The Problem
Our community is expanding. A few years ago, our school was surrounded by trees and large grass meadows. Within the last year, we now have apartment buildings surrounding our school. The trees have been cut down to make room for housing, and the grass fields are few. Through the years our students have been fortunate to make observations of the Western bluebird, which is a threatened species in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Without the proper nesting cavities for these beautiful birds, they will perish. We want to fix this problem by adding Western bluebird nesting boxes on campus. This will provide temporary nesting cavities until the trees in the subdivision age. We plan to design feeding stations and provide mealworms as a supplemental food source while they are raising their brood. In our raised garden area, we plan to add places where the Western Bluebirds can have a viable water source in case our local stream is not accessible. With these added features, we hope that the Western bluebirds will continue to reproduce and thrive in our community.
