Bird Camp
Each year we work with Colorado State University’s Environmental Learning Center to host multiple fourth grade school groups who take part in our bird camps. Bird camps work to teach kids about birds, bird migration and its challenges, and how we track birds using tools like bird banding and genomics.
Before meeting up with our team, students and their teachers watch ‘Tales of a Tail-feather‘ in their classroom. This video, produced by National Geographic, features our Director, Dr. Kristen Ruegg, talking about bird migration and how the Bird Genoscape Project works to track migratory birds across the Western Hemisphere.
Students and their teachers then join our team for two hours of outdoor fun and education at the Environmental Learning Center. Students work their way through four educational stations where they learn how to spot birds using binoculars, watch a demonstration of how scientists capture birds using mist nets, traverse an obstacle course highlighting the challenges of migration, and discover how we use DNA in feathers to find out where migratory birds live throughout the year. Afterwards, students are assessed on the skills and knowledge they’ve gathered during camp.