The Friends of Forsythe Environmental Education Committee conducted a wonderful array of activities to Celebrate Urban Birds, at three NJ schools. 

• helped students create their own field guides
• led pasta activity to demonstrate food/beak relationship
• built bird feeders out of orange juice containers
  
• started sunflowers to plant at school and home
• students used watercolor and poster paint to paint birds, with art showcased at the local public library
• citizen science observations and reporting data to Lab of Ornithology
• Celebrate Urban Birds party at the end of the project

George Morgan and Les Murray and other members of the Environmental Education Committee of the Friends of the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge visited the three schools many times during the school year.  They worked with kids in the after-school programs at Leeds Avenue and Washington Avenue Schools, located in Pleasantville, NJ, and also during the school day at the Galloway Community Charter School in Galloway, New Jersey. 

First they helped the kids learn to identify birds so they would be able to do the Celebrate Urban Birds observation.  Students colored in pictures of the birds, then learned field marks, and how to find the bird in a bird guide.  They studied three birds over the course of five meetings so the kids could learn all fifteen focal species.

George and Les and the other volunteers did a fun activity with the kids to help them understand why the shape of a beak might be related to what a particular bird might eat.  They used different types of pasta, (cooked) to represent the different types of food a bird might eat, and had the students try to pick up the pasta with a spoon, chopsticks, and toothpicks, which represented the different beak types. 

Another project that the kids especially enjoyed was the construction of bird feeders out of orange juice cartons.  Students took the feeders home, filled with sunflower seeds, and many reported that they saw birds coming to the feeder in their yard.  Some students asked their parents to purchase more seeds so that they could continue their home observations. 

Using seed starter kits from Home Depot, the Friends showed the students how to plant the sunflower seeds that come in the Celebrate Urban Birds kit.  They showed the students how to care for the plants until it was time to plant them.

Les and George were given permission to plant the sunflowers at each school...They prepared the bed with a mantis ground-breaker, and then the students at each school planted the seeds in the  garden beds behind their schools.  The plants grew and the kids could see that they had created food for the birds, naturally. 

Each student created bird paintings with either watercolors or poster paint, and the bird paintings were displayed at the Pleasantville Public Library. 

The students learned to do the Celebrate Urban Birds  observation, and  the team conducted the counts with each school for more than a month, marking the results on the paper tally sheets which then were mailed to the Celebrate Urban Birds project at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 

They ended the program at each school with a Celebrate Urban Birds party.  Parents brought treats, and school administrators attended, and kids received the certificates of participation from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The students also received backpacks with a notebook, pencil, and birding fact guide packed inside. 

Many students approached the teaching team to let them know that they were frequently observing the birds at home, and remembering how to identify them.  Students would say things like, "I saw a Mourning Dove today on the way to school".  The volunteers learned to identify some birds, right along with the students!  It was an inspiring adventure for both students and instructors.