By Clare S. Richie

What better way to make learning fun and get ready for Halloween than Bat Week! Bat education was infused into every aspect of learning at the Orion School for one week in September. Students created bat puppets and masks. The older ones wrote and illustrated their own bat stories. Meanwhile, the younger students learned through song. This made quite an impression on Operations Manager Christina Warburton’s son Jax. “My son ran around our house after school singing echo-location, echo-location, echo-locatiooooooon!”

All of the classes went batty. Science class focused on the importance of bats to our ecosystem. Students used Spanish adjectives to describe these mysterious nocturnal creatures.

The week culminated into Bat Dress-up day on Friday. Local bat expert – Vicki Smith – who responded to the July Intown Atlanta article about the Orion School’s outdoor classroom arranged for a hands-on bat presentation conducted by Norma Lewis. Students dressed up in their bat gear were eager to touch bat skeletons and specimens. They even observed a live fruit bat.

All of the excitement over bats did not end that Friday. The Orion School students can continue their bat learning now that their outdoor classroom boasts – what else – a bat house!