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with a degree of autonomy that is atypical of
the public school system.
For example, when a deer was recently
struck by a car and found dead on a nearby
highway, the school’s biology teacher along
with a composite of students went out and
dragged the carcass deep into the woods sur-
rounding the school. They set-up motion de-
tector cameras and systematically monitored
the process of decomposition and took note
of the various wildlife that interacted with
the carcass over a period of weeks. The proj-
ect wasn’t the kind of thing one might typi-
cally find on a class syllabus. One of the stu-
dents was so intrigued by a coyote filmed
during the experiment, he successfully went
on to secure a grant that is now allowing
him to tag a coyote and track its movements
through the suburban landscape in conjunc-
tion with another research project.
This is just one example, but to Murray’s
point, the faculty at University School has
