“This is the experience of real
science.”
 |
| The Harris Center's Laurel Swope shows students how to look for hemlock woolly adelgid. |
On one of the coldest mornings in December, a bus from South
Meadow School in Peterborough stops along a remote stretch of Old Greenfield
Road and unloads a few dozen 8th graders. From the warmth of the
bus, they move straight into a small clearing in the cold, snowy woods.
No stalling and no complaining among these teens. Like the
morning a day earlier, they circle up for introductions to the next few hours’
schedule, all outside.
South Meadow and Great Brook Middle School’s 8th
graders have been coming here to Otter Brook Farm’s 1,800 acres for six years
now, from pleasant fall days, through winter coldness and into spring sunshine,
mud and black flies. While the land may be called Otter Brook Farm, only part
of it is actually farm; the rest is forest, streams and wetlands, an outdoor
classroom and much of it protected from development.
The youths split into three groups with their proxy teachers,
all gifted and experienced naturalists. With Laurel Swope from the Harris Center for Conservation Education they’ll look for signs of a non-native invasive pest
that threatens New Hampshire’s hemlock stands, the insidious hemlock woolly
adelgid.
Another group follows Rick Van de Poll of Ecosystem
Management Consultants, a veteran ecologist and remarkable environmental
educator who leads them through a fun, breathless game exploring the world of
coyotes, bobcats and other predators and their prey.
The third group follows Bryn Dumas from Otter Brook Farm in
Peterborough. Dumas leads his animated group through powdery woods seeking sign
of white-tailed deer, like buck rubs, scrapes and browse.
Hands-On Learning
Each group’s exercise follows the spirit of fun and inquiry,
keeping students so occupied that they may not even realize what and how they
are learning. But soon enough, it sinks in. Some even forget how cold it is.
After closely checking hemlock boughs for nearly an hour, 8th
grader Lexi Hill of Greenfield stops to explain the value of learning in this open-air
classroom.
“It’s hands-on learning,” Hill said. “We get to see and
touch actual things. We learn things here we can’t really learn in a classroom.”
Otter Brook Farm’s varied lands are well-suited to the
partnership with local schools and the Harris Center, according to Rick Van de
Poll. Roughly half in Peterborough, half in Greenfield, the 1,800 acres in
several lots offers regular learning sites like Bogle Brook, where students
study stream life. There’s Otter Brook, a great site for studying amphibians
and reptiles. Other sites are perfect for fall mushroom forays, spring maple
tapping,
Van de Poll completed an exhaustive natural resource
inventory on the lands a few years ago, giving the owners and educators a sense
of what the land offers as an outdoor classroom. Since then, the program has
expanded to include 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th
graders in the Conval Regional School District.
Great Brook 8th grade teacher Emily Wrubel likes how her
students’ regular visits to Otter Brook Farm helps them develop relationships
with mentoring educators like Swope, Van de Poll and Dumas, and also with the
land itself.
Rhythm of the Seasons
“They see change through the year and a sort of rhythm of
the seasons that those of us who spend a lot of time out-of-doors get,” Wrubel
said. “They get their hands dirty. They
find where the mushrooms grow themselves, discover just how much life is
lurking under the surface of the stream, and actually make holes in trees to
get the sap or count the rings.”
Another teacher joining the frigid walk in the hunt for the
hemlock woolly adelgid is language teacher Lori Grolear. She said the school’s
visits to Otter Brook Farm provide a valuable leaning experience that students
simply can’t get in the classroom.
“When we come here, it’s an intense amount of time on one
topic, in one place,” Groleau said. “They just don’t get that during the normal
day at school. Plus, it’s outside.”
The trips produce something you can’t replicate in the
classroom, according to Wrubel. She recalls a visit one April day years ago,
when her students were standing by Bogle Brook. One student turned to her and
asked, ’Why does it keep coming?’ He was marveling at the stream, wondering
about where the water came from and how it could just keep flowing,” Wrubel said.
“You can't produce that sense of wonder in the classroom.”
Lessons from Otter Brook Farm vary with the seasons. Forest
types in the fall to acquaint them with the place. Then mushrooms. Then
tracking in winter, along with invasive pests, like hemlock woolly adelgid.
As the school year’s conclusion approaches in June, students
create their own research project, based on scientific principles and their own
inquiry and investigation. In June, they present their findings to their peers,
who will within a few months, be their classmates at Conval Regional High
School.
The Experience of
Real Science
It’s also a chance for students to give back to Otter Brook
Farm, with some doing trail work or projects around the farm.
This is the time when students really shine, according to
Wrubel. “After the year of investigating various questions posed by adults,
collecting data in ways set-up by adults, my students really step it up and put
together excellent student run investigations.”
Harris Center teacher-naturalist Susie Faber has seen the
Otter Brook Farm experience instill a sense of wonder from the beginning six
years ago.
“What’s great about the Otter Brook Farm program is that it
gets kids outside, giving them real experience with hands-on science in a
real-world scenario,” Faber said. “They’re working together, solving problems.
And it’s all outside. This is important now, especially, because children in
middle and high school experience less time outdoors for learning. So, when
they’re at Otter Brook Farm looking for hemlock woolly adelgid, they’re really
looking for it. This is the experience of real science.”
Eric Aldrich writes
from his home in Hancock.
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