Our Educational Guides & Recommended Books
Community Avitourism Guide
Together with Celebrate Urban Birds, the Community Avitourism Group of the Americas has co-created our wonderful Community Avitourism Guide: Guía Para Iniciar Proyectos de Aviturismo Comunitario en Latinoamérica (Community Avitourism Guide for Latin America) – only available in Spanish.
Our motivation was to create a visual and practical guide for anyone who wants to learn about the topic of Community-led Avitourism. This guide was created by community for community and is intended for communities that have historically been excluded from the sciences. If you want to get the guide, please complete this short survey:
Accessible and Inclusive Birding: A Handbook for Educators (in Spanish)
We are happy to share a new handbook with strategies and techniques for engaging people who are blind or have low vision, people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
This guide was cocreated by Veo Aves Falcón from Venezuela.
You can download this educational guide for free!
A Collective eBook Comes to Light
The success of innovative and effective environmental education programs in Latino communities can be attributed to understanding the values, strengths, and creativity of the communities, going beyond just translating materials and resources from English to Spanish. Latino leaders understand and integrate local culture, and recognize the wisdom, strengths, and needs of the community, in order to make their work relevant.
A bilingual online learning community, comprised of 50 committed and passionate leaders and educators, was supported by EECapacity, a National Training program of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This group exchanged their unique insight and ideas over the course of about a year. At the conclusion of the dialogue project, many participants decided to showcase what they learned by sharing programs and projects with Latino communities throughout the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, in a free virtual publication (eBook). We invite you to download this eBook with the hope that it will help and encourage your work. We hope you are inspired to adapt and achieve similar innovative programs and projects in your community. Let us know how it goes for you!
Environmental Education in Latino Communities: Sharing Experiences
Educación Ambiental en Comunidades Latinas: Compartiendo Experiencias
Other Recommended Books and Articles
The Black & Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places: African Americans Making Nature and the Environment a Part of Their Everyday Lives by Dudley Edmonson
As author Dudley Edmonson remarks, “True freedom lies in wilderness. It’s why I’ve spent much of my life encouraging people of color to explore these spaces.” The book is composed of photographs and interviews with people of color who are deeply involved with our natural spaces. Insightful and inspiring!
Sparrow by Kim Todd
Innocent. Invader. Lover. Thief. Sparrows are everywhere and wear many guises. In Sparrow, award-winning science and natural history writer Kim Todd explores the bird’s complex history, biology, and literary tradition. With lush illustrations, ranging from early woodcuts and illuminated manuscripts to contemporary wildlife photography, this is the first book-length exploration of the natural and cultural history of this beloved, reviled, and ubiquitous bird.
City Birds/Country Birds by Sharon Stiteler
This wonderful, easy to read book will teach you how to attract birds no matter where you live, even in an urban environment. It includes “apartment tips” for people who live in shared living spaces and is chock full of applicable information for anyone who wants to get to know birds better in cities. You’ll learn about threats to urban birds and get clear information about feeding birds as well as providing them with water and shelter.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
There is a growing disconnect between children and nature. Children’s lives are out of balance, with little free time. They are spending most of their time in structured indoor activities and less and less time simply playing outdoors. People protect what they value, and they value what they know and appreciate. If children don’t cherish the natural environment, there is a good chance that they won’t grow up to be good stewards of the earth that sustains us.
Pigeons: The Fascinating Sage of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird by Andrew D. Blechman
Pigeons: you either love them or hate them! Are they just “rats with wings” or much more? Learn all about them in this wonderful, comprehensive, and very readable book.
“I’ve been as guilty as anybody of looking down on the lowly Rock Dove. But Andrew Blechman’s Pigeons woke me up. Informative and well-written, if anybody can read his book and still harbor contempt for pigeons, I have to wonder if there is hope for human beings.”
—Mark Bittner, author of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
Songbird Journeys: Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds by Miyoko Chu
Learn about the lives of songbirds as they move from continent to continent with the seasons from Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s own Miyoko Chu, a bird enthusiast who gained her love for birds by Celebrating Urban Birds and rescuing pigeons in her home Chinatown.
Grandmother’s Pigeon by Louise Erdich
This is a wonderful children’s book! An eccentric grandmother leaves behind three old eggs that hatch into Passenger Pigeons. It blends fantasy and science.
On Meadowview Street Written and Illustrated by Henry Cole
This book is sympathetic to the goals of the Celebrate Urban Bird project; what would happen if you stopped mowing your lawn and created an interesting habitat? You’d get flowers, trees, butterflies, amphibians, and of course, lovely birds — a home for everyone! Henry Cole shows exactly what families can do to revitalize an entire neighborhood. It’s a cute story, and it could be real!
Also of interest by Henry Cole are two marvelous picture books about observing nature, sharing space with beautiful animals and plants, and the rewards of finding “a place to sit and watch and listen.”
I Took a Walk by Henry Cole
Take a peaceful walk through nature and explore the different types of wildlife and plants on both land and water. Filled with fun interactive pop-ups, this colorful book will provide you with an adventure that’ll give you the chance to learn what nature has to offer.
On the Way to the Beach by Henry Cole
With this book, you can take a trip to the beach whenever your heart desires! Use your senses to learn about the various forms of wildlife, including a variety of birds, that call this rich environment their home.
Gracie: The Public Gardens Duck by Judith Meyrick, illustrations by Richard Rudnicki
Gracie can’t understand why her regular sources of food are leaving her hungry. Will she figure out where the ‘natural’ duck food in the park is? Set in Halifax Public Gardens, Canada.
