By Kristen Geagan
2019 was a busy year for Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation’s educational initiatives.
At the Edgartown School, Samantha Look, SMF education coordinator, and I worked with thirteen students in the Fifth Grade Enrichment Program. This program is an educational, project-based learning class. “Community experts in various fields of study are invited into the classroom to share their knowledge and expertise with the students,” explains Sue Costello, the Edgartown school enrichment program coordinator. “The lessons are meant to enhance student skills, and broaden their educational perspectives of the world around them.”
Sam and I created a curriculum from materials provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. We met with students six times in the classroom, and took one field trip. Some days we brought props, like stuffed animals, fake insects, and berries, to show what birds eat, and we brought feathers, real bird nests, and supplies to make nests. We also played a bird song identification game called Bird Song Hero, which the students loved! We had a Powerpoint presentation that we created for four of the classroom sessions, and had two sessions on nest making.
The program at the West Tisbury School started on October 29th and was part of a larger after school program. Sam and I met weekly with a group of ten students for about an hour. We had hoped to do a lot of outside birding, but rainy afternoons interrupted our plans, so we brought in the presentations that we used with the Edgartown school. We also played the Bird Song Hero game, and had students draw their favorite bird, then draw an imaginary bird to present to the rest of the group. We were able to take the students out twice and went birding with them around the school.
We will be starting up again with this group in January and are looking forward to continuing, and expanding, SMF’s educational initiatives in 2020.
SMF would like to thank Lizzie Glidden Boyle for her encouragement and support of the Edgartown bird program.