The Skyline Teen Program at the CommonBond Skyline Tower in St. Paul, Minnesota works to create engaging activities and events within its schedule that not only provide exciting opportunities to participating teens in a safe space, but also can be valuable to them educationally and in connecting them to their community. The group is scheduling a Teen Program Bird Week for late April, which they think will be a great opportunity to infuse their weekly program with a twist, educating participants about local birds in their community and letting them explore native species!
The Teen Program is meeting with Project Get Outdoors on Friday 11 to learn about urban birds through observations so that Teen Council members will better be able to present information about various species of local birds during Bird Week.
The Bird Week will kick off with a presentation with live birds from the University of Minnesota Raptor Center, a perfect way to provide an exciting, engaging event that all of the program’s teens should be able to attend. Then, throughout the week, the Skyline Teen Advisory Council (STAC, made up of ten resident youth leaders) will give short presentations on five different native bird species to educate peers about local birds they might observe the upcoming Friday. That Friday, participants will walk to the nearby Dunning Field, which includes various athletic fields, a playground, park space, and even a community garden. The host of varied environments for birds at Dunning Field should make a good setting for a CUBs bird observation!
All the Bird Week activities will be documented by STAC member videographers to be later compiled into a short video. This video will be posted so that Teen Program members can check it out and others can learn from what participants learned!