Over the last summer, East Junior High underwent a large renovation to become Boise’s very first bird-safe school. East’s close proximity to the ecologically diverse Boise foothills causes over at least 420 birds to irreversibly injure themselves or die each year from colliding with the building’s windows, posing a significant threat to local bird biodiversity. Now, every first floor window on campus is covered in small white adhesive dots that break up window reflections, reducing bird-window collisions by 95%. I had the amazing opportunity to lead this project, Project Skyward, in tandem with local nonprofit Golden Eagle Audubon Society (GEAS) and two students at Boise High School, Scarlet Fields (Jr.) and Akshara Nataraj (So.). Project Skyward at East not only sets a precedent for future bird conservation projects in schools, but also empowers us to share our unique perspectives as young activists in climate action.
In April of this year, Nataraj, Fields, and I applied for and received $5,000 from the City of Boise’s Youth Climate Action Fund, a grant incentivizing youth to lead their own climate action projects in Boise. Over the past few months, we collaborated with GEAS to measure windows, collect bird collision data, and implement the adhesive dot film on school windo
Windows at East Junior High are covered with small white adhesive dots to protect birds from hitting them.
ws in early September. In this feature, Fields and Nataraj share their experiences as two of the leaders of our project and discuss what they hope to accomplish in the future.
Especially as high school students with busy schedules, effective climate action requires a lot of commitment. Although the process went smoothly most of the time, we found difficulty in recruiting a large, reliable group of volunteers to help us install the window dots at East. “People obviously have many other things in their lives and schedules, which makes it difficult to collectively set time aside and get things done,” Fields noted. In future projects, she hopes to improve advertising efforts to get people excited about the cause.
Despite these initial struggles, being able to connect with countless GEAS and Boise School District representatives regarding our project has been immensely rewarding. “I hope Project Skyward can demonstrate that [while it] can be incredibly intimidating to ‘solve the climate crisis’… even seemingly small-range community action is so important,” Fields remarked. Nataraj also aspires to encourage other students to pursue their own sustainability initiatives, whether big or small.
Overall, we hope our project not only shows that while young activists have the power to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, it also takes strong collaboration and hard work to put that power to use. As climate change continues to worsen, it is crucial for today’s youth to still have hope for the future and take action immediately as stewards of the earth. As Fields puts it, “[Youth] have the ingenuity, technological means, and exigence to get involved… it’s just a matter of taking agency over your impact.”
