The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is excited to host our 4th annual The Cornell Lab Young Birders Event, which will be held July 19 – 22 , 2012 in Ithaca, New York. The Young Birders Event aims to bring together teenagers (students who will be sophomores, juniors and seniors) with a passion for birds who are interested in pursing a career with birds. The young birders will meet people who have successful careers that involve birds in a variety of ways from ornithological researchers to tour leaders, to audio specialists and computer scientists. Young birders in high school are invited to fill out our application form and return it for review by April 1st 2012. Ten young birders will be selected and notified in mid April. Please share this information with any young birders you know! Thanks to our sponsors of the Young Birders Event: Carl Zeiss Sport Optics, Princeton University Press and Wild Birds Unlimited.
The Young Birder’s Event will feature:
- two days of field trips
- presentations by Cornell Lab of Ornithology staff including
professors, researchers, and students who will share various ways to
incorporate birds into a career - eBird and field notes workshop
- sound recording workshop
- tour of the Cornell Lab including the Macaulay Library and Museum
of Vertebrates - dinner with Cornell Lab Directors and Staff
limited to TEN students. Students are selected on the basis of their
application answers. Admission has become very competitive and we
encourage thoughtful responses to each question (limited to 250 words
per question).
Application Deadline: 1 April 2012
Tuition: $250 Travel
expenses to and from Ithaca are not covered in the tuition.
Meet Chris Wood and Jessie Barry, the primary leaders for
the event:
Chris Wood is a Project Leader for eBird and Neotropical Birds. He’s
a Colorado native who’s been birding since he figured out he couldn’t
find dinosaur fossils in his sandbox. Chris has traveled the world in
search of birds and is thrilled to be able to share some stories and
birding skills with young birders and show how to transform birding
into science.
Jessie Barry recently started in a new role at the Lab serving as
Merlin Project Leader, developing an online bird identification
tool. For the last several years, she worked as an Assistant
Curator in the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds. Her first word
was “duck” and she’s been working on a life list since age 10.
Jessie joined the lab in 2008, shortly after graduating from the
University of Washington. Along with Chris, Jessie hosts the
Lab’s birding video series called Inside
Birding.
For additional information please contact Jessie Barry: jb794@cornell.edu.