Helping the Community: Teaching About Bats, Our Helpful Nocturnal Neighbors

Surrounding the Tri-Valley Jr./Sr. High School is over 100 acres of beautiful forestland. Almost half of this forest, approximately 48 acres, is preserved as the Tri-Valley Environmental Education Center, as part of the Tri-Valley School District. This property serves as a valuable resource for the students of Tri-Valley and the greater community, both human and animal alike. The Environmental Education Center is home to a diverse range of animal and plant species, including several species of bats. Bats can sometimes receive a negative reputation as a scary animal; however, bats are some of the most beneficial animals to have around – especially for agriculture! 

Bats serve a very important role as pollinators of agricultural crops and also assist in pest control as bats eat many of the insects that can harm agricultural crops and livestock. However, while bats are very helpful to us they are currently facing a huge problem. Almost 40% of all American bat species are in severe decline or already listed as endangered or threatened. This decline in the numbers of bats is due to many factors, but two of those are habitat loss and White Nose Syndrome.

This is where some of the students of the Tri-Valley Agricultural Education department have decided to step in to help, and you can too! Working with the local forester, the environmental science teacher, the agriculture teachers, and elementary teachers, the students created an informational bat display along with several bat boxes. The display includes educational information about bats, including power-points and resources on the habitat of bats and the their life spans. The students also found and/or created several activities and lessons to teach younger students about bats, along with some activities to teach about other nocturnal animals as well. In addition to creating these resources, the students used the stewardship plan for the Environmental Education Center to determine the best areas to create habitat for bats. After determining three specific areas in the plan that were suitable for bat habitat, several students created plans to build bat boxes, which can serve as man-made habitats for bats and encourage bats to live in areas suited for them, instead of in old barns. In addition to the bat boxes, the students also learned that dead standing trees, known as snags, could also serve as bat habitat.

The students will be displaying the information and some of the bat boxes at the Schuylkill County Fair. As an FFA activity, the students create a “Farming for a Day” tent display at the fair each year, focused on teaching the younger generations about agriculture and the impact it has on all our lives each day. This upcoming summer, one of the displays in the tent will be the Bat Display the students created this spring. The students are excited to teach their community about the great resource right in their backyards in the Environmental Education Center, and about the many amazing species that call it home, including our helpful nocturnal neighbors – the bats.