Raising Awareness of the Nocturnal Environment - What Visits the School at Night?

September, 2024
by Jake Ronecker

Dark Sky Missouri, Great Rivers Missouri Master Naturalists (Betsy Leeker, Jean Nock, Jake Ronecker, and Gerry Spitznagel), and Wohlwend Elementary School have collaborated on a pilot project to raise awareness about light pollution with a David Risberg Memorial Grant through the Conservation Federation Missouri. Our goal is to empower students with actionable knowledge that inspires and enables them to engage their community to help protect one of our most valuable and underappreciated natural resources: darkness at night. 

The students are working through a dark sky curriculum that introduces the value of the natural nighttime environment. Through the grant, we are enhancing the learning objectives and experience for the students by adding elements that include project planning, data collection and analysis, dissemination of results, along with advocacy for preserving darkness at night. In late September, we installed night vision cameras at several locations within the school’s native prairie reconstructions, pollinator habitat, and a riparian corridor leading to a rain garden. The students will no doubt be excited to discover what the cameras capture. 

Stay tuned to see what visits the school at night!