This article is an excerpt from Madison Audubon’s Summer/Fall 2022 Newsletter.
Access the full issue here.
Summer has been a time for resetting and recharging for our education department. We’re teaching, but we’re also full of plans for the fall!
Get your conservation on
Summer means Conservation Academy with Operation Fresh Start. Our partnership with OFS began in 2014 to help connect their young adults with environmental professionals and give them meaningful hands-on experience. Thanks for helping us collect a pile of spiderwort seed at Faville Grove Sanctuary, OFS!
A student holds a teeny toad found along the trail at Cherokee Marsh (photo by Carolyn Byers).
Wonderful water
Our favorite story from this summer has to be exploring water critters with the kids from Vera Court Neighborhood Center. We met at Cherokee Marsh North on one hot July day and walked over to a patch of water surrounded by cattails. We all crept up to the small wooden dock and jumped up at the same time. These sneaky tactics meant that all of the kids got to see the rapid succession of tiny splashes as little frogs hopped to safety. The kiddos used nets to find water bugs (including an absolutely giant spider!) and I had the best bucket-dip of my life with two tadpoles and several macroinvertebrates. There were also countless teeny tiny toads on the trail. The kids agreed that we need to do more water critter exploration in the future.
Nature for teachers too
Most of the time we spend with teachers is a scramble of planning, gathering gear, teaching high-energy kids, and debriefing after each lesson. This summer we carved out some time to build relationships in nature with our teachers—and learn about creatures too! We identified birds on a neighborhood walk, found mayfly larvae casings at Olin Park, and plan to do some prairie walking and nature journaling at Goose Pond. We love helping teachers grow in their nature knowledge...and getting time to soak in the sunset with them!
Fall joy
Fall is always exciting, and this fall even more so. We’re hoping more community centers will have the capacity to resume our partnerships—most of these have been on pause during the pandemic. Our new full-time educator will start in early September and she is going to be a wonderful addition to the team. With more education staff, our partnerships can expand to include more classrooms, more kids, and more smiles. That is something to be joyful about!
Written by Carolyn Byers, director of education.
Cover: Operation Fresh Start participants hold up full buckets of spiderwort seed they helped collect at Faville Grove Sanctuary (photo by Carolyn Byers/Madison Audubon).
