Agriculture Students Play Part in Conservation

Hi All,

The past three weeks the students and I along with the park manager at Keystone State Park have been work with the students on the community based unit of instruction.The following is the news article developed by one of the students and myself.

Students enrolled in the PA Environment and Ecology course at Derry Area High School have recently been learning about the wildlife of Pennsylvania. This unit of instruction enabled students to explore different methods of wildlife identification varies ways of management methods, and ecological relationships between the environment, wildlife, and humans.  During this time the discussion of the Brown Bat and their current inflection of White Noes Syndrome, a devastating disease  named for the for the white fungus that infects the muzzle, ears, and wings of hibernating bats since the winter of 2007-2008 ,was introduced to the students. Afterwards it was decided to take action, with the hope of preventing more bats falling victim to this epidemic, whose death toll already numbers in the millions, by constructing bat boxes to be placed at Keystone State Park.  

The boxes will serve as alternative habitats for the bats, in terms of limiting their interaction with humans who are thought to be a major contributor to the current epidemic. In addition to being way from humans and highly populated bat areas (caves, mines, etc.) the boxes will be placed out away from   trees, in order to receive a minim of seven hours of sunlight, as well as near a natural water way for a food source.   

Students are constructing the boxes out of ¼ in. exterior grade plywood, painted inside and out with black water-based exterior paint, sealed with paintable latex caulking. The boxes will require little matiness after they are placed at Keystone other than minor wasp and seam inspection, otherwise bats will begin to abandon the box. The class has constructed a total of 8 boxes that will be placed at the Park later this week, if interested in farther information on the bat boxes or how to construct your own to take part in the preservation of Pennsylvanian’s brown bats contact Derry’s Agriculture Department. 

Additionally, the students developed a flyer to handout to visitors of the Agriculture during the future fair to educate them on their project and the effects of white noes syndromes. 

All in all it was quite successful, I do wish that my co-teaching would have went better and that more students would have turned out to take the boxes to the park, but at last the filed trip missed the school boards' died line for approval.