Maddie and Makayla listening very carefully for bear noises. 1/14/13A lot of talk here lately has been about education as the school year nears. Bears interest students. It has been interesting to hear the many ways teachers use bear.org information and Black Bear Box information and our big video library on YouTube in their classrooms. We’ll be talking more about what is available in the future.
Last year a preschool teacher sent us photos of her classroom and her children enjoying learning about bears. We will share a few of those photos tonight.
Den Cam Classroom - 2013A Minnesota teacher writing about the Den Cams but possibly about the archived footage from the Den Cams wrote: “Bears can be a very calming influence on children in the classroom. The sounds cubs make in the den brings a relaxing atmosphere not only when student's are learning about bears, but as a background noise to those working on daily work, reading, and writing. I have used the sounds of cubs nursing to calm my students with special needs (emotionally disturbed and my autistic kids). I have used bear video from the NABC site on my iPad as a reward for my students to watch when they have finished their work. The study of bears can also be used to cover a variety of MN Standards at different grade levels.”
Decorated Preschool BookcaseThat’s what we’re about. Engaging kids with the truth about bears can change the next generation. That’s what we view as the legacy of Lily Fans.
Decorated Classroom - 2013For research, we are set with enough people to crowd the Cabin, map bear trails, and record reactions of bears they see. For the mapping part, we will need to buy 5 GPS units to map the trails and transfer the information to our computer for display on Google Earth. If there is a GPS expert out there among the Lily Fans, we’d appreciate him or her contacting us tomorrow (8/22) at 218-365-4480 and giving advice on what GPS unit to buy that will easily transfer data to a map on the computer.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center