The habitat project came about during the last term of her senior year. She had taken Miller's class for the seven previous terms, been his teaching assistant several times, and, since he taught on a different topic each term, she felt she learned something new in every class. Now Ellis has graduated. She's looking for a job and plans to live on her own soon.

She'll take the lessons of habitat with her: "When I have a yard, in my own house . . .," she begins, then backs up a bit. "Well, I used to not care." A lot of people don't think deeply about their yards, she has noticed. "People are like, 'Let's plant flowers.' They don't realize what certain flowers attract what."

Another thing people don't realize is how bad their garbage is for the environment. Before they could even start building a habitat, Ellis says, they had to pick up so much garbage. "Even a cigarette butt on the ground" is wrong, she now believes.

These beliefs she will take with her, from Miller's class into the world. These and a sense of empowerment. Building the habitat, she says, she was part of something that was studied on and planned for and actually did work out.

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Habitats on Web

To learn more about the schoolyard habitat nearest you, visit www.nwf.org. Ryan Miller's class also relied on the National Geographic Society's Web site, nationalgeographic.com.

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E-mail: susan@desnews.com