Resources for Teachers
Since 1999, NWTF local and state chapters have educated more than 2 million school children about conservation and wild turkeys by providing Wild About Turkey Education Boxes to public schools.

Inside of Wild About Turkey Education Boxes, which are real turkey transport boxes, are lesson plans for all aged students, a video on the history and management of wild turkeys; a CD-ROM with games and puzzles, a wild turkey identification poster and a bulletin board kit.

Wild About Turkey Education Boxes
can be requested through local NWTF chapters or purchased through the NWTF’s Turkey Shoppe.

Teachers can also purchase copies of the JAKES (Junior Acquiring Knowledge, Ethics and Sportsmanship) Activity Book, which is filled with games, puzzles and information about wild turkeys.

Other resources are available on NWTF’s JAKES Web site. Teachers can learn how hunting and conservation works while getting ideas for lessons or downloading turkey sounds, puzzles or the NWTF’s Wild Turkey Quiz.

Turkey For Teachers and Students: NWTF Resources Provide Conservation Education
The comeback of the wild turkey is one of the greatest conservation success stories of all time, but multitudes of school children have no idea how turkeys fought back from near extinction to almost 7 million birds in North America today.

The five different wild turkey subspecies found throughout this country were at an all time low, about 30,000, at the turn of the century. Wild turkeys had completed disappeared from 18 states in the east as well as Ontario. Today, through help from hunters and wildlife agencies, turkeys are located in every state except Alaska, as well as Canada and Mexico.

Education is key to teaching today’s youth about America’s great conservation history, but teachers need resources to make lessons entertaining and educational.

“Youth today are bombarded with information from many sources,” said Christine Rolka, National Wild Turkey Federation education coordinator. “To keep their attention, we have to present education through today’s technology in fun and exciting ways.”

The NWTF uses multi-media technology, in addition to more traditional resources, to offer teachers the tools needed to demonstrate conservation in the classroom.

In fact, the NWTF has reached millions of schoolchildren through its education programs, magazines and Web site. All have resources available to help teachers produce conservation themed lessons so youth can have fun while learning.

Turkey Talking

Wild turkeys use a variety of vocal sounds to communicate to their flocks. Learning those sounds provides students with a better understanding of how and why turkeys talk.

To make a simple turkey call students need:
• Empty film canister
• Coffee stirrer or cocktail straw
• Pencil (sharpened)

Directions:

  1. Remove top of the film canister.
  2. Use the pencil to punch a hole in the bottom of the film canister just big enough for the straw to be inserted.
  3. Place the straw in the hole.
  4. While cupping hands around the film canister, use a sucking motion on the straw to make turkey sounds.
  5. Adjust hands around the film canister to play with different sounds.

Credit: NWTF
Click image to download

Fun for Students

There are games and activities on the JAKES/Xtreme JAKES Web sites designed to entertain kids of all ages including crossword puzzles, a turkey shoot game, contests and even a link for the NWTF’s Scholarship program.

Since the NWTF began providing scholarships in 1999 to college-bound students, more than $2 million has been contributed at the local, state and national levels.

Seniors may apply for local NWTF scholarships with winners becoming eligible for state scholarships. State winners compete for the NWTF’s $10,000 national scholarship. Every year, almost $400,000 is available to students from the NWTF.

Also available to college students is a special $10 NWTF membership. Through the discounted membership, students may choose to receive the NWTF’s Turkey Call, Women in the Outdoors or Wheelin’ Sportsmen magazines.

“Our goal is to educate all students, from kindergarten through college, about how conservation has worked and continues to work,” Rolka said.