An important part of our mandate as Kawartha Field Naturalists is to educate. We are very much involved in education- our guest speakers, our field trips and our projects all expand knowledge and stimulate ideas within our membership. Education Outreach is slightly different in that the ideas and projects are designed to reach out beyond our membership with the hope that an appreciation of the natural world by the general public might translate into better stewardship of the habitats and wildlife that are so central to the existence of our club. Increased membership, with the attendant energy, knowledge and renewed vision that new people bring, is a benefit to be expected from Education Outreach.

Education Outreach is not a new idea in our club. Jim Saigeon, Tim Brophy, Leslie Dyment and Vic Orr among others, have all worked with Balsam Lake Provincial Park, local schools and other organizations to interest children in the world of birds, bugs and plants. Vic Orr once spoke about loons at the Amish School when a loon was found struggling in one of their farm ponds. For years our club has awarded a prize to a local high school student for good work in the area of environmental studies. Jim has arranged this and has presented the cash prize on our behalf. When Langton Public School in Fenelon Falls was being planned, our club served on an advisory board and was able to ensure that land surrounding the present school would be left in a natural state so that natural science opportunities and field trips might better reflect our values. Our club helped coordinate plantings of shrubs and trees near the school and we have the original landscape maps in our archives.

Most recently our club, with cash from the Victoria Land and Water Stewardship Council and donations of equipment from Bushnell Outdoor Products, has acquired enough binoculars, pond nets and bug jars to allow us to conduct pond studies and bird lessons with classes of 30 children. A lunch hour Project Feederwatch club at Langton School was very successful. The children identified birds and recorded data on the numbers of birds, snow cover and temperature. Then, using the library computer, they entered this data on line at the Bird Studies Canada web site and were able to see an analysis of general trends in bird activity on a local, provincial, and continent wide basis. They also giggled quite a bit.

Judy Kennedy had an idea to connect our club to the Lindsay Parks and Recreation Programme and this past spring a Beginning Birders course and a Plant Identification workshop have been very successful and plans are in place to expand this aspect of our programme.