Sherman Middle School Bird Club Takes Flight
“Look!” a Sherman Middle School student cries to the two dozen students sitting scribbling on Warner Park’s sled hill.
“It’s a woodpecker!” yells another Sherman student, pointing.
“It’s a blue jay!” yells yet another.
“That’s an eastern phoebe,” a college student mentor explains, and she describes how to identify birds by their size, shape, and color.
Middle School’s new “After-School Birding Club,” a collaborative effort between Sherman Middle School, the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Wild Warner, the Brentwood Neighborhood Association, and the Madison Aubudon Society.
Thirteen of the participants are UW-Madison students from the new UW course “Birding to Change the World.” Ten of the new bird explorers are Sherman middleschoolers. The college students mentor the middleschoolers as they walk through the park together and learn about its residents. But some middleschoolers know more about the birds–the mentoring works both ways. One Sherman student from Brentwood knows a lot about the Warner ducks and geese. Another Sherman student from Brentwood carries his new waterproof indestructible scientific fieldbook with him, everywhere.
The birding club meets throughout the school year. Thanks to the generous support of the Madison Audubon Society, Sherman participants will soon have new binoculars. Our next goal is to raise funds for a spring field trip to see Wisconsin’s greater prairie chickens. This program could not have been launched without the input and support of several Brentwood residents, particularly Connie James, Paul Deutsch, Barbara Weitz, Dave Meyer, and our alder Satya Rhodes-Conway. A special thanks to Sherman Middle School principal Mike Hernandez.
Reprinted from the Brentwood Neighborhood Newsletter Oct. 5, 2010
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