By Bruce Urben, WWA President
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s June, 2024 Newsletter edition.
Monday, May 14th was the day when almost 300 Pulaski School District fourth graders from six outlying schools were bussed to the Pulaski School Forest to participate in their annual Natural Resource Day.
Student groups were rotated through eight different stations along the forest trail to participate in hands-on activities related to land, water, forestry, wildlife and much more. Participating organizations included the Natural Resources Conservation Service; the WI Dept. of Natural Resources’ Fisheries, Water Quality, Warden and Recreation Spec.; UW Stevens Point; Brown County Parks; Greenfire; US Dept. of Agriculture; and, of course, Wisconsin Waterfowl Association.
The author, surrounded by students looking at a hatched wood duck nest
Green Bay Chapter member Jeremy VanSistine and I staffed the popular Wood Duck Ecology Station. Students were provided a short section of the Dept. of Public Instruction’s approved wood duck curriculum developed by Ryan and Jessica Peterson from Brillion School District and supported by WWA. They learned about wood duck ecology, identification with a taxidermy wood duck that they could handle, nesting behavior, predator impacts and even the sounds a wood duck makes! They were able to sort through a recently hatched wood duck nest, noting broken egg shells, mounds of down feathers and even an unhatched egg.
A wood duck nesting box was mounted at eye level for them to observe and they could participate in maintaining the box and adding fresh wood chips. Students were able to view the chick ladder inside the box, which helped them understand the “jumping” process. We fielded hundreds of inquisitive questions, far more than we could answer in the 30 minutes we had with each group.
Students had many questions about the wood duck boxes
Pulaski Science/Tech program is participating in WWA’s wood duck curriculum in Spring of 2025. They have mounted a number of wood duck nesting boxes along the creek in their school forest and their high school woodworking program is building predator guards and amending one box to accommodate a remote camera to record and transmit the wood duck hen nesting activity.
Stay tuned for more information about the curriculum as Pulaski Middle School has invited WWA into their classroom to take part in one of the curriculum’s lessons next spring.
For more information about the school wood duck curriculum or to get your school signed up for free wood duck boxes and the curriculum series, contact WWA Education Committee Chair Todd Schaller at (920) 379-1704 or at c217tazman@gmail.com.