By Jill Fusco | Naturalist
Fall is in the air and the next batch of young Earth Keepers is in the making. We are so excited to be able to demonstrate our programs to an extended audience of potential Earth Keepers. With your help, we are able to reach an incredible number of lives and give a taste of what our mission is truly about. Thank you for your continued support.
We brought our animal ambassadors to meet the children as a demonstration of what we do as Earth Keepers. Questions like, “is that a baby owl?” and “are those its ears?” met us as soon as we took the Eastern Screech Owl, Otus, out of his carrier. It is truly wonderful to be able to educate such a large group of children about the wildlife all around them. We explained that Otus, while only being about 6” tall, is full grown and that the feathers that stick out on top of his head are just that, feathers used for camouflage. Each animal we revealed was met by wonder, curiosity, and excitement. Without your donations, these children may never see the animals that live right in their backyard.
Although the students were happy to sit and learn about our animal ambassadors, they were also excited to run and play. We have many games and activities that teach the children as well as release energy built up from a day of schooling. Kids were given the chance to run around the field playing Park Ranger. A game where each student picks an animal and answer questions about it by trying to race across the field if the answer is “yes.” Ecstatic smiles stretch across faces when the question “Does your animal have teeth?” is asked and almost every child has to run across the field without getting tagged. Hannah asked, "Do snakes sleep?", when stumped by the park ranger, Hank, asked "Does your animal sleep?" A few coy students stand still explaining that they are a hawk and “hawks don’t have teeth!” - happy to be spared a round of chasing.
We were able to visit three area afterschool programs and reach over 250 students this week alone, thank you for helping us build a program strong enough to connect with such a large audience. We set out to educate and inspire each student to become a steward of the earth, by joining our program or getting involved in something they are passionate about in nature. With your help we are able to continue to expand our program and reach more students each year. Thank you!
Subscribe to our enewsletter and receive monthly stories about our afterschool children, camp children and wildlife.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
