Education programs for wildlife are magical. But what does that mean?

First, close your eyes. Next, listen to the video. Ok, it is a little tricky to close your eyes and click on the video but give it a try.

What do you hear? How does it make you feel?

Now picture a group of children sitting in a circle listening to the howl of red wolves. When asked how they feel, some are afraid, most are happy and some feel like they are sitting next to the wolves. This is how we start every class, even adult classes, on red wolves.

And why red wolves? Because they are the most endangered wild animal in the US. A great place to start! And thanks to the Wolf Conservation Center for the fantastic video!

With less than 20 left in the wild, in the whole world, we want to teach our next generation why they (and we) should save them just like our country did for the bald eagle. To learn a bit more about these magnificent animals that mate for life and are fabulous parents, read our blog Seven Impressive Reasons We Love Endangered Red Wolves.

 

One of the critical things we learned early on, and it seems so simple, is there is no wildlife without habitat. Without shelter, food, water and space, animals can not survive. And we humans have been encroaching on all four so part of our classes includes the importance of saving habitat.

What better way to start is with a lesson on how plants, especially native plants, are critical to the survival of all wildlife? We teach the kids that baby birds eat catepillars for the first few weeks of their lives. And caterpillars only eat native plants most of the time. So no native plants, no baby birds.

Polk County Schools asked us to start an After School Program for our four elementary and one middle schools. For our very first program, we partnered with the Gardening for Life Project, which is bringing Doug Tallamy to speak in Tryon on March 4 2023.

To quote their website, Doug says, “we are losing healthy biodiverse habitats and we can begin to reverse that by taking simple steps right in our own yards”. We say, what better way than to plant native seeds?

Each student decorates several seed packets, which will be handed out for free at the Tallamy event. Then they get to take home a packet to plant in their own gardens.

Our education programs take volunteers and money. We would love to have you become a donor or volunteer. Or better yet, both!

A $100 donation buys art supplies for 40 children and each wildlife lesson includes art education. Just hit the donate button at the top of the page. To volunteer, complete our Volunteer Form.

See what one child wrote after our class. It just doesn’t get much better!