "I have an awesome community here. Any time my students have wanted to do something for a project and they've hit a roadblock, the community has always come forward and helped us with supplies or money or chaperones or whatever we've needed."

While the thought of teenagers as responsible citizens may seem foreign to many adults, Perryman says they're incredible; an underestimated resource just waiting for a chance to become involved. Many of her students live at poverty and below and are non-native English speakers. She says it's not easy for them to come forward because they don't feel it's their right or their place or that they have anything to say.

Yet last year her students came forward to teach over 6,300 younger people through an organization called "Mighty Acorns". They've stenciled "do not dump" messages on more than 3,800 storm water drains throughout the Poplar Creek watershed.

"It scares me to death to think that we expect positive changes to take place, yet we're not willing to become involved. We just expect the next generation to feel invested in themselves and invested in the community, but we don't model how to do that. That's why what we're doing with Service Learning is so imperative.

"I think about the kids who are in class today -- they're not here because they have to be. They're here because they believe in the program and they want to make a difference," she says. Kids are our future, Perryman believes, grateful for the opportunity to guide students toward living sustainably: recycling, consuming mindfully, using mass transit, and so on.

"Today's students are going to be taking care of this world someday," she says. "We're working with kids right now so they'll understand it's important to do something when they see litter on the ground. And when they see the quality and quantity of the natural world deteriorating, hopefully they'll say hey, we've got to do something about this."

Perryman realizes that few of her students may grow up to become wildlife biologists, but she knows that most will likely be parents and community members someday.

"They will be voters and I want them to know it's not just okay to go talk to your mayor, but it's important to talk to your mayor. I want my students -- no matter what their academic standing is, no matter what their race is, whether or not English is their first language -- to know who the leaders are in their community and know how to talk to those leaders about what is important to them. I want my students to know how to become involved. I want them to be ready to make changes when it's their turn."

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