Digital Extra

She knows how the oil is seeping into sensitive coves and poisoning the sea birds. She knows about the winds that hindered salvage workers and the clubbing that this summer's tourist season might take.

And Makaila is only 8 years old.

Her third-grade teacher at Charlestown Elementary School, Lorie Gilligan, is turning the talk of the town into material for her science, English and even art lessons.

"They're really into it," Gilligan said. "It's a thing that hits home in their own backyard. We're not talking about something thousands of miles away."

Like Gilligan, teachers throughout South County are tossing textbooks aside and improvising the curriculum.

Yesterday, she and her class of 24 started a towel and blanket drive for volunteers working with injured birds.

She dipped a feather into a mix of water and cooking oil and let the students feel the slimy coat. Then she asked them to write about the spill.

These were Makaila's thoughts:

When I first heard about the oil spill I was scared. One of my secret worries about the oil spill is what if the oil blows up? Oil blows up so this might.

I'm going to bring in towels because I'm too scared to do anything else.

Area high school teachers say they, too, are capitalizing on the disaster, applying stock scientific theories to the present-day crisis.

It so happens that Narragansett High School environmental science teacher Mark Fontaine was to kick off the new semester with a unit on water pollution.

He had planned on comparing the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska with the World Prodigy spill off Brenton Reef in Newport the same year. But not anymore.

"This just kind of fell into our laps," he said.

He and horticulture teacher Greg Breene are taking three classes of mostly upperclassmen on a Save the Bay field trip Monday.

The students will help with a shoreline assessment survey and perhaps with beach cleanup efforts, Fontaine said.

"The teachers get excited anytime the students get excited and I think students get excited when there's real-life relevancy," Principal David Andrews said. "In Narragansett, many of their families make a living from the sea so this has a direct impact on them."

William McEneaney, whom South Kingstown High School students affectionately call "Mr. Mac," is as excited about the classroom opportunities as he is upset about the spill.

"There's nothing like a real-life experience to motivate people," he said. "It's something you can smell and feel. And when your own human senses are involved, you're more inclined to do something about it."

Besides amending his environmental biology and ornithology lessons at the high school to include the North Cape incident, McEneaney visited Peace Dale Elementary School yesterday to explain the spilled oil's effect on sea birds.

Imagine, he told two fourth-grade classes, how scared the oil-coated birds must be when two-legged creatures hover over them and pick them up with towels.

"You're picked up by giant, strange, weird things that don't have feathers," McEneaney said. "They're freaked out, you might say."

He went on to describe the rehabilitation process and the need to raise money to buy fresh fish for the recovering loons and eider ducks.

"Can't people taking care of the birds just buy some fish at Critter Hut?" asked 10-year-old Meghan Metivier, referring to the Wakefield pet center.

"There's not enough fish at the Critter Hut to supply all the food they need," McEneaney said.

Besides organizing a blanket and rag drive at the high school, McEneaney hopes high school students will raise money to buy fresh minnows for the rehabilitated birds.

Charlestown Elementary's Gilligan says there's nothing like a local emergency to capture children's attention.

"It's first and foremost on their minds," she said. "They're mainly concerned about the animals."

Nine-year-old Laura Brigada of Charlestown wrote this in her journal yesterday:

I feel very disappointed about the oil spill because so many animals are dying. On the news it said that a seal was found dead. I'm pretty angry too because it could have been prevented . . . I'm also concerned about our food chain and my dad wanted to go fishing this summer. I really, really hope we can get it cleaned soon.