By Lois Herbel, Learn and Serve America Project Consultant
(BAN Scottsbluff County Coordinator)

For the past two years, students at Crawford High School have had an opportunity to participate in the Learn and Serve America Bluebird Project. Students have participated in service learning as they worked through this project. Service learning involves students defining a community problem, learning basic concepts in their curriculum through the project, and using their knowledge to improve or correct the problem. The project involves hands-on activities that take the learning outside the classroom walls.

The area around Crawford and Chadron, Neb., has experienced considerable habitat destruction and loss due to wildfires. With the assistance of Nancy Sharp, Dawes County coordinator, the students have learned basic information about bluebirds, their habitat and the decline in bluebird population. The students have built bluebird houses according to BAN specifications in Industrial Arts class. Then, through the use of GPS, students placed the boxes to form a bluebird trail near Fort Robinson. The students monitored the boxes last spring and summer. One box was even monitored through a camera that was attached to the box. They recorded seven fledglings their first year which was reported to BAN.

The students have produced a CD of their project using iMovie software. The CD really tells their story by showing the wildfires, construction of the boxes and finally with the fledglings leaving the boxes. The CD will be available for viewing at some of the meetings this spring. It is a very impressive production of their project.

This year, the students are continuing to build the bluebird boxes and add to their bluebird trail. In addition, some private landowners in the area have agreed to have boxes placed on their land. The landowners will monitor the boxes and report the data to the students. The students will continue to monitor the boxes on the trail they developed.