Heal the World: Boy Meets Glass
Mar 19th, 2009 by Susan McLoughlin
In addition to fonts, I love birds. One of my favourite pastimes is sitting quietly in my garden listening to the busy chatter and watching the hypnotic movement of birds. While I do have a lot of glass in my home and deck, my home must be situated just right because, thankfully I do not have many bird meets glass fatalities. Sadly, according to eighth grade student Charlie Sobcov of Ottawa, Ontario in Canada this is definitely not the norm. Did you know that over 500 million birds die every year from collisions with windows! That is an unimaginable number!
Charlie thought so too so he determined to do something about it. After much research Charlie came up with a brilliant, simple and economical idea. For his latest school science fair project he has invented painted, plastic decals that can be placed — discreetly — right in the middle of a windowpane.
“This paint is a colour that birds can see but humans can’t,” he said Wednesday on CBC Radio’s All in a Day. “It’s like putting a big stop sign in the middle of the window.” Charlie has done some field-testing of this new invention and it works like a charm. Apparently the birds just veer right away from the windows that have the decals. Not a single bird lost. And the views that we humans so treasure remain unimpeded and pristine.
Don’t you love this idea! I want to buy a bunch right now and give them to all my friends. I am also completely enchanted that someone like Charlie is thinking about things like this. Charlie, you are my hero and I definitely nominate you for the SBT Seabuckthorn Heal the World badge. Thanks Charlie!
Resources:
Listen to an interview with Charlie (Real Audio, CBC.ca)
Great post -heal the world meets smell the flowers!
The world needs to know about your site and we’ll do what we can to help - your youtube clip at flowers now works - it was a page with several clips on so I picked one and posted it for you,
Cheers flower smeller,
Great work.
Hi GStF: I enjoyed reading your posts and I really appreciate you dropping by our site! Your kind words are most welcome, and thanks for fixing my link.
it is not often to see that storeis, thanks
Thank you for visiting my blog. Congratulations for yours too.
Cheers.
That’s pretty amazing there are colors birds can see that we can’t?? I love this story!
let’s start to understand over the words..
@irichc: Thanks a lot for dropping by my blog. You definitely write English better than I write Spanish!
@Jamaica: I know, it’s a really cool story. Unfortunately, until birds get credit cards or start voting, companies like 3M and Corning won’t be lining up to help them - it takes a kid to make their lives better!
Really interesting blog! I’m glad I followed you over from BlogCatalog! I’m sure I” be a regular visitor now!
Hi Lucia: Thank you very much for visiting, it’s really nice of you to drop by and read/comment. I love BC, there are lots of interested readers there.