Bridging the Americas Program

Unidos por las Aves

This program helps kids in Maryland, Washington D.C. Virginia, Latin America and the Caribbean learn about Neotropical migratory birds.

Neotropical Birds are birds that live East, South, and West of the Mexican Central Plateau. This includes countries of Central America, South America and the West Indies.

Students communicate their knowledge of birds through research.

All the kids wrote pen pal letters to students in a different country. The kids we wrote to live in a country called Nicaragua.

Each student selected one of their favorite birds and wrote reports about them. They sketched and painted their birds using watercolors with inked-in details. Select a bird from the list below to see our work!

American Robin

Barn Swallow

Bluebird

Brown Headed Cowbird1

Brown Headed Cowbird2

Neotropical birds are birds that mate in the United States and Canada but they migrate farther south to Latin America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and the West Indies. There are more than 3,000 types of Neotropicals birds living in these areas of the world.

This program was started by the Smithsonian Institution Migratory Bird Center in 1993. More than 7,000 students in 280 classrooms in the United States, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, and the British Virgin Islands have participated in this international project.

This project is important because it makes it possible for children like us who live in Maryland to exchange pictures, letters, and photos with kids who live in Nicaragua.

Credits:

All the work displayed on this web site was done by a group of 4th graders in Mr. Airozo's class and one fifth grader in Mrs. Taylor's class at Forest Knolls ES as part of an after school club.

Teacher Sponsors:

Mr. Airozo, 4th grade classroom teacher

Mrs. Michal, Communication Arts Magnet Program Coordinator

Mrs. Osmun, Media Specialist and School Webmaster