The educational benefits of a ten-week home-based wild bird feeding program for children.

Abstract

Evaluated a 10-wk educational home-based program for feeding wild birds, intended to increase elementary school age children's knowledge about birds, especially those wild birds commonly encountered at outdoor home feeders. The authors measured changes from pre- to post-program in 65 712-yr-old children's knowledge about wild birds, as well as in environmental attitudes. The goal was not only to increase bird knowledge in the target child but also to involve other family members in home-based nature education activities. After the program, 79-yr-old boys and girls showed significant gains in bird knowledge, but older children (1012 yrs) did not significantly improve. Children's increased knowledge was positively associated with parental education. There was no systematic change in environmental attitudes. Parents identified family involvement as a particularly beneficial aspect of the program, and 90% of contacted families were still feeding birds one year after program termination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

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