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Gerry Renner is a fourth-grade teacher at Wilson School, a public school in Rapid City, South Dakota. Although not a career conservationist, she has made a unique contribution to the preservation of pumas by fostering in her students a deep understanding of what it means to save a species.

A mountain lion was legally shot by a hunter in the Black Hills of South Dakota in the summer of 2005 and turned in to the Game, Fish, and Parks department. Upon examination, it was determined that the cat was a nursing mother, and the unusual decision was made by state Governor Mike Rounds, who has a "soft spot for mountain lions" to attempt to find her cubs which would otherwise surely die without her care. Here is where Gerry and her fourth graders enter the picture. The story of the mountain lion shooting and the hunt for her cubs was reported as front page news in the Rapid City Journal, and the fourth-graders, heartbroken at the thought of the helpless, motherless cubs, became avidly interested in the search. In just a day or two, the cubs were located, rescued, and soon sent to the Philadelphia Zoo.

Gerry, with a watchful eye toward building her students' natural interest, took this opportunity to introduce a multi-faceted study of the mountain lion. Building on her own extensive background in biology, research and art, she incorporated the story of the cougar, its history, ecology and behaviors, into her existing lesson plans for a variety of academic disciplines (i.e. math, geology, art, etc.). "Teaching on the fly is not for the faint hearted. One has to study, search and create curriculum to keep pace with the students blossoming intellectual prowess." The children learned to convert the cubs' weight from kilograms to pounds; read legends and participated in an Honoring Ceremony conducted by Native American Elder, Gerald Yellow Hawk. They painted a life sized mural of the mountain lion family, mixing natural materials indigenous to the Black Hills into the paint; they researched facts about mountain lions, read letters to the editor, and spoke with news reporters in a community-wide consideration of hunting issues that stand to impact future seasons; they also gathered natural plant materials and consulted a veterinarian about appropriate toys for growing cubs, which were then sent to the Philadelphia Zoo from their devoted Puma Pals in South Dakota.

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