Wild Bird Society of Japan developed an e-teaching kit “Barn Swallows Observation Guide -for school teachers and education leaders”. Barn Swallow is a good indicator of environmental quality, and this book suggests a swallow observation activity for primary school children and provides simple swallow survey methods to help young children learn how to observe nature in their environment.
You can download all the materials from the following link.
English
（PDF 6.81MB）
Simple Chinese
（PDF 2.5MB）
Traditional Chinese
（PDF 2.56MB）
We can also provide a print edition (hard copy)of English version free of charge. If you find this book useful, please contact us and also let us know how many copies you need:
Wild Bird Society of Japan E-mail: [email protected]
*This project is supported by the Toyota Environmental Activities Grant Programme, Toyota Motor Corporation.
Photo by David Wu
Barn Swallow is one of the most familiar birds which has a close association with people for a long time. Barn Swallows can be seen almost all over the world, everyone even young children can identify our tiny neighbours.
According to several survey records, Barn Swallows tend to decline in some countries including Japan. One of the likely reasons seems to be the change of land use and farming practice. The use of pesticides may reduce the numbers of flying insects and make Barn Swallows’ feeding habitat poorer. The other potential reason could be the change of the building materials and style could cause to reduce the number of nest sites.
This book contains general information about swallows, follow-up activities, and useful resources in order to introduce swallow observation activities into the school curriculum.
We hope that this book will help you to take part in Barn Swallow observation with schools and that this will spawn an interest in conservation work and benefit birds and nature around the globe.
*The survey methods in this book is based on Asian Swallows and Swallows’ breeding area in Asia.
Please feel free to arrange the work sheets and other materials depend on your region/country.
David Wu (Kuo Kuang Elementary School, Taiwan)
We watched Barn Swallow, the closest creature to people.
We recorded their nesting, mating, hatching, breeding and training the chicks flying for independence. And some of them bred again for the second time. The process has fulfilled the teachers’ as well as students’ hearts of Kuo Kuang Elementary School. We also felt touched by happy volunteers(*) of Wild Bird Society of Japan came afar for conserving the habitat of Barn Swallows which inspired us the concept of conservation has no boundary and there is only one planet.
Thank these Japanese friends’ kind sharing and instruction.
We believe its fate that connect us.
*Wild Bird Society of Japan conducted “Green Holiday in Taiwan” international conservation volunteer tour for swallows and wetland from 2014 to 2015.
Japanese and Taiwanese volunteers worked for the protection of wetland ecosystem in Gaomei Wetland and visited 2 local schools which started swallow observation with students using this guidebook. Japanese volunteers and Taiwanese students observed swallow breeding on the street -and discuss what we can do for swallows and our precious nature.
*Green Holiday Taiwan Report :PDF（PDF 1.28MB）
Wild Bird Society of Japan
Maruwa Bldg, 3-9-23 Nishi-gotanda,Shinagawa-ku
Tokyo 141-0031 Japan
Tel +81-3-5436-2633 FAX +81-3-5436-2635
E-mail: [email protected]
