St Marks NWR Wildlife Heritage Festival, Feb 2, 2008
Apalachee Audubon Society, Inc. Table at the Feb 2, 2008
St Marks National Wildlife Refuge Wildlife Heritage Organization Festival.
San Luis Mission Park planting work day, Feb 2006
San Luis Mission Park Community Service Day, a joint effort by Apalachee Audubon Society, Inc. (AAS), AmeriCorps,
and the City of Tallahassee, February 18th, 2006.
Volunteers listen attentively as Park Manager Chuck Goodheart demonstrates proper planting
techniques. More than 50 native plants were planted around Lake Esther that morning.
AAS volunteers Michael Jenkins and Dean Jue plant a red buckeye donated by San Luis Ridge
resident Danata Merryday.
Student volunteers plant milkweeds, cardinal flowers, and muhly grass on the south shore
of Lake Esther.
Volunteers with AmeriCorps Florida State Parks
(http://www.FloridaStateParks.org/americorps)
repair the boardwalk across the lake.
Neighborhood volunteer Angela Brewer-Moran uses a post hole digger to plant a swamp chestnut
oak between the picnic pavilions and the lake.
Audubon Adventure packets in the classroom
Once
again, the Apalachee Audubon Society, Inc. has been able to sponsor
Audubon Adventures
to several of the area schools, thanks to generous
contributions to our Birdathon fundraising efforts from so many of our
members and friends. Audubon Adventures is a curriculum enhancement
program used in grades 4-6 to teach children science, environmental
topics, and respect for nature, while simultaneously being used to support
reading, writing, and other communication skills. The Audubon Adventure kits
each contain newsletters for 35 students on four different subjects each year.
The kits are provided at no cost to the teachers, we just ask that they use
the information in the kits during the school year. Each teacher also
receives a Teacher's Resource Manual, a membership to the Nation Audubon Society,
a video from National Audubon's Animal Adventures series, an activity poster,
information on internet resources, and more. For the 2007-2008 school year,
Apalachee Audubon Society paid for 66 classroom kits in Leon, Jefferson,
and Wakulla Counties to participate in the Audubon Adventures program.
For the 2006-2007 school year, Apalachee Audubon Society paid for 64 classroom
kits in Leon, Jefferson, and Wakulla Counties to participate in the Audubon Adventures
program. For the 2005-2006 school year, Apalachee Audubon Society paid for 81 classroom
kits in Leon, Jefferson, and Wakulla Counties to participate in the Audubon
Adventures program. The teacher response has been very enthusiastic, and many
of our kits were actually shared by more than one classroom in a school. Teachers
have also told us of instances where the kits are saved for reuse in future years.
Each April we conduct
the Birdathon fundraiser to raise money for the following
year's projects. We hope to match our efforts from last year so that Apalachee
Audubon can continue to provide the local schools with this important environmental
education program, with the help and generous support of our membership. The
subjects for the 2005-2006 school year include: The Nature of Spiders;
Turtles - Armored Reptiles; Dragonflies and Damselflies;
and The Watery World of Waterbirds.
If you are a
teacher and interested in using an Audubon Adventure packet in
the classroom, please contact Judy Goldman at (850) 385-5222,
or email Goldman@hep.fsu.edu
San Luis Mission Park tree planting Dec 1999
Before 1999 on the edge of San Luis Park there was nice mulberry stand which was
very popular with the songbirds, especially during the fall migration.
They could increase their fat-reserves before starting their long crossing
of the Gulf. Now this mulberry stand has been replaced by asphalt and houses,
much to the regret of not only the birds, but also of the birders, for
whom San Luis Park is a great place to see less common bird species.
Apalachee Audubon Society, Inc., under
the leadership of Bob Henderson, decided to have some trees and shrubs
planted on the edge of this new housing project in order not only to provide
a food source for the birds, but also to try and undo some of the damage
that was done to the park's landscape. The trees are still small, but we
hope that in some years the birds will be able to enjoy their fruit and
the park's visitors will be able to enjoy the park and it's feathered inhabitants.
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