My Bluebird Experience
By: Michaela Pittenger
My name is Michaela Pittenger and I am a freshman at Regis High School. All my life I have been pushed to try new things such as softball and volleyball. I have been in Girl Scouts what seems to be my whole life, and for my Silver Award I decided to choose the Bluebird Restoration Project. This summer I worked at UW-Eau Claire Children’s Nature Academy with Sarah Liming, another member of Girl Scout Troop 3326.
This is my first full summer with the Bluebird Restoration Project, and I had a lot of fun working with Shelly Sutley and Sarah Liming. Growing up, I learned how to check nest boxes and supply the resources that they need. Ms. Sutley was nice enough to let me get involved in teaching classes with her at the Priory.
While working with the Bluebird Restoration Project, I learned a lot. Ms. Sutley assigned me to teach about migrating birds, and she had ordered a big blow up globe. I decided to use that to display which birds migrate where in the world. I went online and looked up the five songbirds that use our nest boxes: Bluebird, House Wren, Black-Capped Chickadee, House Sparrow and where they migrated. With the information, I was able to create a display to show migration paths. The kids loved it!
Michaela Pittenger outdoors at the UW-Eau Claire Children's Nature Academy
I also created a few educational signs to put up around the classroom along with Sarah Liming. As the summer went on, I was allowed to go with Ms. Sutley outside to check the boxes with the kids. I have learned so much, stretching from what kinds of birds live in Wisconsin to bird tracking, and a lot on keeping organized.
This project has helped me out so much. I got to teach young children while interacting with other adults. It helped me learn how to get young children’s attention by watching Ms. Sutley teach. This project has helped me decide if I would like a job in the future interacting with children. It has been a blast working with Sarah Liming and Shelly Sutley.