Kids & Birds

Kids & Birds is an environmental education program for Q’eqchi’ Maya primary school students, a four day learning experience on site at our agroecology center. Each year, between January and September, up to 1,200 sixth graders experience this introduction to the natural world of the cloud forest.

The curriculum includes:

Cornell Lab’s BirdSleuth international curriculum, ten lessons
Agroecology
Birding in the cloud forest
Bio-acoustic recordings of nature sounds in the cloud forest
Stream ecology
Artful Eyes – drawing and coloring birds
Reforestation
Planting of agroforestry parcels

Support Kids & Birds

Students return home with starter plants & seeds of traditional crops for their family’s agroforestry parcel, a coloring book of locally occurring warblers, and with a conservtion ethic to protect the cloud forest.

The Kids & Birds program is authorized by the Guatemala Ministry of Education.

Thanks to the support of Cornell Lab of Ornithology, students learn about bird sounds (and bio-acoustic in general) as a part of their Kids & Birds experience with a powerful, interactive computer program called Raven Exhibit. Raven Exhibit allows students to see images and hear sounds of a specific species, visualize sounds and a lot of other fun stuff.

Opening up the natural world to sixth graders is like opening up an enormous book with big pictures and small details.

Kids & Birds: Opening eyes to the amazing world around us. This program invites 6th graders to appreciate the world of living things.

Recent Updates

Bird ID guide proves its worth - CCFC's newest educational resource is proving itself in the field this week with students of Kids & Birds program. With these hand bird guides students can identify birds in the field and access their common names in Q'eqchi', English and the scientific name. - continue reading...

underwater nature - Kids & Birds students from Chacalte Chichen learning about aquatic life in the Mestela' river at CCFC. - continue reading...

Water, Forests and Conservation unit: stream ecology - - continue reading...

Water, Forests and Conservation, a new unit for CCFC’s Kids & Birds program - For students that have already taken part in CCFC's Kids & Birds basic curriculum, CCFC has developed a one day workshop on water, the role of forests in the water cycle and the importance of forest conservation for birds, water and people. - continue reading...

CCFC’s newest tool for bird identification gets into local schools - CCFC has a new bird guide for primary school students. Norma and Gloria Caal Bac present this wonderful bird guide to the students of Mestela school. Norma, a 12th grade teaching student, is doing her student teaching at Mestela school this year. Gloria is a CCFC Kids & Birds instructor. - continue reading...

Central highland schools get new resource for bird identification - In 2019 all participating Kids & Birds schools will receive a laminated trifold field guide for their class room. These field guides include local birds that students will recognize from their backyards and surrounding forests. The guide includes common names in Q'eqchi' Maya where possible. The trifolds will be used by students inside and outside the class room before, during… - continue reading...

Warbler Coloring Books For All - The San Lucas Sequila primary and the two primary schools of Sequila all got a warbler coloring book last week. This year, 2018, CCFC will give 1,200 warbler coloring books to the students that visit CCFC for Kids & Birds. - continue reading...

Kids & Birds Team — 2018 - Kids & Birds Team for 2018 with Rudy Botzoc. Each member of the entire Kids & Birds team is an alumnae of CCFC's WALC program. And all of them (with the exception of Josefina) are currently enrolled in either high school or university. Josefina is taking a gap year between high school and university and is the only team member… - continue reading...

Kids & Birds ready for take off - As we look toward 2018, we are especially excited about the Kids & Birds program. Schools will start arriving the last week of January. Our goal for 2018 is to have 1,200 sixth graders from January to September of 2018. We need your help. Please contribute to Kids & Birds 2018 and help us reach our goal of having 1,200… - continue reading...

migratory bird coloring book, coming soon - As an addition to our tool chest in Artful Eyes, CCFC is pleased to announce that before October 25th, we will be printing a coloring book of migratory birds. CCFC's artist in residence, Savannah Aldrich, has been hard at work preparing a nine page coloring book of wood warblers. The species selected in this coloring book are all species that… - continue reading...