Eastside Audubon Neighbors

Written by Mary Britton-Simmons

Eastside Audubon shares a campus with Leadership Preparatory Academy, a progressive micro school for grades 6-12 founded in 2013. Most of us are familiar with their signs but not with the students and their teachers. Last Monday I was fortunate to be invited to their classroom to open a week of bird studies. I spent the morning with a delightful group of students described on the school’s website as “close-knit and energetic,” and they were! For an hour we engaged in a discussion about migration: flyways, triggers, tools, dangers, communication, tracking and most importantly, how they could help birds in their journeys.

Enthusiastic and curious learners, they delighted in coming up close to a Rufous Hummingbird, a Yellow-rumped Warbler and our other mounts of migratory birds. We ended the morning with a trip outside to set up the Youth Education’s migration game. Students’ enthusiasm did not lag as they wanted to play the game several times, especially those whom a cat ate at station 16! As a retired high school teacher, I was delighted to spend time with such engaging teenagers and happy to get to know the neighbors.