UK Forestry Partners with Eastern Kentucky Pride for a Teacher and 4-H Agent Kentucky Bat Education Workshop and Stream Cleanup

By: Dr. Matthew Springer, Assistant Extension Professor of Wildlife Management and Laurie Thomas, Extension Forester, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources

During 2017 and 2018, an environmental education grant was received from Eastern Kentucky Pride to offer a workshop for elementary, middle school, and high school teachers on bats in eastern Kentucky, help develop lesson plans relating to bats for use in their classes, and build bat boxes for the participants to take back to their schools for use in those lessons. 

This effort involved collaboration from several groups as Dr. Matt Springer, extension wildlife specialist, and Laurie Thomas, extension forester, received the funding from Eastern Kentucky Pride. As part of that funding we partnered with Brittany Wolfe, science teacher at Hazard Independent High School to help develop the lesson plans for use in the training. The Wood Center at Robison Center for Appalachian Resource Sustainability (RCARS) aided in the design, preparation, and construction of the bat houses.

During April, the workshop was hosted at RCARS and had 7 attendees, representing 4 school districts and 2 different county 4- H agents. The workshop consisted of a presentation on bats and why they are important to Kentucky, multiple interactive demonstrations of lesson plans that would be implemented in classrooms from elementary school up to seniors in high school, and finally teachers built a bat house that they took back to their schools and county extension offices. All of the attendees stated they found the workshop useful and informative and all of them planned to implement the lesson plans into their instructional activities during the next school year. Though the number of teachers and agents was not high, they reported that they will use this information to increase awareness and knowledge of bats in Kentucky to approximately 1100 students on an annual basis. Several teachers reported having no or limited knowledge of bats and know they felt comfortable teaching about them in their classroom.

As part of the grant in the beginning of May, Dr. Matt Springer, Laurie Thomas, and 22 students and their science teacher Brittany Wolfe from Hazard Independent High School traveled out to Robinson Forest Camp to participate in a streamside cleanup day. Students walked a mile long stretch of Buckhorn Creek, picking up trach and recyclables along the way. During this event the students also learned about forestry practices and the wildlife they encountered. Overall the students collected 4 bags of recyclables and 11 bags from the stream, helping to cleanup and protect the watershed.