The eggs of the piping plover, a small, sand-colored shorebird that makes its shallow nest along the coastline, face an array of danger in places like Sunken Meadow State Park: Unleashed pets, people trampling them and predators swooping in for food. A group of Long Island fourth graders wants to tell you what you can do about the problem. Students at Drexel Avenue Elementary School in Westbury recently crafted posters educating beach visitors about how to help protect shorebirds like the piping plover — an endangered species in New York.
The artwork is part of a program Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center in Oyster Bay hosts annually. Posters that 11 students from the Westbury school created were made into signs that were installed in two areas at Sunken Meadow State Park. The signs share three main messages with passersby: Stay out of string-fenced areas where shorebirds lay eggs, keep dogs off beaches and clean up trash that attracts predators to the eggs.
Erica Albert, the center's coastal outreach technician, said Landing Elementary School and Connolly Elementary School, both in Glen Cove, and James H. Vernon School in East Norwich also took part in the curriculum that culminates with the facility selecting a handful of handmade posters for public display. Besides Sunken Meadow, signs from the program also are located at West Meadow Beach in Stony Brook and Centre Island and Stehli beaches in Bayville, according to Albert.
Students from Drexel Avenue Elemen.
