Annie's Big Nature Lesson

As part of Annies' Big Nature Lesson (ABNL), Tracey Marchyok and Kevin Dorn had their 4th and 5th grade class at the Leslie Science and Nature Center for the week of February 11-15.

The mission of ABNL is to immerse children, teachers, and parents in the beauty and wonder of the natural world; to engage them in authentic scientific investigations by observing the local ecology, drawing and writing; to nurture citizens who value and protect natural resources; and to build a school-community partnership that inspires responsible environmental stewardship.

On Wednesday, the students came to the golf course and I talked to them about the best management practices that the golf course implements with a goal of being the best environmental stewards that we can. I talked about some of the wildlife that I see on the course and the ways that we foster habitat in out of play areas. I also talked about the Traver Creek Project and afterword, we walked out on the course to look at the progress on the stream restoration.

I also got some samples of the water that the students did some water quality tests on back at the science center.

One great thing that I learned was that some of the students were in Wendy Nagle's class 2 years ago when we put up some bat houses that they made. Many of the kids remembered me and gave me a very warm welcome. Here is a picture of us putting up one of the bat houses on #3.

AALC Thank You

I would just like to share with you the very nice thank you letter that I got Wendy Nagle's class at the Ann Arbor Learning Community. They donated a couple of bat house to the golf course and then came out to visit one of them. You can read more about this HERE.

Also, here is a nice picture of a blue flag iris from the native plant garden near #12.

And the peonies at the clubhouse.

Ann Arbor Learning Community's Bat House

On February 2nd, 2011, I went to Wendy Nagle's 2nd and 3rd grade classroom at the Ann Arbor Learning Community to give them a short power point presentation on the environmental initiatives that we have implemented here at Leslie Park and receive a bat house that the children had made.

On April 11th, we were finally able to hang the bat house near #3 fairway.

When I let Wendy know that we had hung the house, she told me that they had another one available and that the class would like to come out to the golf course and give it to me. On May 26th, the weather co-operated enough for 18 kids as well as 10 chaperones to come out and present us with our second bat house.

We then took a little stroll out to #3 to look at the original bat house.

Traver Creek Testing with the AALC

Last Wednesday, members of Tracey Marchyok's 4th and 5th grade class from the Ann Arbor Learning Community along with Stefan Szumko from the Leslie Science and Learning Center, came to the golf course to test Traver Creek for various factors, such as pH, nitrogen, phosphorous and temperature. (Edit: A link to an Ann Arbor.com article is here)

I spent some time talking to the class about the things we are doing at Leslie Park to enhance our wildlife habitat and become certified in the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses.

We then went out and tested the water. Stefan was nice enough to don the waders and pull the water out for the kids and then spent a half an hour searching around for macro-invertebrates in the mud.

The class then walked through Black Pond Woods back to the science center.