By Colleen Kelley
Few people would argue these days that we don’t need environmental education. But ask a dozen teachers of the subject what it means and you could get as many different definitions. I’ve been an educator at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment for more than 25 years: presenting programs in schools, training teachers, leading field trips, holding classes for pre-schoolers and home-schooled children, and running an after-school program for kids to play freely outdoors. My experience tells me that an essential part of environmental education is to be outside, to experience the natural world as it actually is, to ask questions and find the answers.
By Jennifer Unkles
It was a hot summer day and Thomas, my 3-year-old, shouted, “Mommy! There’s a Monarch Flutterby!” He saw it before I did, even though I was looking hard. We were near a clover field, which should be a good spot to catch and tag monarchs in September. I had begun to worry about the tagging program I teach and how hard it was last year to find them. Thomas brought me back to the present moment.
By Laura Fitch
I’ve been working as a “green” architect in the Pioneer Valley for 30 years and have had the good fortune to work for many clients interested in green, energy-efficient design. While these projects have helped reduce my clients’ energy footprints, they have done little to change the area’s overall development direction. We lament sprawl while driving everywhere. We’re dismayed by the proliferation of malls and the loss of our local businesses, but our zoning often dictates this type of growth.
By David Spector
I was once afraid of box elder. It was a misplaced fear, as I’ll explain, but it provides a useful example of why we need good environmental education.
By Tina Clarke
A growing number of influential people in industry and finance are warning that the supply of cheap oil is in serious decline. This spring, a group of British business leaders advised their government to take action to prevent social, political and economic havoc from the coming “global oil supply crunch and price spike.” The insurance consortium Lloyds predicted that a cost of $200 per barrel for oil is not far away, and urged businesses to “global oil supply crunch and price spike.” The insurance consortium Lloyds predicted that $200-a-barrel for oil is not far away and urged businesses to “transition to a low carbon economy” for financial reasons. “Failure to do so,” the report warned, “could be catastrophic.”
By Rebecca Reid
It’s a cool July morning, very early, and I’m sitting on my screen porch watching the birds—not bird watching, just watching the birds. As the little bird dramas unfold, I realize how much more there is to learn besides their names and songs, and how I could spend a lifetime at it and hardly scratch the surface. Why do they do what they do? What do they communicate to each other?
By Audrey Barker Plotkin
A wrench and an irrigation fitting clatter from a jeans pocket into the washing machine, and I sigh. Being married to a farmer has its price, but most of the time I feel extremely lucky to live on a farm and witness the work and magic that goes into producing food.
By Elizabeth Farnsworth
Ah, spring in New England: an 80-degree day following a chilly night. After a long winter of hibernation, I am ready to emerge from my den, go for a brisk walk on a favorite trail, breathe the invitingly warm air, and … take a nap! I love to engage in a peaceful, leisurely celebration of the first balmy days of the season by stretching out in a warm ray of sunshine and drifting languorously off to sleep. Perhaps that sounds under-achieving: Shouldn’t we be cleaning out winter’s cobwebs, mowing the lawn, or planting seedlings? But there will be time for all that activity, after … (yawn) …
By Michael Dover
It was a warm, sunny May day last year and I was enjoying a bike ride at the Belchertown end of the Norwottuck Rail Trail when I heard it: clear and bright, my first wood thrush of the season. My first thought was “All’s right with the world.” That’s the effect this song has on me.
By David Spector
Want a good laugh? In May or June, head for the nearest extensive hay field and look for a bird with “upside-down” plumage of black below with patches of white and buffy yellow above. (Most birds are colored dark above and lighter below.) Watch and listen for such a bird to sing, while fluttering above the grass, a burbling, gurgling, inimitable, several-seconds-long cascade of song. This creature, in clownish plumage performing his clownish song, is the male bobolink.
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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