2023-24 Meetings
Lending a Helping Hand
Annual Habitat Discovery Garden Clean-up
May 16, 2024
Pollinators
April 18, 2024
Did you know?
Almost 90% of wild plants and 75% of leading global crops depend on animal pollination. One out of every three mouthfuls of our food depends on pollinators such as bees!
mr greg catches a swarm.mp4A special thank you goes to Mr. Greg Alexander for allowing us to borrow some of his apiarist (beekeeping) equipment. In addition to learning about some of the equipment used to keep bees, students were able to sample local honey and honeycomb and they all agreed that "the real deal is so much better!"
We ended our meeting with an activity that helps another important pollinator: the butterfly!
Using milkweed we harvested in the fall, students got messy and molded "seed bombs" that can be used to disperse milkweed and wildflower seeds in specific areas of your choosing.
Marvelous Maple Syrup
March 14, 2024
Back by student request, Mrs. Workman from Sugar Bridge Farm taught us all about maple syrup!
We got to see the different equipment used and learned how it is done, and asked a lot of great questions! Then, we put our knowledge to the test- as well as our taste buds to the test by sampling different types of maple syrup (later in the year/warmer temperatures = darker syrup).
Ordering the steps of the maple syrup process.
Taste testing light, medium, and dark maple syrups.
Upcycling Everyday Materials
February 8, 2024
Environmental sustainability: the responsibility to conserve natural resources and protect global ecosystems to support health & wellbeing.
Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value.
Students learned how to give new life to basic, everyday, "throw away" materials like plastic shopping bags and scrap paper.
Paper Beads
Materials needed:
newspaper, magazines, or other paper cut into long triangle or rectangle strips
small sticks or toothpicks
glue (bottle or stick is fine)
string
optional materials like clear nail polish or mod podge to make beads shiny and more durable
Tightly roll paper strips on the stick, beginning at the wide base. Secure with glue. Slide off and string into beautiful jewelry!
Plastic Bag Crochet
Materials Needed:
Plastic bags- any color, as many as you can find!
Scissors
Optional crochet hook
Prepare bags by cutting crosswise so as to create loops and turn into "plarn" (plastic + yarn). This video will show you the process!
Braid, crochet, or knot into a rag rug, basket, bag, sleeping mat... the possibilities are endless!
Brrr... How do animals adapt in winter?
January 11, 2024
Students had a lot of great guesses about what animal could survive the coldest temperatures. Our list of guesses included:
Polar Bears Arctic Foxes Penguins Snowshoe Rabbits Tardigrade Peregrine Falcons
In the end, one guess was correct: the Tardigrade! Watch the video to learn more, including how animals like the wood toad and painted turtles survive the cold temperatures!
Making popcorn and cranberry garlands to feed winter birds.
Winter Walk
December 14th
A "winter walk" has become something of a tradition at our December meetings. The club takes a walk around the school campus and practice fields, similar to the route that was taken earlier in the fall, and use our observational skills to look high and low and at the big and small things around us.
Highlights included finding a series of deer tracks, pondering the paths we were noticing along the creek (were they deer or even muskrat?), and seeing how far we could make our late evening shadows stretch out across the ground. Finally we ended our meeting with a hot cup of hot chocolate in the Habitat Garden!
North American Owls
November 16th
Students had a lot of fun investigating the owl's carnivorous diet by dissecting owl pellets! Once an owl catches its prey, it either swallows the animal whole or uses its sharp hooked beak to rip it apart. The animal’s flesh is digested in the owl’s stomach, but it can’t digest the fur and bones. These leftovers are squeezed into a neat little package called a pellet that the owl coughs up. Owl pellets look like round or oval balls of fur, with white bones sticking out. You can find them under an owl’s roosting spot or nest.
Celebrating Fall with Our 5 Senses
October 26th
Today we used our five senses to explore two common sights this time of year: pumpkins and leaves!
Mrs. Murphy treated the students to all kinds of pumpkin treats to taste and demonstrated the steps from harvesting and rendering, all the way to the finished pie, roasted pumpkin seeds, or even pumpkin soup! We felt the squishiness of the pumpkin insides, smelled it, and tasted the final baked product. Unfortunately we devoured all the snacks before we could get any other pictures.
After enjoying the pumpkin treats, students helped with a little garden clean up, including composting the used pumpkin rinds and raking leaves (which must always end with jumping in, of course!) We heard and felt the leaves crunch, and ended with a moment to smell the fall air and relax in the sights and sounds of the garden around us.
Exploring Our Garden
October 5th
The NES Nature Club kicked off our year by taking time to explore our surroundings through a scavenger hunt!
Items students were challenged to find included finding habitats, flying creatures, exploring their senses, and looking at the big picture as well as the small things under our feet! Once completed, scavenger hunts were drawn out of a bag at random to choose a nature-themed prize at the end of our meeting.
Club members are encouraged to serve as advocates for the Habitat Garden during the school day, and a part of our club duties include maintaining certain aspects of the garden space. Today we turned the compost, pulled weeds from walking areas, and collected milkweed pods to disperse in the spring.
