A Fun Filled Week of Education!

This week has been full of fun education! Earlier this week I made a run down to Baraboo for the state quarterly meeting for the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative's education committee. The meeting was held at the beautiful Aldo Leopold Legacy Center. It was a great time to discuss progress made and set new goals for bird conservation education on a state level. I also had the opportunity after the meeting to take a quick stop at the famous Aldo Leopold Shack (pictured to the left) where he was inspired to write, what many people call the Bible of conservation, "A Sand County Almanac."

Yesterday morning Trees For Tomorrow stopped by with their interns to take a tour of REGI. Every year Trees For Tomorrow takes their interns to different educational facilities around the state for tours to show off the many different types of environmental education facilities that excises. It was great to have them stop by again this year full of questions and energy.

After the morning tour I had to get ready to head down to the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. I was asked by one of my old proffers Dr. Lackey to come and be the guest lecturer in her environmental education and interpretation class. Many of these wonderful future naturalist may end up working in a nature center or organization where they will be asked to present programs with live animals. I gave a lecture on "Animals as Partners in Education." As many of you reading this know our bird are truly our partners in education at REGI. I really believe it is important to remember this and pass this message along to others that animals used for educational purposes deserve a lot of respect and their comfort level should always be considered first. An educational animal is NOT a prop, they are your partner in education.

The lecture went very well and of course I had to bring one of my favorite partners in education our oldest Red-Tailed Hawk. She lit up the room with her charismatic character and powerful beauty.

It was a funny and exciting feeling being up in front on my old lecture room, actually giving the lecture to a new group of students in Dr. Lackey's class. After all it was only a few years ago that I had been sitting in that class myself.