By Ted Watt For the Gazette
Spotted salamanders are iconic for many people. Shiny, black and yellow, 7- to 9-inch long amphibians, they live underground for 11 months of the year as top predators of the soil community. Mating and laying eggs in vernal pools, they then return to the forest soils, sometimes crossing roads in the process. How can we help these animals when they cross roads to get to and from their breeding pools? How can we assist them into an uncertain future? This is where salamander migration tunnels fit in.
By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN
AMHERST — As the existential problem of catastrophic climate change increasingly haunts humanity, many are looking for important ways to combat carbon emissions and reverse the trends pushing the planet to the precipice of disaster. It was under that context that forest preservationist Michael Kellett spoke Sunday at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment about Massachusetts forests in the era of climate change. Forest loss contributes significantly to climate change, and Kellett — executive director at the nonprofit RESTORE: The North Woods — advocated protecting those forests as a way to mitigate climate calamity.
By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN
As the existential threat of climate change increasingly haunts humanity, many are looking for important ways to combat carbon emissions. It was under that context that forest preservationist Michael Kellett spoke Sunday at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment about Massachusetts forests in the era of climate change. Forest loss contributes significantly to climate change, and Kellett — executive director at the nonprofit RESTORE: The North Woods — advocated for protecting those forests as a way to mitigate climate calamity.
The Hitchcock Center for the Environment recently released its Nature Play and Learning Places Master Plan, a plan to transform the Hitchcock Center’s grounds into an engaging, interactive and educational outdoor classroom. Ten activity settings will be constructed to offer fun and imaginative nature play areas, hands-on teaching gardens and accessible nature trails for people of all ages and abilities.
The Hitchcock Center has been invited to be part of the Peabody Essex Museum’s (PEM) exciting new Wild Designs exhibit that will profile the works of architects, artists, institutions and other creatives who are looking to nature and living systems for new ideas and creative solutions to human problems.
Come celebrate Earth Day weekend with 30Boltwood at the Lord Jeffery Inn! Chef Kevin Doubleday and his team have put together a special menu for the benefit of the Hitchcock Center, featuring seasonally sourced, vegetarian and non-vegetarian selections from our local farms. A portion of the proceeds from this delicious three-course prix fixe menu will benefit the Hitchcock Center.
By Katie Koerten
Hitchcock Center educators teach engineering and design with get-out-of-your-seat-and-try methods engaging children in experimental design, trial and error, teamwork, role-play, and refining of design ideas. How do we teach this?
With funding from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and in cooperation with UMass Amherst’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Hitchcock Center for the Environment presented lessons on clean water issues to all of the science students of Amherst Regional Middle School in March and April. 7th and 8th graders both received hands-on lessons in class and 8th grade students concluded their lessons with an all-day fieldtrip on water.
By Lawrence J. Winship
For a short few days in the early spring, ghostly clouds of delicate flowers dance briefly among the leafless trees in our local hardwood forests. Look carefully and you’ll find that these clouds are scattered individuals of a small understory tree called shadbush, so named because it fruits in June when the shad return to our rivers.
By Ted Watt
Spotted salamanders are iconic for many people. Shiny, black and yellow, 7-9” long amphibians, they live underground for eleven months of the year as top predators of the soil community. Mating and laying eggs in vernal pools in the spring, they then return to the forest soils, sometimes crossing roads in the process. How can we help these animals when they cross roads to get to and from their breeding pools? How can we assist them into an uncertain future? This is where salamander migration tunnels fit in.
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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