By Lawrence J. Winship
Especially in low, wet areas and along streams under trees, you can find dozens poking up through the snow. Not really visitors from another planet, each fleshy sheath, called a spathe, hides the hundred or so flowers of the skunk cabbage Symplocarpus foetidus, the most northerly species of the diverse and very ancient arum family. (Arums show up in the fossil record in rocks formed before the breakup of the continents, and before the demise of the dinosaurs.)
By Jessica Schultz
January saw the arrival of our Alpen windows! With the delivery came and exciting riddle for the project team and our staff. What were these balloons attached to each window?
By Patrick O’Roark
How can a nature center educate about engineering? With a little help from a friend and a little inspiration from one of nature’s most amazing engineers, the beaver.
By Katie Koerten
What is a Rube Goldberg Machine, you ask? It’s a contraption that attempts to complete a simple task in the most complicated way possible. Named for Reuben Goldberg, a cartoonist and inventor in the early 20th century, these devices are usually highly complex, involving a series of chain reactions set off by one initial human motion. Rube Goldberg machines can be built to accomplish simple everyday tasks, such as turning on a light, zipping a zipper, or even pulling a tooth!
By Dan Ziomek
It’s 2 AM somewhere in Hadley. The thermometer reads a balmy fourteen degrees as two souls step from the warmth of their vehicle and enter the darkness of cloudless night. A few moments later the winnowing call of the eastern screech owl can be heard coming from the speaker one of them has set up. They proceed without speaking to their positions 50 yards on either side of the speaker and wait silently. What are they waiting for you ask?
By Reeve Gutsell
Whatever you’re doing, stop for a moment. Look out the window at the nearest patch of woods. What do you see? Perhaps a pair of squirrels racing up an oak tree? Some chickadees perched in a white pine? Maybe a stand of beeches or hemlocks? Now, consider what you don’t see — not because of your particular angle of view, or your specific location. Instead, consider what you don’t see because it’s not there to be seen, no matter where you look — for instance, passenger pigeons, eastern elk and towering stands of American chestnut.
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Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax