Bat Boxes for the Gold

(Excerpted from the GSUSA blog 12-19-12)

"Girl Scout Sara Koran, 17, installed bat houses at Pioneer Park in Loachapoka and educated the public on their purpose as her Girl Scout Gold Award project about environmental community awareness.  (She learned from her aunt that bats were becoming endangered in Alabama.)

  

The project includes research, construction and installation of the (bat) houses, and was designed with the intent of helping the species of bats in the area that are becoming endangered. She not only intended to help keep them safer, but to move them to the park where they could do some good for the area.

“The main reason for the bat houses is to keep them out of homes and unwanted places for people,” she said. “Bats prefer to be outside where they can hunt instead of inside. So it’s kind of a pest control kind of thing … but another benefit was that [at the park] they can eat mosquitoes and unwanted bugs for people.”

“What my project was supposed to do was make these bat houses and then also educate people on them,” Koran said. “So I made a PowerPoint and presented it to schools and I’ve done presentations on Second Saturdays at Pioneer Park to educate the people that came out.”

Pioneer Park is a project of the Lee County Historical Society, a nonprofit organization established in 1968 to promote the history of the county."

Is this up to the Gold Award Take Action Project standard?  Probably.  As I've said before, the only info I have is from a newspaper write-up!  Here's what I have to hope Sara also did!

(Potential) Issue:  Bats moving into people homes.   Too many mosquitoes/bad bugs in the open spaces.

Root cause: Suburban sprawl into bat's natural habitats.  Residents not knowing how to bat-proof their buildings.

Team:  The article doesn't say, but I hope that Sara got together a team of (non-Girl Scout) peers to help educate the community, and in presenting the information, making and installing the bat boxes. Sara would be the leader, but she could assign duties to her team to help.

Non-profit Partner:  I hope it was the Lee County Historical Society or perhaps a city department that was able to provide information and services.

Funding:  Perhaps from Sara's cookie money? Funds from the city?  Historical Society?  The article didn't say how many she built, but I hope that it was enough to make a sizeable difference in the bat population!

Measurability:  What could Sara measure?  Number of batboxes built, for sure.  Maybe number of people presented to at schools and community fair days?  Perhaps number of inhabited bat boxes? Reduction of visible bats in the neighborhood?  Reduction of calls to city dept. asking for bat removal?

Sustainability:  I would hope that the Historical Society would take on this role.  Remember, it is required for all Gold Award Projects that the girl ensure sustainability.  Thinking back to a friend's Eagle project, the batboxes he made were pretty much self-sustaining over many years.  Perhaps Sara also put together a video about the bat boxes and how to secure a residence against bats?  She could link that to school and city websites to drive residents to the information.

Global:  Now, Sara doesn't need to provide batboxes to the world! But if she is truly making a sustainable change in her community, then she needs to think, and talk about, how could this work if her work went further into the greater community?  What if every park in the county had bat boxes?  Would there be a visible reduction in bad bugs, and/or diseases caused by these bugs?  Would bats go back to foraging in the parklands, instead of in urban settings?  It's a conversation to have, so that  Sara understands the global implications.