Critter Corner: The Bats of Brooklyn!

Written by in Education and Activism, Family Fun

By Students from Lisa Pezzella’s Enrichment Class at P.S. 110 and Fran Agnone

Arlo’s drawing of a bat he included in his letter sent to Brooklyn Borough Park Commissioner asking for a bat house to be installed in McGolrick Park.

P.S. 110 makes space in the school day for students to work in small groups where they can explore various topics related to sustainability. For seven weeks this fall, third to fifth graders and teachers engaged in fun activities like creating compost and writing nature poetry.

A new topic explored this year was investigating bats! The class is led by third grade teacher and passionate bat advocate Lisa Pezzella. Lisa was recently captivated by bats when visiting her daughter’s college campus in Gainesville, Florida, where several bat houses on campus provide habitat for a notable and highly visible population that fills the local skies at dusk. 

The Eastern Red Bat, one of our NYC neighbors… he’s cute, right?!

Students learned about the bats in New York and came up with an action plan to help the local population.  After confirming with Niki Jackson from NYC Audubon that there are five species of bats that frequent NYC rooftop gardens, most notably the Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis) that visits Kingsland Wildflowers Rooftop nightly during its active season, the class decided to install a bat house near the school.

They hit a snag when they consulted with staff from Audubon New York, who warned them of installing a bat house on a fence in the school yard where a predator might be able to harm the population. Installing the house in neighboring McGolrick Park became the next best choice, attached to a tree trunk or installed on a pole.

Fleur and Lucia tap into their bat senses during an echolocation simulation game. (L) Student’s key takeaways about bats after studying them for 7 weeks. (R)

Left with a bathouse and nowhere to put it, students decided to write letters to the Brooklyn Borough Parks Commissioner Marty Maher to see if they could make this dream happen.

Here are excerpts of various student letters making a powerful case for creating more habitats for bats in the city.

Dear Marty Maher,
I am writing to ask you about putting a bat house in McGolrick Park in Greenpoint. If we have a bathouse in our park we can control the amount of mosquitos.
 –Lucia, 4th grade

Do you know that mosquitos can give people bad disease?
–Arlo, 3rd grade

Bats can eat 1,000 mosquitos per hour. If bats eat 1,000 mosquitos an hour we will not have as many bites and they are very itchy.
–Fleur, 3rd grade

About half of these species are tiger mosquitos, an invasive mosquito that carries certain diseases. Also, over 50 species of plants depends on bats.
–Leon, 4th grade

We strongly want a bat house. Our school would like to help.
–Ms. Pezzella, 3rd Grade Teacher

Time will tell if this chorus of voices can figure out how to install a bat house near their school. But in the meantime, our local bat population certainly has an impressive group of young people rooting for them. Perhaps you have a suggestion!

Please reach out to Fran Agnone agnonef@nwf.org if you would like to help these kids with their mission.  Cheers to a future with more bats and less itchy mosquito bites!

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2018 GREENPOINT ECO-SCHOOLS ARTICLES FROM GO GREEN BK:

2017 GREENPOINT ECO-SCHOOLS ARTICLES FROM GO GREEN BK:

2016 GREENPOINT ECO-SCHOOLS ARTICLES FROM GO GREEN BK: