About the Junior Duck Stamp Conservation and Design Program

The purpose of the Junior Duck Stamp Conservation and Design Program (Junior Duck Stamp) is to "teach conservation through the arts." The Junior Duck Stamp Program provides students with a broad exposure to migratory waterfowl and other migratory birds; includes lessons to help increase students' knowledge and appreciation of migratory birds and; provides activities geared to motivating students to take on active roles in conserving these species.

Initiated in 1989, the original Junior Duck Stamp education curriculum focused exclusively on waterfowl and the popular Junior Duck Stamp Art Contest provided an opportunity for students in grades K-12 to participate in a nationwide waterfowl arts competition. While the format of the Junior Duck Stamp Art Contest remains the same, the Junior Duck Stamp educational curriculum has been expanded to provide an orientation on all migratory birds, including waterfowl, songbirds, shorebirds, and raptors. However, the emphasis of the curriculum remains on migratory waterfowl, to support students' participation in the Junior Duck Stamp Art Contest.

An Art-based Education Program

The Junior Duck stamp curriculum retains the original focus on an arts-based educational program. Many of the curriculum's exercises in observation encourage students to interpret the natural world through artistic expression. This focus is based on the theory that students will be more inclined to conserve and protect what they love. An emphasis on "nature journals" provides students with opportunities to sharpen observation skills and to record these observations on a continual basis. The Waterfowl Journal Project provides students with an intense experience in the observation and study of one waterfowl species.

Many other activities contained in the Junior Duck Stamp curriculum provide students with opportunities to learn about migratory birds; the mysteries of migration; requirements for adequate habitat along with the ways they can help conserve these species in their own back yards, school yards, and neighborhoods. By providing a basis for participation in the Junior Duck Stamp Art Contest, the curriculum encourages students to move beyond simply "learning about" wildlife and wildlife art to testing their abilities as wildlife artists. Arts-education objectives and methods for evaluation, are provided for each activity to help teachers identify which activities will satisfy arts-education requirements. Students demonstrate their learning through the range of visual, dance, musical, dramatic, and language arts.

Linking the Arts and Sciences

The updated Junior Duck Stamp curriculum incorporates a strong base in science education. Education about waterfowl and other migratory birds provides an overall theme with which to teach environmental science concepts important to the mission of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service including biodiversity protection, ecosystem management, species recovery, and international wildlife conservation. The lessons also include opportunities for students to improve their science and art process skills, including observation, data gathering and interpretation, creative and critical thinking, problem solving, and artistic expression. The integration of science and conservation concepts with these important process skills provides the basis for fostering artistic and environmental literacy. As such, the Junior Duck Stamp curriculum truly links the arts and sciences in order to provide students with the knowledge and skills required for an active environmental citizenry.

Multiple Intelligence

By offering opportunities to learn about migratory birds and conservation through all of the art sub-disciplines - visual, dance, dramatic, musical, and language arts - the junior Duck Stamp curriculum supports the current "multiple intelligence" theory of education. The multiple intelligence, or "whole brain" learning theory, supports the left brain/right brain model for learning in which the creative, intuitive, holistic, visual, and playful right brain is engaged with the logical, systematic, linear, verbal, and judgmental left brain. Multiple intelligence theory encourages practitioners to develop activities that engage all of the senses in order to stimulate each of following seven areas.

1. Verbal and linguistic - dealing with words and language, both written and spoken.
2. Logical and mathematical - dealing with inductive and deductive thinking, numbers, abstract patterns and the ability to reason.
3. Musical - dealing with the ability to recognize tonal patterns, pitch, melody, rhythms, and tone.
4. Kinesthetic - dealing with the ability to use the body skillfully and to handle objects adroitly.
5. Visual and spacial - dealing with the sense of sight and ability to visualize including creating mental images, thinking visually, and having a keen sense of observation.
6. Interpersonal - dealing with a person's ability to understand work, and communicate with people and maintain relationships.
7. Intra personal - dealing with self knowledge, sensitivity to one's own values, purpose, feelings.

As you review the contents of the curriculum, you will note that specific activities target each of the seven skill areas. As you plan your Junior duck Stamp unit, we encourage you to identify a range of activities that addresses each skill area.

Field guides appropriate for your region of the country.
Audiotapes of waterfowl calls and bird songs common to your area.
Prints, books, journals, or magazines of famous works of bird and wildlife art.
Prints, posters, books, journals, and magazines containing photographs of birds.
Single species bird slides.
Videos on bird migration.
Bird mounts and study skins.
Binoculars.

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