BirdSleuth Caribbean for UCC preschool

Last week I led the first BirdSleuth seminar for the preschool teachers at UCC in Caiman.  13 teachers attended, with 2 of their children who were great for demonstrating teaching techniques.  We began with a 40 minute presentation about the importance of birds, showing photos on my ipad of birds found in Haiti.  After lunch of rice and beans with onion sauce, we began the games.  I gave each teacher a habitat and a bingo card, and showed how activities can be scaled from preschool to older kids.  My translator Donacien and I demonstrated the habitat and survivor games, then all joined in and had fun playing them.  I gave the preschool a BirdSleuth manual and set of survivor, scavenger hunt, and bingo cards for their resource room.  The elementary school principle is now asking that I give a workshop for her teachers!

  

BirdSleuth Caribbean at Wynne Farm

Recently for the staff of Wynne Farm Ecological Reserve in Kenscoff I had the opportunity to teach a 2 hour seminar on the importance of birds and to Haiti share BirdSleuth Caribbean teaching activities.  I met with the 15 participants while my university ecology students took a tour of the reserve and farm.  Participants included Jane Wynne and her daughter Sarah who run the reserve, staff, student interns, and others who had strong ties to the conservation ethic of the farm.

We began with a discussion about the importance of birds in Haiti, including pest control, pollination, seed dispersal, education, ecotourism, and art (including Haitian John James Audubon).  I then introduced the Cornell Ornithology Lab BirdSleuth educational materials sent to me by Birds Caribbean.  We practiced the Habitat and Survivor gamesof Lessons 4 & 5 and feedback helped me improve my use of them.  I gave Wynne Farm two manuals and two sets of the survivor, scavenger hunt, and bingo games.  They gifted me with Rene Durocher’s beautiful Les Oiseaux d’Haiti book of bird photography.  Thank you Wynne Farm and Birds Caribbean!

BirdSleuth Caribbean at Bassin Zim

On 8 Dec. 2017 I took my Eco401 class (Biodiversity, juniors) to the waterfall Bassin Zim (near Hinche) so that we could have an ecology program for the children that hang out there. These kids don’t go to school, but instead hang out at the park to earn money helping visitors (see past blogs here).  I take my Eco201 class (freshmen) there to practice bioassessment of the watershed, and wanted to do something different their junior year that would help them learn some teaching techniques, and in turn help the kids at the falls. So we did some BirdSleuth Caribbean activities that we previously practiced in class.

There were 13 university students, plus me and the interpreter, and there were 15 kids (ages 6 to 16?), so after a short introduction about ourselves and the importance of birds, we paired up for the Bird Habitat scavenger hunt.  We then played the bird habitat game in which a ‘bird’ needs to find food, water, shelter and space.  My students and the kids bonded a bit, and stayed together as pairs when we had free time to explore the park.  My students shared their food with the kids.  One of my students found a tiny snake, and did not kill it!  Huge victory for the snakes of Haiti! 

BirdSleuth Caribbean Lessons 4 & 5 – Habitat & Survivor

Habitat elements cover, cover, water, space,
and the bird in the pink dress.

I tried out BirdSleuth Lesson 4 Habitat in my Saturday morning UCI kids ecology program (2 hours, 15 kids, age 2 y.o. through 8^th grade) and Lesson 5 Bird Survivor in the 7^th grade UCC class (1/2 hr, 16 kids), and figured out what worked, and mostly what didn’t work.  In general, the kids in 6^th grade and up weren’t so into the games.  And I realized that my translator and I really needed to demonstrate a round of both games with us as the birds.  Both games worked better when kids stay in their seats and the birds are in front.  Difficulties with habitat were that the kids wouldn’t continue to make the motion of their assigned habitat element (food, water, cover, space) throughout the game, and it didn’t work as a chase game as the birds and their habitat friends formed alliances, so there was not much chasing.  At the end I gave them markers and index cards to write the 4 habitat elements and draw pictures.  The older kids helped the younger ones, and they all seemed to enjoy that.

The Survivor game requires the kids to read cards describing the success of birds in 1. finding territory and 2. mates, 3. building nests and 4. sitting on them, 5. finding food, and 6. fledgings leaving the nest.  The birds standing up front take steps either forward or backwards depending on their success with each step.  First, a teacher wasn’t around and kids were trickling in from break, so they weren’t attentive.  Then I discovered my translator can’t read French very well!  So it was difficult directing the kids through the instructions.  Finally I went up front as the bird and asked kids to read their cards to me.  I understand French well enough to figure out whether to step forward or back.  Then finally the session was over.

I revised both games for the Saturday program in the Bohoc village (2 hrs, 25 kids age 2 – 15).  I wrote in Kreyol the 4 habitat elements and 6 survival components on laminated cards.  And as we explained each, kids came up front to hold the cards.  I assigned habitat elements to kids based on the color of their shirts so I could remember who was what (blue = water, etc.).  And my translator and I demonstrated collecting the 4 elements, making a competition of it to see who could gather all 4 first.  Then we had pairs of kids come up front as birds and race to see who could collect the elements.  For the survivor game, I distributed all cards to the kids, and my translator and I stood up front and in turn asked for the cards for each step in order.  Two older girls who could read French read the cards to us and we explained in Kreyol.  Both games worked much better with this group.  Afterwards the kids wrote the components on the index cards and drew pictures of birds.

Bird survivor components

Writing the habitat elements

BirdSleuth Caribbean Lessons 7 & 8

Birds Caribbean sent me materials written in French to lead a BirdSleuth Caribbean class for teachers in Haiti.  Before having a workshop for teachers, I am trying out the material on kids in area elementary schools.  The first lesson was a 1.5 hr Saturday morning program in two different rural villages with kids aged 2 to 15 years old.  I began with the poster of bird silhouettes to identify birds and discuss different groups. (I didn't follow all the  dialogue of the lesson or take kids out with binoculars).  From the first group I learned that the kids didn't know what a silhouette is (even though they speak French), so explained it to the second group as a shadow, and better explained that we don't need binoculars to identify birds, but can use their shape.  They understood this as the hummingbird has a long beak, the woodpecker is on the side of a tree, etc.  The kids didn't know the wading bird silhouette, and I have never seen any in this area.  We called it the kolye, the name for plover and killdeer. They also mentioned crow several times, but it is not on the poster.  They gave me the Haitian Creole names of the birds.  Then volunteers come up front and faced away from the poster to try to name all 10 types of birds on the poster.

Next we used the bird body part poster of Lesson 8.  Students gave me the Creole names of the parts, then I had volunteers come up front in pairs and the 'scientist' showed us the parts on their 'bird.'  We looked at the bird illustrations in the Haiti bird guide, and I asked the kids questions like what color is the eye stripe, or which bird has a black throat.

We then went into the surrounding and used the beginner side of the scavenger hunt cards (after emphasizing that they only use the dry erase markers on the cards).  They had played this came last year using the English language version and searching for only the illustrated items, so I thought with the French version at least the older kids would look for more items since some are described only with text.  But in both groups all the kids stuck to looking for only the illustrated items.  So when I have lessons with only the older kids I will emphasize the written items.  Stay posted for the results of future lessons.

Bird Sleuth

I teach ecology programs in a rural village in central Haiti, and at an elementary school.  This week we used the BirdSleuth scavenger hunt and Bird Spy Bingo produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  The games are printed on slick cards on which dry erase markers can be erased.  I only have the English version of the games since I am waiting for the French to be reprinted.  The scavenger hunt has basic and more advanced levels of finding objects in natures such as a spider web, rock, leaf, etc., and is mostly text, so I had the kids find the objects that were pictured on the cards.  Bird bingo has birds doing various things, such as sitting on a branch or singing, and the kids were able to follow the illustrations.  The 6^th graders were able to read some of the English descriptions of the birds.  There aren’t many trees in the village and the kids are noisy, but a kestrel did pose on a tree for us, and the kids found a feather and bird droppings.  We saw a few more birds near the elementary school.  Binoculars aren’t needed for the scavenger hunt, but make the bingo more fun.  Both games draw attention to animals and objects found in nature.  My assistant Louiders wants me to thank everyone who donates binoculars and funds for this!  He says you are helping Haiti!

Searching for birds along the village path.

Bird Bingo in the village.

Louiders helping the 6th graders.

BirdSleuth in French - Zwazo Detektif nan Franse

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has many birding resources, from educational materials to the eBird on-line database.  In a tropical rain forest class in the Amazon, I had a chance to try out some of their BirdSleuth materials for K-12 grade.  There is a bingo game and a scavenger hunt to get kids outside looking for birds.  You can download the French version of the materials at BirdsCaribbean.

Laboratwa a Cornell nan ornitoloji gen anpil resous gade zwazo, ki soti nan materyèl edikasyonèl nan baz done a eBird sou entènèt. Nan yon klas forè twopikal nan Amazon a, mwen te gen yon chans eseye soti kèk nan materyèl BirdSleuth (K-12). Gen se yon jwèt bengo ak yon lachas trezor yo ka resevwa timoun deyò kap chèche zwazo yo. Ou ka telechaje vèsyon an franse nan materyèl yo nan BirdsCaribbean.

Student in Peru using BirdSleuth Scavenger Hunt.

The BirdSleuth Scavenger Hunt in Spanish.

Using BirdSleuth materials in Peru during the Educator Academy in the Amazon.