Improvements to sustainability efforts at Lane Community College could involve students searching for bird carcasses around the campus.
Let’s cut cats some slack. Turns out a significant number of dead birds can also be tracked to: windows.
“The second largest contributor to bird deaths, continental-wide at least,” says LCC Biology Instructor Colin Phifer.
For seven weeks, he's having students survey six buildings on the main campus for bird-window collision “hot spots”.
Phifer adds they’re taking it from the perspective of design.
“Buildings for example, we want more windows. Because that allows for more natural light, that actually means we can turn our lights on less, which helps us save energy, which is good for sustainability," Phifer tells KLCC.
"But we also want to look at the consequences of that. And one may be that birds have a harder time seeing that surface, seeing that window, and actually hit it.”
Phifer says besides giving his students experience with the scientific method, he hopes to also possibly work with LCC’s Art Department to design a sticker that could keep birds from smacking into windows.
Copyright 2020, KLCC.
