Cougar Tales

Education Initiatives & Opportunities

COUGAR TALES

Cougar Tales seeks to affirm local students' connections to their surrounding environment, increase understanding of the critical role that cougars play in the Greater Ecosystem and allow the students to create an educational tool for classes to pass on to other classrooms in their own community and around the country. The project originates in one classroom, but ultimately reaches far beyond that through The Cougar Fund's outreach and education programs.

The Cougar Fund works with renowned biologist, educator and children's' book author, Ron Hirschi, to develop and implement a Big Book project in 2nd through 4th grade classrooms. Ron works to blend his writing and biology background with interactive, student- centered work to engage, educate, and empower children. Through this process he encourages students to build stronger connections to their natural surroundings while also educating them about the resources near which they live. The end product is a series of individual panels, each standing several feet tall, which are combined to create a freestanding, accordion style-book.

The Cougar Fund's goal is to improve the students' relationship to, and understanding of, the natural world around them. A completed "Big Book" is a testament to the knowledge imparted upon each school by the Cougar Tales project, and will also function as an effective teaching tool that will travel throughout schools in other areas of the country through The Cougar Fund outreach programs.

This project is an interdisciplinary approach to teaching towards state standards that also aligns with the goals of The Cougar Fund. In addition to creative writing and science lessons, this program addresses a variety of different learning styles by encouraging the students to express themselves in a range of media including visual arts, storytelling, poetry and photography.