Thanks to our BEN Bulletin
sponsor:
The Bird Education Network (BEN) was
created following the February 2007 National Gathering, hosted
by the Council for Environmental Education (CEE). BEN is a CEE
initiative that seeks to connect and support a community of
bird education professionals.
Over 3,000 individuals representing
300 organizations receive communications and engage in
professional dialogue through the BEN-run Bird Education
Listserv.
A BEN Committee has been established to
provide advice and guidance for this important initiative, to
advance "bird conservation through
education." |
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 February: National Bird-Feeding
Month
Opportunities
More than 55 million Americans over the age of 16
watch or feed birds or other wildlife around their
homes. This level of participation provides an
enormous opportunity for bird educators. National
Bird-Feeding Month was created to advance and publicize
the wild bird feeding and watching hobby, and each
February, a new and unique theme is adopted. The theme
for 2010 is "Hatching Out - An Introduction to the Wild
Bird Feeding Hobby," and the goal is to promote best
practices to bird feeding whether one is a beginner or
has been feeding birds for decades.
National Bird-Feeding Month reveals the
joy of wild bird feeding by surveying basic techniques
to create a successful wild bird feeding and watching
experience for years to come. In celebration of
the month, the National Bird-Feeding Society developed a
"Guide to Better Bird Feeding." This guide includes
several educational pamphlets to enhance the bird
feeding experience including a list of the top ten tips,
bird food preference chart, bird feeder preference
chart, brochures on keeping birds safe, and a bird
identification sheet.
People
who feed birds should also participate in the
Great Backyard Bird Count, which is being held February
12-15.
For more information
about National Bird-Feeding Month, visit the National Bird-Feeding Month
website.
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 Feeders: School Activity Packet
Collection
As part of National Bird-Feeding Month, the
National Bird-Feeding Society would like to create a
school activity packet. We are seeking activities
involving bird feeding for grade levels ranging from
early childhood to high school. If you have an
activity that might be appropriate, please contact
Stacey Shonkwiler at amshonkwiler@millikin.edu.
Photo by
Jim
Williams |
 Flying WILD
Soars in India
This fall, long time friend of the Council
for Environmental Education, Flying WILD and BEN, Ed
McCrea, led an international course on education as a
tool for conservation in India. Key partners in this
effort included Environmental Education and Conservation
Global (EECG), the Nature Conservation Society-
Amravati, Amravati University and the Forestry
Department of the State of Maharashtra.
The course
illustrated educational concepts and processes by
demonstrating how they can be employed to assist in
meeting the conservation needs of any species and the
habitats on which they depend. Participants
also engaged in a workshop based on the Flying WILD
program for teaching them how to be effective in working
with school students and other youth.
According to Roopali
Raghavan, working with Conservation Action Trust, and a
participant in the workshop, the need for environment
education is recognized by both the government as well
as a number of non governmental organizations working in
the environment and conservation field in India. India
has a few organizations which have been instrumental in
communicating the importance of the environment to the
public at large. Very few of them work on specific
subject areas such as wildlife or ornithology in
particular. It has increasingly become imperative to
spread the need for conservation of natural history,
especially in urban India, where children rarely get an
opportunity to observe and explore their natural
environment.
"Flying WILD will be
extremely useful for educators in such situations to
communicate the message in an innovative and fun way to
these children. As an environmental educator primarily
working with school children, Flying WILD is an
invaluable resource which can be adapted to effectively
communicate the biology and behaviour of birds as well as the need
for and issues related to their conservation." says
Raghaven.
In addition to
education, the NGO that Raghaven works with looks at
conservation oriented research and advocacy. It
recognizes that for effective conservation the
involvement and support of the common man is essential
and that change in attitude and behaviour with an objective to
inculcate conservation values should be done with
children. Raghaven plans to continue using Flying WILD,
a bird education program, to aid with reaching their
educational goals and objectives.
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 Budding Birders
Celebrate with their
Feathered
Friends
by Tom
Rusert
Hundred of youngsters and families across
America, many for the first time, teamed up to celebrate
the Christmas Bird Count for Kids (a.k.a. New
Years Bird Count for Kids). After the rush and
crush of the holidays and the traditional Audubon CBC's
were mostly finished, the energy shifted back to getting
kids and their familes reconnected with nature.
This special winter event, formulated by Sonoma Birding,
based in Sonoma Valley California along with the
National Audubon Society, has been replicated with
community birding celebrations ranging from Gaineville,
Florida, to Jopin, Missouri, the California locales of
Petaluma and Napa, and most recently in the Capital of
the United States. Sixty kids and forty parents braved
the Buffalo like snowstorms creating an unforgettable
day in Washington DC this month. Teacher and
organizer, Mike Mangiaracina, attracting a record crowd
noted, "Both kids and adults enjoyed it equally, which
is a rare feat in itself. We really reached people on a
number of different levels with the message that birds
are everywhere, anytime (even in the snow!) and that
they are beautiful and worth caring about. On a
broader level children and adults alike left knowing
that their world is a little more interesting than they
had thought." This was the first event for
Mike. Even the events in Florida were
freezing.
On the opposite coast, working against
the clock and hourly threats of torrential rains north
of San Francisco, thirty four budding birders on seven
teams with over forty parents observing identified 51
species on planned routes in unique habitats. Each team
averaged 25 local and winter species. Tom Rusert,
co-founder, noted, "this is not about babysitting and
dropping youngsters off at a local event, but directly
engaging parents and kids in nature through the pure
enjoyment of birding...and hopefully at the end of the
day enriching the conversation at the supper
table". In nearby Petaluma, the city parks program
hosted 25 kids and 30 parents.  Community and Audubon Centers, Boys and Girls
Clubs, Rotary Clubs, private and public schools,
national wildlife refugees, State and National Parks,
Environment for the Americas all echo National Audubon's
recent wire to five hundred locations saying "we
enthusiastically endorse this promising holiday program
for kids and families." A separate and unique
surprise was kidscoop.com, a newspaper insert
directed at middle schools in America, fully supporting
the effort through some 300 syndicated newspapers
reaching an audience of seven million. The basic
foundation and road map is in place for this unique half
day holiday event to serve the under-served communities
as well as address language barriers. Every location is
able to customize their own experience and share
successes with one another. "The CBC for Kids has great potential
and promise for organizations to work together building
this simple important half day birding event over the
next five years to several hundred locations" stated Tom
Rusert and Darren Peterie, co-founders of the event
through sonomabirding.org. "We are most
grateful that our feathered friends have made this day
possible for all of
us!"
Photo
by Alisa
Glassman | | |
For more
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