Saving the Sumatran Rhino

Fifth grade students at the P.S. 107 John W. Kimball Learning Center in Brooklyn, New York, are helping the most critically endangered of the five remaining rhino species: the Sumatran rhino. The students wrote and illustrated a children’s book, ‘One Special Rhino: The Story of Andatu’, about a Sumatran rhino born in Indonesia in 2012.

 There are only around a hundred Sumatran rhinos left in the world. Demand in Asia for rhino horn—which some people believe has healing properties—has led to illegal hunting of the Sumatran and other rhinos. The loss of the rhinos’ natural environment from illegal logging and cutting down of forest which is turned into cropland also threatens rhinos.

"This is going to be terrible,” recalled fifth grader Owen. “I have to do every homeroom period just to write a stupid book." But once he started working on the book, Owen changed his mind: "Rhinos are just like us. They liked their mamas and wanted to play with them. To think they are going to become extinct, it is just sad, and we want to help them."

The students have also worked on school-wide art projects, made a short video with a student narrating from the point of view of Andatu the rhino, and raised money through lemonade stands. The children’s interest in helping rhinos drew the attention of the International Rhino Foundation, which visited the school and provided research materials for the book. Money from the sale of the book will go to the foundation.