Hitchcock Center for the Environment

We’re reestablishing our trails! You can do similar conservation work in your neighborhood to care for the nature around you, and attract more wildlife.

Hitchcock Center has gentle, looping forest trails behind our Living Building used by our students, educators, staff, and the public, to get out into nature. Recently, Hitchcock educator Isaiah noticed our forested space has been over-loved for some time now, and could be healed by sectioning off the trails, and allowing damaged spaces to naturalize again.

As a result of this conservation work, you’ll find logs, stakes, and string on the trails to guide you around the spaces being reestablished.

The Valley is special in part because of our incredible natural spaces, and biodiversity. Here at Hitchcock, you’ll find mostly maple and oak trees, though, keep an eye out for some birch and tree of heaven. Gray Squirrels are preparing for winter, while piliated, downy, and red-bellied woodpeckers drum upon the trees. Meadow voles scurry under the leaves and grasses. Blue jays, tufted titmouse, juncos, and mockingbirds can be seen darting about the foliage - occasionally alarming a Red-Tailed Hawk!

If you want to attract more wildlife, here are simple things you can do in your own neighborhood:

🪵 Create habitat: Structures such as stone piles, insect hotels, or brush piles, are simply yet effective ways to help shelter local fauna. These can be made from materials and components found around your home. Be sure to place them away from your home, preferably on the edge of your lawn or garden space.
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🌿 Mow less, grow more: Leaving some parts of your lawn to grow over and naturalize can create even the tiniest bit more room for creatures and plants to thrive and provide for the ecosystems around your home. �

💧 Feeders, baths, and ponds: Places around your home that can provide food and water for wildlife can be a great and simple start to inviting more nature into your space. Simple features such as bird feeders and baths, to larger projects such as small ponds or rain gardens, can be amazing and beneficial implementations.

🍂 Happy fall!

This October, Hitchcock Educator Chrissy visited seven classrooms in grades K-2 at Bridge St. Elementary School in Northampton as part of the Take It Outside program.

🌲 Take It Outside at Bridge St Elementary was funded through a grant from the Northampton Education Foundation (NEF). The program aims to get students outdoors during the school day to learn through stories and activities about local animals!

🪶 Kindergarteners pretended to be squirrels trying to escape a hungry hawk. First graders experimented with water and pipettes to discover items that were waterproof like a feather. Second graders became detectives trying to guess how a canoe paddle, a flipper, and goggles might represent the adaptations of a beaver.

We had a ton of fun together and look forward to more lessons in the winter and spring!

#WesternMass #NorthamptonPublicSchools #NorthamptonMa

The newest Earth Matters column features a lesser-known local cemetery and its rich history to read this Halloweekend!

At the unofficial Northampton dog Park on Burts Pit Road, where the trail levels out under open sky, you’ll find a piece of Northampton history that unites every community member.

To your right, a field of orange jewelweed and purple loosestrife glows. To your left, a sign reads: “This hillside is the final resting place of an estimated 181 former patients of the Northampton State Hospital … ‘Cemetery Hill,’ as this hay field was known, was used to bury the unclaimed bodies of patients who died at the hospital. The last burial took place in 1920. Please be respectful and walk around this field.”

Read about Cemetery Hill- its history, geology, about some of the people who rest there, and its conservation- in the latest Earth Matters column by siblings Allie Martineau and Brianna McCormick.

The piece is out in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, The Greenfield Recorder, and The Valley Advocate this weekend.

📸 Allie Martineau, Historic Northampton

#WesternMass #NorthamptonMa #MyLocalMa
Historic Northampton Historic Oakwood Cemetery