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| The students were led by a smiling student of slight build named Cody Hale. Tom Sawyer could have learned from him, says Education Director Mary Smith. Cody enlisted the football team, the band members, special education students, shop students, the cowboys in agriculture class, the Rotary Club, the school superintendent, and his class to build benches, bat houses, remove tons of wetland debris, move bird blinds, and build trails. They rode over 60 miles on a bus to get there, brought cattle trucks, four wheelers, concrete bags, and tools to go to work. |
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| He asked for $400 dollars in lumber donations and supervised a crew in 20 degree weather. When asked how he accomplished so much, Cody said, "You can make a difference. It just takes hard work, elbow grease, and imagination. We have fun and after the work is done, we are friends. We discovered people that wanted to help and people from all sorts of groups found they could work together." Back to Top |
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| Sean Miller Greens a DC Charter School | |
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Sean Miller is not someone to take no for an answer. Three years ago he began working with Washington, D.C's Thurgood Marshall Academy at a time when the school did not consider 'going green' a priority, and lacked an environmental group and activities for students. Today, powered by the momentum of his TogetherGreen Fellowship, Sean has seen through the installment of photovoltaic solar panels on the school's roof and dozens of students have launched a thriving green club that is bringing 'green' to the forefront of the Ward 8 School's identity. |
| Getting the school on board may have been an uphill battle at first, but Sean was up to the challenge. He advised the school that going green would mean saving green. By installing solar panels the school would save several hundred thousand dollars, and more than one million pounds of carbon dioxide, over a 25-year warranted life span. He introduced environmental education to classrooms and has worked tirelessly to get kids excited about the steps they can take to improve the world around them. Sean also arranged two volunteer days that worked to engage and educate the entire student body on solar panels and the impact they will have on the school, the community and the environment at large. And all of his dedication has paid off! On May 5th, Sean and Thurgood Marshall Academy unveiled the solar panels at the school-run Earth Fair, celebrating the school's success in the greening process. The panels are a visible reminder of the positive impact one individual's idea and drive can have for the environment. |
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 (The solar panels at Thurgood Marshall Academy; Sean presenting the solar panels at the school Earth Fair) |
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| And the benefits don't stop there: For years to come, teachers will use the solar panels to help students learn about a variety of conservation themes, including green jobs, energy consumption and conservation, and solar energy systems, encouraging the next generation to become environmental stewards. Hear Sean talk about his Fellowship project on his local NPR station: http://wamu.org/audio/nw/09/05/n3090506-26409.asx Back to Top |
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| Fellows Spotlight: Rosalie Borzik of Audubon New York What successes have resulted from your Fellowship? Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, we were able to improve the habitat for tern nesting in about two thirds of the targeted area. Literally, volunteers used picks, garden forks and shovels to remove soil! Expanding the suitable nesting habitat, which lies near the center of the island, will protect chicks from exposure, make it easier for their parents to maneuver through grass to deliver fish, and may also draw the nesting terns away from the perimeter of the island where they are more vulnerable to gull predation. |
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Now that the terns are back and the nesting season is just beginning, the digging has stopped so we don't disturb the birds. Recently, we witnessed the first adult landings and a few pairs were copulating. While I was on the island, I saw the first tern touch down in the project area! Generally, the first eggs hatch around the middle of June. The digging will begin again in early August, to prepare for the 2010 nesting season. We are now entering the observation phase performed by Seabird Restoration Program (SRP) interns who will be living on the island through August 10th. What has inspired you about your Fellowship so far? I'm inspired by the positive reaction I've received from the people and agencies that have given time and provided an array of logistical support to my project, which has now become their project, too! And while it's too soon to quantify the tern's response to the project, I'm pleased to have been able to provide an opportunity for Portland City youth who have never left the mainland to experience the magic of an offshore island, and to engage them in an activity that should positively impact the largest tern colony in Casco Bay. Students who first viewed our "Big Dig" adventure just as a required community service project, fell in love with the island. I don't think any of these students had ever stepped foot on an offshore island. One recent immigrant to the U.S. didn't even realize there were islands off the coast of Maine! One student admitted "dreading" the event beforehand, but as he departed the island pronounced it one of his best and most amazing life experiences. That's inspiration! What challenges have you encountered and how have you dealt with them? Working on islands always presents a myriad of logistical challenges, not the least of which is the weather. There's no way to determine months in advance that the wind and sea will be calm, the skies blue and the weather mild in the middle of April off the coast of Maine. Just two days before our scheduled date, the winds were blowing over 20 knots creating rough seas and unsafe landing conditions. We were just lucky. |
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Additional effort is needed to clear the designated area, but that challenge offers an opportunity to get even more people involved. We can't dig once the terns settle in to nest, so time remains the biggest challenge. Nothing new about that.
Oh yes, then there's my camera that slipped out of my pocket and into the salty sea while we were landing... Anything you've learned that you feel would be helpful to other TogetherGreeners? Projects awarded through TG fellowships all have the potential to reach and engage a lot of people. I've already engaged far more people at the start of this project than I had originally planned. So, keep your options open! And remember that roadblocks and diversions have the potential to lead you to new ways to engage even more people in conservation. Back to Top |
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| Audubon Minnesota Gets a Statewide Boost for "Lights Out" Audubon Minnesota's Mark Martell and Joanna Eckles have been working day and night (literally) to reduce the number of birds that become collision victims. Their Twin Cities Lights Out program is reducing the effect of city lighting in drawing birds into the city and has unprecedented support at the state level.  (View from Franklin Bridge at 10:30 pm and 12:30 am respectively) Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed the Bird-Safe Buildings bill requiring state buildings to turn off unnecessary lights between midnight and dawn during spring (between March 15 and May 31) and fall migrations (between August 15 and October 31) to save birds' lives as part of the "Lights Out" campaign! The law takes affect just before fall migration this year. Audubon Minnesota is not alone in celebrating this conservation achievement. Working with multiple partners (including the Minnesota DNR-Nongame Program, the Bell Museum of Natural History, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, the National Park Service and local Audubon chapters) and volunteers, they've made great progress toward implementing a robust Lights Out program in the Twin Cities. You only have to look at the Twin Cities skylines after midnight to see the program's dramatic effect. Joanna, coordinator of the program, has been working with the cities' two Building Owners and Managers Associations to inform their members about collisions and Lights Out. She and Mark are organizing lunch hour talks at participant buildings to increase awareness among tenants and employees, and spoke to the environmental committee of the Minneapolis City Council to increase awareness about light pollution and migrating birds. They've also begun discussions within the architecture community about bird safe design and given several talks and radio interviews about the project. We asked Mark and Joanna to tell us a story capturing some of their success with the project so far and they shared this one about a building engineer with a new passion for birds: One of our Lights Out participant buildings in downtown Minneapolis has been very engaged in the project since its introduction in 2007. This past fall, one of their building engineers found an injured warbler on their rooftop-an apparent collision victim. He and an administrative assistant quickly called not only our office phone but also various cell phone numbers on their list. They actually had two of us on the phone concurrently in their haste to get help for the bird. The concern these two people showed for this small bird was testimony to the difference the project has already made in people's awareness and action. The outreach we have done is changing attitudes and helping birds. See the impact the Lights Out program is having by viewing 'before' and 'after' images recently taken from various vantage points in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Back to Top |
| Grants Spotlight: Becky Bowen of Save Our Shorebirds |
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 What success have resulted from your Innovation Grant? There are so many things going on here I can hardly keep up! Our Save Our Shorebirds local college art scholarship competition had art students watching (and drawing) shorebirds, to create a new logo for Mendocino County Audubon. For many, it was the first time they ever looked at shorebirds. Through TogetherGreen, Mendocino County Audubon, and anonymous donors, we were able to award over $1,500 to the winners! Retired massage therapist-turned-artist Ingrid Peterson, from Fort Bragg, CA, won first place with her beautiful and precise piece of a Western Snowy Plover. I'm also proud of the mountain of information our volunteer surveyors have gathered and recorded. We have spent more than 1,300 hours in the field and have recorded everything we have seen. We think this information will be important to students and researchers and we hope to keep the project alive for at least 25-and hopefully 50-years. We especially are interested in sharing our observations with government agencies and environmental groups involved in research and development of ocean wave energy off the California coast. |
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But really one of the biggest accomplishments in my book is watching people of all ages who have never looked at a bird through binoculars see and appreciate shorebirds. There's an open mouth moment,then a smile. Sometimes, it's life-changing. What has inspired you about the project so far? Two things have sent me over the top in the inspiration department: the return to Ten Mile Beach (after an absence of several months) of a banded Snowy Plover who remembered to winter here. The second thing is the beautiful smile on the hard-bitten face of a very tough lady who saw a pair of Killdeer for the first time through a pair of binoculars. She is serving community service time for a non-violent crime as a Save Our Shorebirds volunteer. |
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What challenges have you encountered and how have you dealt with them? We are challenged by distressing sights on the beach: off-leash dogs flushing resting birds and feeding here during heroic migrations–despite signs and regulations that prohibit dogs on two of our surveyed beaches. We are constantly asked, "Why all the fuss about these tiny birds?" We try to deal with these by one-to-one talks with offending beach-goers and an on-going effort to support State Parks Rangers. We're also hoping to get the word out about shorebirds through our "Autumn's Summer" project. Autumn, the young daughter of our new SOS director, will keep a journal of what she experiences and video her adventures as she participates in our shorebird surveys. We think that seeing these birds through the eyes of a child might help people better understand SOS and why we do what we do! Anything you've learned that you feel would be helpful to other TogetherGreeners? Here is what we learned: We can't do this alone. We are incredibly fortunate to have hooked up with two powerful partners: California State Parks (we work under the supervision of Angela Liebenberg, State Parks Environmental Scientist) and College of the Redwoods whose students serve as our bird survey directors. Back to Top |
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| Pennies for the Planet Makes a Big Difference with Small Change Since it began in January 2009, Pennies for the Planet has been a hit with kids and classrooms across the nation! One hundred and twenty nine classrooms have sent in donations, representing 23 states, which has added up to over $20,000 to protect puffins in Maine, ancient Four Holes Swamp in South Carolina, and the sagebrush sea ecosystem in Wyoming! 
(Steve Kress grooves to a puffin rap, flocks at attention, students feed the penny jars) The highest donation came from Hooverville Elementary School in Waynesboro, PA, and to celebrate their achievement, Audubon treated the school to a BioBash party with fun green activities and prizes. But if you still haven't gotten involved, it's not too late! This Pennies for the Planet cycle will continue accepting donations until September 2009 then a new one will begin! Visit www.penniesfortheplanet.org to download a color poster, an educator's guide, and more to encourage your children or students to make change for nature! Back to Top |