Community in Conservation
Each year, WC receives applications from organizations across Delmarva for waterfowl and habitat related projects and runs a 1-to-1 matching fund called our Community in Conservation funding program. In 2019, Waterfowl Chesapeake awarded $7500 in seed funding to two educational projects on Delmarva through this grant program.
Students learn about carving at the Ward Museum
The Ward Museum – $3,750
The Ward Museum’s project will offer classroom visits and field trips for Talbot County kindergarten students to experience the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art. While this opportunity is already successful in several other Shore counties, it will be a new program for students in Talbot County. The curriculum supports Maryland State Department of Education’s Environmental Literacy Standards and meets the Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) requirement for kindergarteners.
University of Delaware – $3,750
UD’s field program “Promoting Waterfowl Hunter Education for New Adult Students” better connects today’s graduate students with tomorrow’s careers in Waterfowl Ecology. Today, many graduate students studying in this field the have never had the actual experience of hunting. These young adults are likely to become the future leaders in environmental resource management, with positions in academia, state agencies or federal service. How can they communicate with the hunters and landowners if they have never had the experienced the sport? Through this program, students are given the opportunity to gain their hunter education certification (via course material and gun safety training) as well as learn and discuss waterfowl identification, waterfowl policy, waterfowl habitat management, values structures associated with hunting, hunting dog training, and cooking wild game.