UMass Amherst Libraries Announce Publication of Open-Access Peregrine Falcon Curriculum
The University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries are pleased to announce the publication of The UMass Amherst Libraries Falcon Curriculum: An Open, Common Core PreK-12 Curriculum on Peregrine Falcons, by Lauren Weiss, Associate Editor, Digital Content, UMass Amherst Libraries, and Margaret Krone ’12MS, ’25PhD (College of Education). It is the first open access textbook developed and published fully by the Libraries.
The curriculum is an open educational resource (OER), meaning that it is freely available to anyone, anywhere, to use and adapt. The lesson plans are mapped to the Common Core, a set of educational standards for teaching and testing between pre-kindergarten and 12th grade, which allows teachers to incorporate them into their curricula more easily.
The impetus for the curriculum was the longstanding connection UMass Amherst has with peregrine falcons. Through a collaboration with The Peregrine Fund, five chicks were hacked (raised and released with minimal human contact) on campus in 1988 as part of the nationwide peregrine population restoration efforts. Additionally, for over two decades, peregrine falcons have nested atop the W. E. B. Du Bois Library at UMass Amherst, and are carefully monitored by the Libraries’ Falcon Team, which works closely with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
In 2021, several local elementary school teachers connected with Weiss and the rest of the Falcon Team on social media; they were using the Libraries’ falcon cam livestream in their classrooms, and their students had many questions about the birds. The team decided that this was an excellent opportunity to develop open-source teaching tools to complement the livestream. With generous support from Nandita S. Mani, PhD, Dean of University Libraries at UMass Amherst, the project took flight: Krone was recruited to map the Common Core standards, and Weiss served as researcher and lesson plan developer.
The Libraries, and UMass Amherst as a whole, adhere to principles of open access and support the creation of OERs; the Libraries maintain an online open access institutional repository, as well as partner with the Provost’s Office, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), and the Instructional Design, Engagement, & Support (IDEAS) group to award annual Open Education Initiative Grants to UMass Amherst instructors to adopt, adapt, and develop OER materials.