Winooski Middle School Receives Grant
By Adam Weiss
GMAS is pleased to share that we have provided a $1500 grant to two educators at The Winooski Middle School to launch their first-ever Birding Club. Inspired by her experiences as part of Dr. Trish O'Kane's "Birding to Change the World" program, which pairs 4th and 5th-grade students with UVM undergraduate student mentors, Winooski student teacher June Laub hopes to bring elements of this model to the learning community at the Middle School. Dr. O'Kane has offered to support this endeavor by bringing UVM mentors to school during club time.
The grant will provide binoculars, field guides, and journals for the students. The intentions of the grant are inspiring:
"Students will build community as a group of birders. Students will have increased accessibility to birding and outdoor exploration. Students will gain a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence through bird identification skills (sights and sound) and bird behavior. Students will successfully operate binoculars, use a field identification guide, as well as maintain a field journal to record their observations. They will understand the importance of habitat preservation by exploring and experiencing that bird habitat is all around them. Students will build connections with specific bird species through observation and sketching. As many students are new Americans, students will also be given the opportunity to draw birds from other countries, where their families are from."
One hope is that students can display their sketches of birds in the hallways of the school for the school community to enjoy.
The GMAS looks forward to sharing information about this exciting endeavor in a future newsletter.