Driving along Route 27 between Water Row and River Road, you’ve probably become accustomed to the undeveloped, slightly wild look of the landscape.

Were you surprised to see a fence going up last weekend?

As it turns out, the fence is not an effort to domesticate the wildlife living in the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, but is rather an effort to help keep it alive.

Emily Norton, an environmental science teacher at Wayland High School, has been commuting on Route 27 for about nine years, and she noticed something in the midst of the wildlife refuge along that road that bothered her.

“Every time I go by that wildlife refuge and see the amount of road kill, I thought, these things don’t go together,” Norton said.

In particular, Norton said that turtles living on one side of the road would often try to cross Route 27 in order to reach a nesting site on the other side, but many of them never made it.

“Turtles, really, are living dinosaurs,” said Norton. “And their structure should protect them from just about anything, but it doesn’t protect them from cars and mowers – those are the two major things threatening turtles.”

So Norton decided to accept the challenge that she issues to her environmental science students: “Come up with an environmental problem and solve that problem.”

Last year, Norton applied for funding through the Sudbury, Assabet and Concord Wild and Scenic River Stewardship Council Small Grants program. While she didn’t receive funding from that organization, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation took notice and offered Norton $3,000 for a fencing project designed to keep turtles off the roadway.

The Wayland Public Schools Foundation kicked in another $3,000, but Norton was still just a bit short of the cost to purchase the fencing and supplies.

She said that she was talking with a Wayland resident about the project and that person asked how much money she still needed. When Norton responded with “about $800,” the resident wrote a check.

“Everytime I turn around something else wonderful is happening,” said Norton, who was equally surprised by the enormous turnout to help construct the fence last weekend. At least 35 people came out on Saturday and at least 45 people turned up on Sunday.

“I couldn’t believe how many people showed up and went to work and worked as a team,” Norton said, adding that the process went smoothly given there was little discussion and only a poster as instruction.

Norton acknowledged that the fence will alter the migratory patterns of the turtles, animals that generally migrate from wetlands to foraging or nesting sites. But a nearby culvert and non-traffic bridge should provide adequate opportunities for the turtles, mostly painted turtles and snapping turtles in that area, to continue making their necessary trips while keeping them off the road.

“Yes, in some ways, the fence is going to decrease the amount of the migration from one side of the wetland to the other,” Norton explained. “However, if that culvert is kept clear … the fence will do more good than harm.“

Norton is retiring at the end of this year and said in some ways this seems like her retirement gift to the Town of Wayland, but at the same time, it was just another teachable moment with her students.

“The biggest takeaway from this project is for people to learn that they can make a change and when people in a community work together, there’s almost nothing they can’t do,” she said. “Some of my students [who came to help], you could see that they were experiencing firsthand that they could do something. That they could make a difference.”

The teams working last Saturday and Sunday almost completed the project, but one more workday is needed, so the team will be back out this Saturday, April 2, to finish up.

Anyone interested in participating in the project should email Norton at emily_norton@wayland.k12.ma.us.