The Education Committee is looking for Volunteers for our “Birds in the Woods” Project!
BHAS, together with the Capital Land Trust and the South Sound Estuary Association, is planning to provide a hands-on outdoor learning experience for the approximately 260 3rd-graders who attend three North Thurston Public elementary schools. (You may recall that we were all geared up to do this last year, but that the event was cancelled by the school district due to a lack of bus drivers.) Our contribution is to take the students, in groups of 12-15, on a “bird walk”: the birds, in this case, are lifelike wooden models that will be affixed to trees along a path through the woods of CLT’s Inspiring Kids Preserve. We hope to teach the children to recognize some common birds and to learn about the adaptations they have which help them survive in the forest.
We will be working with the 3rd-graders over 6 days: Lydia Hawk students will attend April 12 &13; Pleasant Glade students will participate on April 17 & 18; South Bay students will come on April 20 & 21. On each of these days, four groups of students will move through our station; each bird walk will take about 25 minutes.
There will be two volunteer shifts on each of the six days, an early morning and a late morning/early afternoon shift; volunteers in each shift will lead two groups of students, one after the other, on the bird walk. Ideally, two BHAS members will be present for each shift, and this means that we have 24 volunteer slots to fill. (Of course, we welcome people to sign up for more than one shift! Since the students will arrive at 7:30-8:00 and leave by 1:30, signing up for two shifts on the same day means you can be home by midafternoon.)
Volunteers will need to attend one general training session at the Preserve (led by the school district and Capital Land Trust staff) and will also need to attend a smaller session led by a BHAS member who will familiarize you with the path, show you where the birds are located, give you a set of talking points for each bird, and let you do a practice run-through. Feel free to volunteer even if you don’t know a lot about birds – we will give you all the information you need. Volunteers will also need to have a background check, a BHAS and NTPS requirement for anyone who works with children. BHAS will handle this, and there is no cost to you.
Please be aware that the North Thurston Public School district does not require their students to wear masks. The entire event is outdoors, but if that is a concern for you, you should not volunteer.
If you are interested in volunteering, or if you would like more information, please contact Kim Adelson at education@nullblackhills-audubon.org.
Photo credit: Children/Environmental Education, by Nieminen Gene, USFWS. Public Domain.
