Certified Backyard Habitats with Benefits

The National Wildlife Federation has a great program that they have run for several years that allows you to certify your backyard as a natural habitat. We had our yard certified in what turned out to be a great homeschooling week.

In order to achieve certification, the kids must identify plants, water sources and shelter for both birds, wild animals and insects. Everything gets submitted to NWF and in a few weeks they send you a really cool certificate deeming your property a Backyard Habitat.

The kids helped identify most of the plants, we moved some plants to create shelter, put in a small pond and bird baths for water sources, and planted some new plants to feed the Butterflys and birds. It expanded into a huge lesson on different species of plants, birds, insects, frogs, salamanders, seeds, plant growth and even toxic plants.

We think we did a great job. These are some of my favorite pictures from my Certified Backyard habitat.

Here is the link to certify your yard as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat.

http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife/certify.cfm?campaignid=WH09JWLO

When you certify with your application fee of $20, you'll receive all these great benefits:
A personalized certificate that recognizes your NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat™.
A free NWF membership which includes a full year's subscription to the award-winning National Wildlife® magazine and 10% off all NWF catalog purchases.
A free subscription to the quarterly e-newsletter, Habitats, full of insightful tips and information on gardening and attracting wildlife year after year.
Your name listed in NWF's National registry of certified habitats...to recognize all you've done for wildlife.

More information can be found at www.nwf.org