While virtually every activity of the Robert Cooper Audubon Society has an underlying educational goal, some of our most important educational programs are aimed at children, youth, and university students. If you have an idea for an educational activity for our chapter, contact Abby Shaw, Education Chair, at abigail.shaw@bsu.edu.
Fox Student Grant – 2025 recipient
The recipient of this year’s Fox Graduate Student Grant is Sara Isgate!
Sara is working toward a Ph.D. in the Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior graduate program in Indiana University’s Department of Biology. She has developed original behavioral assays to measure cognition in free‑living birds and quantify how birds adapt to obstacles in their environment. She will use the results to better understand how global warming and heatwaves influence cognitive performance in Tree Swallows.
About the Fox Student Grant: Early each year, graduate students who are conducting bird-centered research on species native to Indiana, including migratory species that breed in Indiana, are invited to apply for the Fox Student Grant. The grant, made possible through the generosity of RCAS members Josie and Geoff Fox, awards up to $1,500 for the purchase of supplies and/or support for travel and field research expenses.
Applicants must be graduate degree-seeking students from an accredited university or college. The research proposal must focus on bird species native to Indiana, including migratory species that breed in Indiana. Proposals for the study of habitat critical to the breeding and wintering grounds of said species will also be considered.
Past recipients (and the year they received the grant) are Clay Delancey (M.S., Ball State University, 2016), Garrett MacDonald (M.S., Ball State University, 2017), Mary Woodruff (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2019), Lara Jones (M.S. Ball State University, 2021), Ryan Leys (M.Sc., University of Waterloo, Canada, 2021), Tabitha Olsen (M.Sc., University of Central Oklahoma, 2022), Julian Grudens (M.S., Ball State University, 2023), Brit Nahorney (M.S., Ball State University, 2023), Kaitlyn E. Young (M.Sc., Purdue University, 2024), and Victoria Moreira (M.Sc., West Chester University, 2024).
RCAS Youth Conservation Scholarship
Each year, the winner of our chapter’s Charles Wise Youth Conservation Award receives a Robert Cooper Audubon Society Conservation Scholarship.
The scholarship may be used by the winners to fund an ecology project that they have designed or want to participate in.
Audubon Adventures
Local teachers of 3rd through 5th grades are invited to request Audubon Adventures kits. Each kit serves a classroom of up to 32 children and contains four nature- or conservation-related themes for each academic year.
If you are an educator or you know an educator who would like to use Audubon Adventures in a classroom, or if you’d like to sponsor Audubon Adventures for a classroom, please please contact Education Chair, Abby Shaw (abigail.shaw@bsu.edu).
Past Education Programs
We’ve created and hosted many programs for children in East Central Indiana, introducing them to birds, other wildlife, and their habitats, often in collaboration with other local organizations.
Our Nature Play Days and our involvement with Nature Preschool Summer Camp helped dozens of preschool children learn about common bird species.
Our birding class and hike during Camp Prairie Creek—a free environmental day camp for youth, sponsored by Muncie Sanitary District/Stormwater Management—introduced 80 campers to local birds, habitat, and birdwatching.
We’ve brought in special speakers like Dr. Tom Sproat, a wildlife biologist from Kentucky, who let kids and their parents get a close-up look at live owls and hawks. Perhaps most important, in 2015, in collaboration with the Whitely Neighborhood Association, we launched our About Birds program. We distributed copies of Cathryn Sill’s book About Birds and binoculars to after-school programs in Muncie. Since then, we’ve continued to host periodic About Birds activities for kids at Cooper Farm and other locations.
Robert Cooper Audubon Society 