Events and Education  

Eastern Sierra Audubon Society Monthly Bird Walk and Census

The Eastern Sierra Audubon Society hosts bird walks along the COSA on the second Saturday of each month, unless otherwise listed on the ESAS website. These events are an exciting way to become more familiar with native birds, help improve the COSA comprehensive list of bird species, and meet community members who share a love of the outdoors!

If interested, please meet at 7:30am in June-September, or 8:30am during October-May at the BLM/Forest Service Building on West Line Street in Bishop.

Bishop Indian Head Start Field Trips

The Bishop Indian Head Start preschool utilizes the COSA for field trips including seed planting, observing water bugs, and visiting the Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center’s COSA Corner. These trips are intended to spark a curiosity and fondness of nature from a young age. Please contact Head Start Director Susie Cisneros if you are interested in volunteering with the Head Start program.

Tuniwa Nobi Field Trips

The Tuniwa Nobi Family Literacy Program is an “American Indian organization that aims to improve quality of life by focusing on education and self-sufficiency while protecting, preserving and promoting culture in the spirit of positive nation building for Native people of today and generations of tomorrow.” To help achieve this goal, Tuniwa Nobi has recently initiated field trips to the COSA for participants in their after school program. These field trips have included activities such as macroinvertebrate investigations, nature scavenger hunts, native species planting, and blackberry picking behind the Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center.

Taking Root Program

“If we surrendered to the Earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted, like trees…The future of education is in the outdoors.”

–Rainer Maria Rilke

Taking Root is an outdoor education program that has taken place in partnership with Bishop Elementary School’s third grade classes. Each monthly lesson in the COSA is intended to foster a sense of connection to the local landscape and ecology and promote skills of sensory observation, curiosity, and questioning. Lesson themes include bees, nature journaling, animal tracks and signs, and more. Students learn that nature is fun, safe, and deserves respect! The AmeriCorps COSA position with the Bishop Tribe EMO has supported this effort since its inception.

Taking Root field trips are led by paid docents. For current status of Taking Root, contact Inyo County Office of Education's Outdoor Education and Science Specialist at 760-873-3262.

Birds in the Classroom

Birds in the Classroom field trips offer third graders at Bishop Elementary School the exciting opportunity to learn about birds of the Owens Valley from passionate Audubon Society and Taking Root volunteers. Prior to the field trips, volunteers present slides and a video about birds and their adaptations and migrations, and students have an opportunity to discuss, share their own experiences, and ask questions. The class field trips to the COSA are scheduled during spring migration for maximum viewing of birds. Audubon provides child-sized binoculars and training in their proper usage. Students will also have the opportunity to learn about and use birding field guides. If interested in volunteering, contact Eastern Sierra Audubon Society.