A Little Bit for Everyone

My car has returned from the shop and that meant a trip to the Whites yesterday! What a day for a hike. On the advice of others I went and hike Mt. Lafayette via the Bridle Gap Trail and Falling Water trail. Not only did I get to traverse the Franconia Ridge, summit Lafayette, but also Mt. Lincoln and Little Haystack. Phew....what a wonderful way to spend a friday. This hike has it all folks....waterfalls, dense stands of forest, waterfalls, alpine ascents, alpine meadow, knife-like ridges, saddles and summits! My first two 4,000+ footers....check...only 46 to go!

Project Time

Our first day of research has come! We had quite a nice day out in the woods, sun was shinning, birds were chirping, mozzies buzzing....couldn't ask for anything more. Here is my day in pictures...

Mountains and Valleys

Today has been a day of ups and downs for me. It has been both rewarding and a bit frustrating at the same time. Our research proposals went great. Our group is going to start tomorrow by picking our transect and start our prelim research before getting to go out with tracker Dan on Thursday!! I can't wait...it will be great to start to get some data and any reason to go tracking with Dan is a good one!

I led my reading facilitation today which I thought was sub-par. In my layout I thought it would go well but the execution was not as smooth as I had hoped. The activities felt a bit forced and I think I was a bit wishy-washy with them. This will be something I will have to work on.

It was very interesting seeing one of the students final presentations tonight. I thought her power point was excellent and it was a good experience to hear about her year and all that she had learned and where she wants to go. This got me thinking of my own pedagogy. I am struggling with my outline tonight. I am recognizing

that I usually struggle with expressing these types of things, I feel much more comfortable in the concreteness of research, facts, methods, etc. This is good for me as an educator though, to really connect with why EE is important to me and what values I want to exude and pass on through my lessons. I have been running circles in my mind all night and am going to take a break before tackling it again.

I know this whole year will push me and I am excited about feeling a bit uncomfortable with some of the things to come. Sounds funny but its true. I am excited to push myself and really connect with more of my values when it comes to EE.

Monday Night Contemplations

Today was packed full of reflective thinking. In the morning our group had a few different reading facilitations. I particularly enjoyed the facilitation on Wessels chapter and looking at history through a different lens. Picking a character from the chapter and putting ourselves in their shoes created some very interesting letters and stories.

Something today that I have been musing about, the concept of living in every moment. Sounds like an easy task. To live in the moment, to live more simply and simplify everyday life by taking the time to enjoy every moment. Eleanor brought up this topic with regards to food. Really enjoying every bite, savoring not only the flavor but all the things that went into making that food, to get it to this point. The sunlight needed to grow it, the soil, the bugs, the time and effort. Really savor it, something that can be extrapolated to every moment in the day. I often have trouble with this and find myself thinking so far ahead that the current moment escapes me. This is something I want to try to achieve, little by little, enjoying those everyday moments that many take for granted or disregard.

On a more tangible note, we picked our project topics and groups today! It is nice to finally be moving ahead with the projects, we have talked about them a bit for the past week and before today they just seemed like this foreign abstraction floating around in the ether. Now the project is in the beginning stages of becoming a reality! My group is going to focus on the stone walls in BHW. We are going to look at these walls as their own ecosystems in a way, a niche among the forest. Our goal is to examine sections of wall and the species diversity that occurs on them and whether that may change when the walls go into different habitat types. I am really excited about this project because it incorporates not only wildlife and plant life but also the human factor and history. These walls built hundreds of years ago for specific purposes may now serve as homes for a variety of plant and animal life, what those are we will hopefully determine.

I came home and after finishing up my facilitation plan and reading reflection I started skimming through a book called Stone By Stone by Robert Thorson. It is a book dedicated to the study of stone walls in New England. I came across this neat illustration showing why these walls are built right around thigh height. I always assumed that this was the minimum height needed in order to keep sheep or other grazers in. This may well be the case but it turns out it is also because that is the maximum strength point for human male to lift objects. Fascinating! Just wanted to share these thoughts, tomorrow we are diving head first into our projects!

Holes in Trees...and other adventures

Our final day of the third week. What a week it has been. Having a three day weekend was a nice break, a time to go play in the woods and really think about what we have been doing in this summer institute.

Thursday we had our first reading facilitat

ion. I really love hearing what other people thought of the various readings and to hear different view points always opens my mind to new ideas and possibilities. Our discussion on economy vs. environment was especially striking. We had the chance to calculate our own eco-footprints, an eye opening experience for me. Most of us are conscious about the effects we have on the environment but being able to put all of those into practice can be a difficult thing to do. The old adage, practice what you preach, becomes extremely important in the field of environmental education. This is something I really want to work on as an individual, the ideas and concepts are in my head and I know what needs to happen to reduce my carbon footprint, but that does not always become a reality. Leah was the first student to facilitate a reading and did a fantastic job! I am excited to see what various activities and games people come up and have them as a resource to use in my future teaching endeavors.

Out to the woods!! After lunch we got to go back to the mozzie infested Barrington Headwaters. We broke up into two groups and practiced various techniques that may be helpful to us when undergoing our research. Tree coring was a blast. I had seen people carrying around those funny orange tubes in the past but never quite knew what they were or how to use them...now I know. We got our workout coring various trees in the woods and it is amazing to see the rings and really get an insight into that trees life history. Its like reading a journal that the tree has kept and making connections. One theme that I see in this class, both in the practical side and readings, is that of puzzles. The forest and the natural world gives you clues to figure out its history and what events have taken place, but it is up to us, the detectives, armed with knowledge, to put the pieces together.

Wetland delineation and GPS work was next. I really loved the wetland delineation project we worked on with Lara. We made a circular plot and then recorded various species in three strata and looked up their status, whether upland or wetland, to determine if the area is truly classified as a wetland. I love learning new trees and shrubs and plants. It is a touch difficult not being from the area and sometimes I feel that is a disadvantage. At the same time, it is that much more exciting learning all the new species. My favorite from Thursday was witch-hazel (Hamamelias virginiana). This shrub is interesting in that the growing pattern of the leaf is asymmetrical and the bark and leaves can be used as an astringent.

On to research projects. We brainstormed various ideas and began discussing them as a group. This project is a bit overwhelming when considering the short time frame we have. People came up with some really neat ideas and I think it is going to be hard to pick just a few to really focus on and narrow down to a sizable project. Doing this project will help me really connect with this area and help me with my burgeoning sense of place. This class is one that i get

excited to attend, everyday I feel like I am learning so much and am excited about working on the project and getting my pedagogy done. I have never spelled out before what my own values, ethics and beliefs are when it comes to teaching. I have always just gone out and done it. It will be nice to have something to look back on and see whether I am really teaching what I believe in.

Monday has come and its time for another intense, yet fun, week of environmental education. That's what environmental education should be...fun!

Poking around with Tracker Dan

Another soggy morning greeted the brave MAEE students when we met out at the Barrington Headwaters. I had been looking forward to today, it was our morning with Dan the tracker. Going out into the headwaters for the second time was a different experience. I found myself focusing on the tree composition and not looking for signs of wildlife at all. I was curious to see what kinds of sign we were going to see and think I had underestimate the biodiversity of the region in my head.

Our morning got underway and the first stop was at a tree with a pile of saw dust like material at the bottom. Dan explained to us that this was from carpenter ants living in the tree and excavating little tunnels throughout. Also in the tree were holes carved by pileated woodpeckers searching for an afternoon snack. It is quite amazing how so many organisms can interact in one spot. One of my favorite parts of the mornings walk was hearing Dan's bird calls, they were amazing. I have been interested in ornithology for a while but have never been good with calls in the field, something I wish to improve on. Like the red-eyed vireo we heard singing 'here i am, here i am, look at me, look at me' or the oven bird saying 'teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher!!' while hovering overhead.

Due to the soggy weather and marsh-like conditions spotting tracks was a bit difficult. But we persisted and found some moose tracks down a game trail. It was great how you could follow where the moose was traveling by not only the tracks but by looking at the browse line. I wonder what the moose population is like here, being at the southern part of the range. The glorious black gum tree was also amazing. A true giant of the forest, this black gum was home to a porcupine burrow. I love porcupines and think they are fascinating critters. The first time I saw one was in Alaska, scampering up a tree, and I had no idea that they were such good climbers! It would be very interesting to study that black gum tree and the porcupine borrow and see how many are actually using it. Where are their main feeding sites? When do they go feed? What are they mainly feeding on?

The slug trails in the downed birch tree was something I had never seen before. As the slugs slimed their way across they ate the birch and made these fascinating little road almost. If someone would not have pointed it out, I would never have known. There are so many things to see that hide beneath the surface of a forest!

A brief lunch break at Eleanor's house and it was off to Warren Farms to meet Randy. What a character and a wealth of information. I found myself not taking notes because I was so interested in what he was saying. His discussion on the organic label was fascinating. Most of us think that if something is labeled organic then it is environmentally friendly, good to buy, etc. Randy had some interesting points about local farmers and how they choose to raise their crops makes more of a difference and impact than the organic label itself. Very cool!

Saturated Scavenger Hunt

The first trip to the Barrington Headwaters or Tamposiland happened yesterday. It is a strange sensation going into a place for the very first time knowing that you will eventually come to know the woods more intimately by performing a research project. That will be the future, this is the now.

Walking the old logging road that has been there since the early 18th century I was struck by the discontinuity of trees on the north and south side. Small hemlocks like toothpicks stuck out on one side while southern edge was covered in much older trees such as oak, pine and maple. With blueberry bushes coating the ground I thought of possible disturbances of the area...my mind jumped to fire. Eleanor made a good point today of not jumping to conclusions to but to think of all possible story lines that could have taken place. I found my self thinking about what this forest was like 200 years ago as I am ambled down the path.

The feature of the landscape that struck me most were the stone walls lining the logging road. Giant stones placed by the roadside, what arduous work that must have been to construct these walls. Who made them? Why were they there? How many settlers inahabited the area and called it home? The foundations were striking. Two foundations sat side by side, one falling apart with loose, rough stones constructing the walls. The other, well stabalized, with flat rocks on top and straight lines, striations in the rocks leading us to believe those were quarried rock. A time disparity emerges. One last stone structure caught my eye, a horseshoe shaped wall with the keystone being at a small stream. What was the purpose of this wall? Was it something special or simply a boundary marker.

After an all out rain storm we returned to the cars fully saturated but still smiling and happy to be out in the woods in the rain rather than an office on a sunny day!

The day in the Barrington Headwaters left with me with many questions unanswered but served as an amazing introduction to a place. To begin to know a place and feel connected to it no matter how loosely will help immensley in formulating our upcoming research projects!