BROKEN BOW – Heather Schmidt’s Love & Learn Childcare has long been known in Broken Bow as the place where early education takes off.
This spring, the educator and caretaker took that almost literally.
Schmidt and her kids participated as a team in Nebraska Game and Parks’ first annual Nebraska Birding Bowl; throughout the month of May, the Love & Learn ornithologists, ranging from toddlers to near school age, would spend several hours peeking through binoculars to observe and count their feathered friends.
Schmidt said that the Love & Learn Birding Bowl experience served not only as a novel way to engage with the natural world but as an integral part of the early educational experience as well.
“It’s very concrete. It’s something they can see. There were all these opportunities for learning and talking about different types and colors of birds, as well as counting them.”
Schmidt and her backyard birders would observe the birds routinely, usually after meals, and a pattern seemed to emerge: the birds and their watchers appeared to have similar eating schedules.
Schmidt said that her kids noticed that mealtimes weren’t the only similarities between the two species’ behaviors.
“We’d talk about diversity. We’d look at all the different birds at the bird feeder and talk about how they were all getting along. Or sometimes, they wouldn’t be getting along, and we’d ask, ‘Now, why did those birds leave when other birds came?’ We’d have these conversations that would relate back to us as people.”
The Love & Learn birding club would wind up documenting about 15 different species over the course of the month. The group would also document each species they identified through pictures they’d draw.
The effort was so impressive that the Game and Parks would award Schmidt and her Love & Learn birders with youth birding kits for their stellar participation, a prize that only 3 other youth birding groups would earn.
The kits have just reached the Love & Learn birding club; each one contains a birding journal, reference pictures of different birds, bird stickers, and a small booklet detailing endangered bird species.
The kit also contains a certificate from Game and Parks highlighting the Love & Learn citizen scientists’ accomplishments.
One bird in particular was a treat for both the avid birder Schmidt and her blossoming Audubons: a rare visitor from the east.
“This year was exciting because, for the first time, we saw a Baltimore Oriole come to our bird feeder. It was really exciting. It didn’t stay very long, just flittered around and took some food and left, so we’ll have to do some investigating to see what it really likes to eat.”
Schmidt has plans to make good on her investigative word. This past year, she purchased child-sized binoculars so her kids could better see the birds, and next year thinks that maybe a little safari is in order.
“Maybe we’ll go investigate someplace other than just our yard. We’ve got our binoculars, and now we have access to our birding kits. We can maybe start a little earlier, maybe in April when the weather starts to get nicer, and maybe see more birds that don’t just come to the house.”
No matter how the coming bird seasons shake out, one thing is certain: with kits, kids, and know-how, Heather Schmidt will certainly not be winging it.
