THURSDAY, October 1, 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET  and 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET

Fall Arrives on Little Bat Wings… As our mornings grow chilly and the leaves start to change, our thoughts turn to fall celebrations and getting ready for winter. AND it’s also the time we start to get excited about BatWeek!  Whether you love bats, or they give you the willies, bats are essential to healthy ecosystems across the globe, and they are important in our lives. They eat millions of tons of crop and forest pests each year and they pollinate some of our favorite foods. Yet, many people misunderstand and fear bats. And many of the more than 1,300 species of bats are imperiled due to habitat loss, wide-spread pesticide use, hunting and poaching, and invasive disease. Bats need our help – and everyone can do a little!

That’s where BatWeek comes in.  Planned and carried out by a diverse group of NGOs, academic institutions and land management agencies, BatWeek (October 24 – 31) is an annual celebration of the value of bats in our lives and the conservation challenges they face.  The BatWeek coalition has an amazing array of educational resources, background information, social media resources and ideas to help you become a bat champion, and engage and educate others. 

Join us for this lively webinar where you’ll learn a little about bats (and get support for a deeper dive!), a little about how to effectively design and implement a bat education event or presentation, and a lot about the diverse, free resources that you can access and use for BatWeek. This webinar will be presented twice on October 1 – the first at 1:00 p.m. ET for non-formal educators and enthusiasts, and again at 7:00 p.m. ET to reach families and formal educators. The connect info is the same for both webinars.

About the presenters:

Brian Heeringa is the acting Assistant Wildlife Program Leader in the Washington Office, and the District Biologist for the Washburn Ranger District of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.  Brian is a passionate bat biologist and educator, and will share an overview of all that makes bats fascinating, awe-inspiring, valuable – and imperiled.  

Erik Proctor is the Wildlife Education Coordinator for Arizona Game and Fish.  Erik brings his deep non-formal and formal classroom experience to the webinar, and will share tips and tricks to help you plan and carry out an effective bat education lesson, activity or event.

Cindy Sandeno is the District Ranger, Marlinton Ranger District on the Monongahela National Forest .  Cindy has been a bat champion throughout her Forest Service career, serving as the national program leader for the Cave and Karst program, before moving to her current line leadership position. She’s the catalyst behind Project EduBat, Bat Squad – and has played a guiding role in BatWeek since its beginnings. Cindy will walk us through the diverse bat education resources available.