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News & Photos
Students Build Bat Homes
Helping bats helps people. So Barbara Zimmerman's third grade class discovered today while constructing “bat boxes” with members of UMBC’s Students for Environmental Awareness Club and two Americorps volunteers.
The students assembled 11 bat houses, enough to accommodate 550 of the nocturnal critters. They learned how bats make the world safer for humans by eating disease-carrying insects.
Each bat has the capacity to munch on 1,000 insects an hour, and 550 can consume as many as 4,400,000 bugs million overnight.
With fewer insects around, water quality will improve because people won’t have to use as many harmful pesticides. That revelation inspired one third grader to announce: "My dad is always using bug spray!"
Mrs. Zimmerman’s class used precut, drilled wood to make the rectangular boxes. They sawed some pieces, screwed the sides of the boxes together, and roughed-up the wood to give the bats “sticky” places to grasp. In 45 minutes, students had all the boxes built and painted.
UMBC senior Tammy Newcomer ’03 couldn't believe how fast the students got the job done. "I thought they would take turns doing each task, but they worked really well together and were able to do things simultaneously."
One bat house will be hung at McDonogh. Parents will be invited to hang the rest at home. Any unclaimed bat boxes will be placed around the county by the UMBC students.
The whole experience produced at least one convert. At the beginning of class, she declared: "I'm a girly girl. I don't like bats." At the end, she said: "Bats are cool!"
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Helping bats helps people. So Barbara Zimmerman's third grade class discovered today while constructing “bat boxes” with members of UMBC’s Students for Environmental Awareness Club and two Americorps volunteers.
The students assembled 11 bat houses, enough to accommodate 550 of the nocturnal critters. They learned how bats make the world safer for humans by eating disease-carrying insects.
Each bat has the capacity to munch on 1,000 insects an hour, and 550 can consume as many as 4,400,000 bugs million overnight.
With fewer insects around, water quality will improve because people won’t have to use as many harmful pesticides. That revelation inspired one third grader to announce: "My dad is always using bug spray!"
Mrs. Zimmerman’s class used precut, drilled wood to make the rectangular boxes. They sawed some pieces, screwed the sides of the boxes together, and roughed-up the wood to give the bats “sticky” places to grasp. In 45 minutes, students had all the boxes built and painted.
UMBC senior Tammy Newcomer ’03 couldn't believe how fast the students got the job done. "I thought they would take turns doing each task, but they worked really well together and were able to do things simultaneously."
One bat house will be hung at McDonogh. Parents will be invited to hang the rest at home. Any unclaimed bat boxes will be placed around the county by the UMBC students.
The whole experience produced at least one convert. At the beginning of class, she declared: "I'm a girly girl. I don't like bats." At the end, she said: "Bats are cool!"