Resources for Educators

Champaign County Audubon Society offers opportunities for learning and development to local students and educators in all settings.

Since 2006, we have distributed over $20,000 in mini-grants to local educators for various projects in classrooms and schools across Champaign County. These funds are generated by membership dollars and donations from people like you! Mini-grants have supported a wide variety conservation-themed projects, including native plant and pollinator gardens, field trips, birding and science lessons, and more!

We also partnered with local organizations including the Urbana Park District and Champaign County Forest Preserve District to bring at-home adventure kits to nearly 1,000 local 4th grade students under stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to our birding community, we were able to raise almost $2,000 to bring these kits to local students. 

Current Resources

  • Our Mini-Grants provide support to Champaign County educators who want to bring environmental education to their students.

  • Audubon Adventures is an educational kit for classrooms 3rd grade and up, developed by the National Audubon Society. CCAS sponsors a limited number of these kits each fall for Champaign County teachers. 

    Teachers can request a FREE Audubon Adventures kit by emailing the CCAS Education Chair at mail@champaigncountyaudubon.org. Please include: teacher name(s), school name and address, email addresses, and grade(s) taught. The kit includes both printed student resources and online content for three standalone learning units:

    • Sharing Our Shores

    • Seabirds: Feathered Ocean Mariners

    • Raptors! The Birds of Prey

    The kit also includes:

    • 32 copies of each of classroom magazine sets: Get to Know Birds, Hooray for Hummingbirds! and Birds Need Plants, Plants Need Birds

    • Access to the digital teaching units on the three themes, plus ten other teaching modules

    • Opportunities to participate in service learning and community science projects, such as the Great Backyard Bird Count

    • Classroom participation certificates

    • Parent and Teacher Guides

  • Our conservation partner Champaign County Forest Preserve District at Homer Lake Interpretive Center offers a range of Loan Kits available to educators in our region. Enhance your lessons about bird adaptations by exploring the types of beaks, eggs, and feet that help birds survive!

    This kit includes replicas of bird skulls, eggs and tracks, as well as hands-on activities, and is appropriate for grades K-12. See all that is offered on the CCFPD website.

Want to sponsor an education project in our county?

Generous donations from our members to our Community-Supported Fund for Research, Education, and Conservation allow CCAS to support environmental education in local classrooms each year. A donation of $50 covers one Audubon Adventures kit. A donation of $500 covers one Mini-Grant for Educators.

If you would like to contribute to our environmental education work, you can donate online or send a check made out to CCAS to PO Box 882, Urbana, IL 61803-0882. On the memo line, please write “CCAS Community-Supported Fund.”