This is the end...

...of my summer blog. So let's make it special. Yesterday, we wrote poems about our favorite places. Here's mine. I'm still playing around with the line breaks but I'm pretty happy with it now:

A blanket of white,
Broken by round mounds,
dark motionless pools,
and cascades of ice.
Landmarks are obscured.
Familiar features vanished,
and yet it feels like home.

Spring brings raging torrents;
a child's delight.
Waterfalls and rapids abound.
Knee-high boots plunge into icy depths
While logs from an old, nearby woodpile,
are carefully guided into the swollen pond below.

As the waters recede,
islands appear.
Some claimed as territory
others used as a means of safe passage.
Six-inch high waterfalls are named:
Twin Towers, Little Niagara.
The frogs return.

In the summer, it is no more than a trickle.
Garnet pools studded with striders.
Beaches appear,
incongruous with the forest around.
Now is the time to build dams
using rocks no bigger than fists.

Autumn rains replenish the pools
that are now speckled with crimson and gold.
The acrid smell of woodsmoke
reminds you that winter
is only a month away.

Time for one more dam
one more frog
one more log
before the stream is once again locked away.

Transect 1, I love you!

Well, it was a tale of four transects today. More specifically, it was the tale of one good transect, and three disappointing transects. Transect One was spectacular. We collected porcupine, deer, moose, and two unidentified scats within the first twenty minutes. At the base of the "porcupine tree," we found three different scats! Needless to say, we were on a bit of a high. Unfortunately, the rest of the day was less successful.

After a much needed lunch break, we set out into Transect Two. Our diligent search led us to only an old pile of deer scat (dutifully collected) and a single rabbit pellet on a game trail near the far end of the transect. We packed our bags and headed towards the beaver pond, but not before collecting a relatively fresh coyote scat that was on our path back to the logging road.

Much as we had feared, Transects 3 and 4 yielded a big, whopping zero scats. The earlier joy we had experienced was now tempered by frustration and exhaustion. On Thursday, we will hit the beaver pond transects first and finish with a bang in the woods later. Tomorrow, we'll be heading to Cape Neddick, ME to meet with Dan Gardoqui. I'm happy that we'll have plenty of samples to share with him.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was discovering that there has been a study that successfully determined chemical contamination from animal scat. The study in question was performed in Yellowstone National Park and involved determining whether large animals were ingesting toxic chemicals produced by the mineral pools at the Park. So there is precedent for what we're attempting. However, they used scientific analytical methods that will not be available to us. But it's exciting to know that it's possible!

Two more transects and a success!

It's hard to believe that it's already the third week of this program. I'm not sure whether it seems like the time has flown by or that we've been doing this much longer than we have. I think it may be a bit of both. We've been so busy and things have moved along quickly, but at the same time we've been working so closely with a small group of people that the relationships we've formed seem to be closer than one would expect after two weeks.

Today Alicia and I headed back to the BWH to set up our final two transects. We targeted the areas around the beaver pond as it serves as one of the main drinking water sources on the property. Our first transect of the day (no. 3 overall) we placed on a path that broke off the main logging road just south of the beaver pond. In that area, we found moose tracks as well as moose browse. The forest on either side of the path was rather dense and we figured that any large animals moving through that corridor would have to use that path. Our initial search of the tract did not reveal any scat, but we're hopeful we'll find some tomorrow.

There was some indecision about where to place transect #4. Initially, we were going to place it on the western edge of transect #3, but after investigating the potential areas and realizing they were heavily populated by small, scraggy hemlocks that made passage almost impossible, we decided to place #4 along the main logging road. After laying out the transect we were visibly exhausted and frustrated as our initial investigation had found no scat. As we began a more thorough search, I had a couple of false alarms. First I thought I had found scat, but it was just a shriveled mushroom. Then I thought I had found animal hair near a probable entrance to a small den, but it turned out to be an incredibly fine spider web. Needless to say we were dismayed. However, on our final pass through the east side of the transect Alicia discovered scat! We were elated. An informal investigation led us to believe that it was possible coyote scat that may contain a small mammal skull. We will conduct a more thorough investigation with a microscope in the future.

We headed home tired but upbeat. Tomorrow we will head back to transects #1 and #2 and collect the samples we found last Thursday. We will also sweep transects #3 and #4. Hopefully, we'll find more scat as we have a tentative meeting with tracking/scat expert Dan Gardoqui on Wednesday.

Into the abyss!

Well, not the abyss per se, but into the depths of the Barrington Headwaters. Alicia and I began our fieldwork this afternoon. After a morning of reading, planning, and map printing, we determined that the Superfund site straddled the boundary of the Oyster and Bellamy River watersheds. Using a topo map of the area, we then found a section of the BWH that possibly could have been contaminated by run-off and groundwater from the Tibbetts Rd. site.

We began by heading south, following a spur off of the main logging road. We had hoped that this spur would take us all the way to Creek Pond, our targeted wetland, but unfortunately, the road petered out after a few hundred meters. So we took out our compass and some fluorescent flagging tape and started bushwhacking. We passed through thick groves of young birches interspersed with clearings. Following a ridgeline, we eventually came up on a hemlock grove that dropped towards the southwest and our target wetland. Upon entering the hemlock grove, we immediately found moose, deer, and porcupine scat as well as a probable porcupine home. After a brief consultation, we decided that we had found our transect.

We initially laid out a 100m x 20m transect, but after pushing through heavy brush and examining the size of the area we would have to cover, we altered our plan and cut the transect in half. We then laid out a second tract perpendicular to the original about five paces south of the first tract's western terminus. All in all, this took us close to two hours and we were fairly dirty, insect-ridden, and exhausted. It was exciting, however, to finally get out into the field and start our project. I will include a few photos of our transects as well as a lovely picture of a spring peeper who apparently lives in the neighborhood.

Yet Another Busy Day

My brain is spent. Most of today was spent developing our personal pedagogy and working on an outline that will eventually become our pedagogical statement. Entering this process, I thought I was sitting pretty. Previously, we had been asked to brainstorm three "I believe..." statements that reflected our philosophy regarding environmental education. My three were:

1. I believe that environmental education can help individuals better understand the natural world.

2. I believe that environmental education is a means of helping others fall in love with nature, which may be the best way to protect it.

3. I believe that environmental education can help individuals make rational, informed decisions regarding the environment.

Not too shabby right? We were then asked to select which of these three was the most important to us. I chose No. 3 as I am of the opinion that once people have the proper information, more often than not, they will make the correct (a loaded term, I know) decision. We then went through, an occasionally painful, unpacking of our statements that really forced us to critically analyze what we meant by our statements and consequently what we really believe. This became confusing as some of us began to confuse our personal beliefs with what we believe the outcome of environmental education should be. What was surprising to me was that I was unsure of my personal beliefs until I blurted out that I believe environmental education is important because I find nature intrinsically beautiful and therefore worthy of being preserved. I am still concerned that this is a rather selfish goal for pursuing environmental education. Just because I think nature is incredible, should I really try to convince others to protect just so that I can have it around longer? Due to this realization, I chose Statement No. 2 as my core belief. Once that was in order, statements No. 1. and No. 3 fell neatly in line as supporting beliefs.

With that settled, I was able to proceed with my outline. What I have now is three pages of rambling internal dialogue put down on paper. Hopefully I will be able to refine this over the next few weeks.

After a lovely lunch with classmates at the Diary Bar, I was ready to lead my reading facilitation. The article we focused on was "Going Local" by Gregory Smith which detailed the author's investigations and observations of place-based education in Oregon. I found the article illuminating and I will certainly apply this method of education in the future. I was a little nervous about my facilitation but as most of my leading and teaching experience has been with children. I opened with a brief dialogue about the article and then divided our class into three group. Each was assigned a different school (rural, urban, suburban) and asked to select a student population with which to work. The groups then had to design their own place-based lesson based on available resources. I though it went very well, with each group putting a lot of thought into their proposals. Once they had finished, each group presented their project with an accompanying poster. Each poster was unique and delivered the relevant information in an interesting way (I've attached photos). I was very impressed. It's very nice to be a part of a class that is welcoming, respectful, takes issues seriously, and where participation is never an issue. So far, this has been a wonderful experience.

My day concluded with a meeting. Dr. Rock, Martha, Alicia and I sat down together to discuss our research proposal. I was slightly concerned that they might find fault with our idea, but they seemed supportive and thought that we might actually find some good results. Tonight I need to research why chemicals were dumped at the Superfund site adjacent to the property, ascertain their chemical composition, and find out the success and effect of phytoremediation. Most importantly, we now need to come up with a catchy title for our project. The Poop Patrol? Scatological Musings? I'm sure we can come up with something better than that. I'm now excited to actually get out into the field and start collecting data. Hopefully tomorrow that can begin!

Stumps and Scat

You may be wondering why I have included the sketch on the right. Believe it or not, this may be my best attempt at nature drawing over the last week and a half. No, it's not pretty, but I do think it's a fairly accurate depiction of how a hemlock stump would rot over a period of 40 years. Some people (I won't name names) have mocked my effort. I, however, remain steadfastly committed to its brilliance.

The stump drawing was a product of our afternoon reading facilitation. Alicia took us back out into College Woods in order for us to put some of the principles we've learned from Reading the Forested Landscape into practice. Last night we read a chapter on how to interpret stump decay. Alicia asked us to examine a coppiced tree, extrapolate the size of the tree which previously occupied that space, and find a stump and draw some conclusions about what species of tree had left the stump and how long the stump had been there. It was nice to use some of the tools we have been learning about. I found that what sounded easy in the text was much harder to do in person. It was, however, cool to find a white pine stump that had been rotting for over 50 years and exhibited the coniferous knots that Wessels described in his book.

Most of our morning consisted of further developing and then selecting the topics of our research projects which will fill our remaining time in this class. Alicia and I will be working together. Our project will be to investigate the diet of the large mammals at Barrington Headwaters. We will collect and analyze scat to determine what they are consuming and hope to perform x-ray analysis using the scanning electron microscope to determine if there are any contaminants from the adjacent Superfund site in their scat or hair. We're not expecting to find much, if any, contamination but we feel that the investigation is worthwhile. Plus we get to tell people we'll be playing with animal poop for the next two weeks. I'm kind of excited about it. At the very least, I will become more knowledgeable about animal scat, tracks, and signs and about what certain animals eat, all of which will be applicable in my current line of work. Now we've just got to get started...

The Big Decision and a Minor Revelation

Let's start with the revelation. Our assigned readings for today covered the importance of rituals and how they can serve as educational tools. In my written reflections regarding these articles, I was slightly dismissive of the authors' contention that ritual still served a purpose in today's world. As a "modern" society, we are no longer tethered to the land and therefore many of the seasonal rituals or festivals that were once celebrated are no longer practiced. What I failed to realize is that perhaps rituals become even more important now that we do not have that intimate connection with the land. I have always thought that I had a relatively open mind and perhaps this was true when I was younger. I have been more than slightly alarmed to find I have become more set in my ways and resistant to other viewpoints. Hopefully this realization will allow me to approach future readings with a more open mind.

And now onto the "big decision." The time has come to select a topic for our research project. I entered today with a few ideas about what I was interested in studying and I think that I will probably follow through with one of them. This afternoon we conducted a large-scale brainstorming session where we threw a number of our ideas (in question form) on the board and it seems as if there are at least a few other people who are interested in similar subject matter. One of the areas I'm considering is conducting a study of the large predators on the property. I've been kicking a few ideas around with other students but haven't settled on a specific topic I'd like to study. Some of us got excited about the prospect of looking at animal hair under the electron microscope when we learned that it was possible to learn which elements are present in that hair. That led us wonder if we could detect potential contamination from the Superfund site adjacent to the property. Our logic is that if a large predator was to venture off property and consume a smaller animal which had consumed contaminated food, it might show up in the animal hair. We'll see. This may be too tangential to the property so I'm working on other ways to make a large predator study viable. I must admit that there is more than a little anxiety surrounding this decision. Will I pick a good topic? Will I work effectively with my group? But then again, I'm a worrier. I'm sure everything will work out.

The Tough Question

In the course of our classroom discussion this morning and while reflecting on our readings last night, I kept coming back to the central question of how to effectively influence people's opinions regarding the environment in general and climate change specifically. The evidence to support the existence of climate change would seem to be overwhelming and yet many people either continue to ignore the problem or do little to alter their lifestyles in ways that would be beneficial. I understand change is difficult and people become entrenched in their ways. I feel that an important part of becoming an environmental educator is to find a way to reach these people.

Should I browbeat these people? Should I promote the economic incentives of energy efficiency? Do we push for wide-ranging government reforms that can be imposed on the country? My viewpoint up to now has been that people need economic incentives to change their lifestyles. However, I am beginning to think that maybe that's not enough. My thoughts now run toward trying to change people's minds one person at a time. By approaching them quietly and respectfully and asking them to consider the consequences of their actions, perhaps I can help educate them about a more sustainable lifestyle. While this type of change will undoubtedly take a long time, I would like to think that it would be more effective and long-lasting than a government imposed program. Hopefully I will continue to develop new strategies as this process continues...

A Chance to Use My Brain

Upon graduating from college many years ago, I was fairly certain that I would avoid any further education. I was tired of homework, tired of endless pages of boring reading, and certainly tired of sitting through two hour classes that were often dry and lifeless. The last thing I was interested in was subjecting myself to more of this abuse.

But the world works in mysterious ways. After ten years of wandering through the working world, and eventually finding an area that interested and energized me, I wanted back in. Which brings us to the present day. Today is Day 3 of my Summer Institute in Environmental Education. And so far, my re-entry into academia has been empowering. My brain has been reactivated!

Yesterday we spent the morning laying out 30m squares in the woods and collecting data from the surrounding trees and plants. I got to core a tree. We used geometry to calculate a 1/10th acre. We used a "high-tech" toilet paper roll tube to collect data regarding the canopy. I have spent many hours in the woods, but never collecting data. This experience was new and exciting and opened up a whole new way for me to look at the woods. My past work in environmental education has been primarily qualitative. "Look at the trees and animals children! Aren't they cool and great?" To look at nature from a quantitative perspective is something new which I'm looking forward to.