On October 26th, PEEC welcomed over sixty Girl Scouts for a day of badge work and exploration at PEEC. To help our scouts in the badge work of sharing their experience, we ask them to write a few words about their adventures: 

“Are you a person of nature and the great outdoors? Well if you are, Pocono Environmental Education Center has beautiful trails and amazing streams. My Girl Scout sisters and I spent the weekend, and even though some of my sisters were anxious, scared, and even worried, we had a great time and I would definitely come back here again. We also learned how to survive the outdoors like, how to walk down the hills and how to tell what was poison ivy. Throughout our trip we made many happy memories and learned about nature and how it is essential for us to take care of the earth.  We also learned how we need to pick up after ourselves and leave no trace behind. But, the main thing we learned was how to have fun while respecting nature. “  – Girl Scout Troop # 80783 

 

“Today we attended a Girl Scout “Badge Fest” at PEEC, to complete our EcoExplorer Badge.  We learned a lot about bats and other animals.  We learned about extinction and endangered species.   We learned that little brown bats and other species of bats are dying from white nose syndrome caused by a European fungus introduced to America in 2006 at a cave convention in New York.  Because bats live in caves and in close quarters, the disease is easily spread among them.  Scientists are trying to stop the spread and kill the fungus by using things like ultraviolet light and fungicides.  They are putting ultraviolet lights in caves to try to expose the nocturnal bats to this light to help kill the fungus on the bats.    As part of our activities, we made bat houses to promote the environment of the little brown bat.  Bat houses have to be certain colors based on the region of the country that they live in, so that the bats can stay warm enough when they live there and hibernate.  They also have to be a certain size to hold enough bats.  They must also be stained and not painted so the bats can climb up and cling to the inside of the bat house.  We made a large bat house and stained it brown so that the bats can stay warm.  We are going to take our bat house home and present it to our local elementary school, where it can be placed on a pole in the pollinator/learning garden we made in 2016.  Hopefully bats will live there and the kids can learn about them and we can increase their population.  If you would like to help promote the bat population, you can do some research and build your own bat house in your area.  You can also plant more pollinator plants so that the food sources of the bats increase.  Never try to get rid of a bat population that happens to find its way into your house.  Call a professional who is trained in how to safely remove them.”  – Girl Scout Troops 50846 and 51408, Newfoundland, PA 

“Life in the Bat Cave: This is a bat box. Have you ever seen one? Do you know what it is used for? Do you know why we built this one? Do you know why it is important to save little brown bats here in PA?

We made a visit to the Pocono Environmental Education Center to learn about different environmental issues these little brown bats face as we earned our Eco Explorer Badge. During our day there, we found out all of the answers to these questions and we are happy to share this information with you!

Have you ever seen a bat box? The bat box in this picture is 18 inches wide, 20 inches long and about 2 inches deep. Colors of bat boxes vary depending upon the region it is in. In Canada, Alaska and northern regions where it is colder, bat boxes are black to absorb the sunlight during the day to keep the bats warm. Here in Pennsylvania, bat boxes are brown so that they don’t get too warm. We used stain instead of paint so that the wood remained rough for the bats to be able to grip to. Bat boxes like these should be at least 15 feet off the ground and either attached to a pole or to the side of a building.

Do you know what it is used for and why we built this one? Bats don’t have many predators but that doesn’t stop an owl from swooping and attacking the bats on a tree limb while eating their food. Bat boxes prevent this from happening. The boxes are a great place to safely eat their food. But bats don’t just use bat boxes to eat! This can be called home to up to 100 adult bats for temporary amounts of time!

Do you know why it is important to save little brown bats here in PA? For one, bats are important to biodiversity! They are nature’s bug control! We need them to eat all of those bugs that pester you when you are outside trying to enjoy nature! In one year alone, a bat can eat ONE TON of mosquitoes! These bug eaters are in the top 4 type of bats that are being infected by the white nose syndrome. This is a fungal infection that increases the bat’s body temperature during hibernation. As the bat’s body temperature rises, they wake up and end up dying of starvation because they have no bugs to eat in the winter.

Our one bat box is only going to make a change in the world for these bats, but with your help, saving the bats can become a movement! Bat box building plans are out there on the internet if you would like to make one, two or as many as you want! If you have bats in your home, please have a professional relocate them to a new place. Boarding up their entry hole after the leave at dusk could only trap their babies inside; leaving them alone and hungry. If you feel like exploring a cave, be sure not to disturb them! If you research them, you will find that there are a lot of misconceptions that are just not true; they don’t have rabies, purposely fly in hair, or want to suck your blood.” – Girl Scout Senior Troop 30003/30136

We would like to say thank you to all our Girl Scouts who came out to enjoy a beautiful fall day and we hope to see you again!