Our wildlife observation project at ACS has now taken flight! On April 2, students Hunter and Tyler and an instructor from Somerset County Technical Center in Skowhegan, Mr. Dan Foss, visited our school to teach our 4-H club how to build birdhouses for our projects. Mr. Foss provided a chart that allowed students to choose which type of bird they wanted to target their house toward based on measurement of the entry hole. Many students chose chickadees, while some chose woodpeckers, titmice, and nuthatches. With guidance from the SCTC crew, the birdhouses were successfully constructed.
Natalie working on her birdhouse
The birdhouses have now been installed at various locations throughout the school grounds. Our custodian, Mr. Dave, also helped construct a feeder to attract additional birds. We experimented with making recycled bird feeders, but were not happy with the results, so perfecting those will be an ongoing future project. Three game cameras were purchased using grant funds and installed near the birdhouse locations and where students have observed animal tracks and other signs of wildlife activity. We look forward to checking out our memory cards this week to see what we can observe!
Mr. Foss demonstrates how to use a screw gun to attach the roof
Our Learning Power program has now ended for the school year, but older students will work to continuously monitor the cameras for the remainder of the student days and share findings with younger students and staff via classroom visits and weekly school-wide assemblies. The project will be reignited next fall upon the students’ return.
Finn shows off his completed chickadee house
Charlotte works with help from SCTC student Hunter
—by Kassie Dwyer
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