Enfield
The two teenage participants peered into shiny red microscopes and sketched what they saw — cedar needles and part of a maple leaf that instructor Heather Oliver, a teacher at Mascoma Valley Regional High School, had plucked from the grounds that morning. From an herb garden to fields to forest, many of the other natural features needed for the six-week course are also onsite, at the group’s fingertips.
And that’s the point.
The place-based summer camp is designed so students “can get more of the outdoor field experience, which is really hard to do in a classroom setting,” said Kyle Sandler, the museum’s education program coordinator.
The class, which meets weekly, is open to rising high school sophomores, junior and seniors. It explores field ecology through the lens of the Enfield Shakers, who lived, worked and farmed on the lakeside property for more than 100 years, until declining membership forced the community to close in 1923. The museum offers a similar course for junior high students.
“The history of this place is very well documented, first with the Shakers and then with the La Salettes,” instructor Lisa Torres said in a telephone interview. “We are trying to connect the ecology of the place with the people who lived (here).”
The course includes a look at agriculture — the conditions and nutrients plants need to survive, plant- and animal-based diets, and how farming practices of the 19th and early 20th century compare to current ones.
“Are they really better?” said Torres, mentioning artificial fertilizer as an example. “We can feed a lot more people, but that comes at huge environmental costs.”
Students keep a journal and make drawings to document their observations throughout the course, which is funded in part by the Wellborn Ecology Fund and the Charles E. and Edna T. Brundage Charitable, Scientific and Wildlife Conservation Foundation. In addition to agriculture, it covers the ecology of fields, forests and water, finishing up with a project.
The academic study of connections between the living world and non-living world, ecology is “the foundation for the kind of actions we should take, environmentally,” said Torres, a former Lebanon High School science teacher who retired last year. Changing even one thing in an ecosystem has “a whole domino effect throughout the whole ecosystem.”
Recently, the students read about shade-grown coffee, which illustrates that interconnectedness, Torres said. The agricultural practice provides habitat for migratory birds that live locally for part of the year and winter in the Caribbean or Central America.
What students take away from a class varies from person to person, said Torres, who taught for 39 years, the last 31 in Lebanon. But she hopes the students will develop a new way of looking at the land and nature surrounding them, and, perhaps, “think about their own behaviors and practices.”
“Some kids get really interested” and decide on a career in science, she said. Others discover a deeper appreciation of the natural world or become drawn toward environmental activism.
To Torres, such interest makes sense. Human beings have an innate love of the natural world and “want to be in it and understand it,” she said.
Talking on the grounds of the museum last week, the two campers, both rising sophomores, said science is one of their favorite subjects.
Bethany Wheeler, a Kimball Union Academy student and Hartland resident, plans to work in the field of math or science.
This year, she’ll “double up on chemistry and physics,” said Wheeler, who learned about the camp through her grandmother, a volunteer at the museum. “I was super excited to take physics, so I decided to just go for it.”
Hanah McAndrew, who attends Mascoma Valley Regional High School, took a class with Oliver as a freshman and will be in her applied science class this year.
“This will be great because she will have a preview,” Oliver said. “She’ll be an expert.”
After talking with Torres and Oliver, the Enfield resident has decided to run an experiment related to what they’re studying at camp. She plans to plant flowers and observe how various nutrients affect them, including their height and how they grow, said McAndrew, who is considering a career in solar energy.
Camp participants can earn half of a school credit in field ecology, so the project could move her a step closer to her goal of graduating early.
Oliver and Torres, who developed the course, also taught it last summer. But their shared interest in science goes way back. Growing up, Oliver was a member of the Girl Scout troop Torres led. With Torres’ guidance, the girls became deeply interested in field ecology and wound up taking on several citizen science projects. Oliver had always known she wanted to teach, but she didn’t know which subject to focus on. An outdoor education trip with the Scouts to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming made it clear. Now, she hopes to kindle a similar enthusiasm for science in her own students.
“This is my goal, to also kind of pass things along,” said Oliver, who appreciates the flexibility the camp schedule affords. At school, the class periods are too short to take students outside, and discussion is sometimes truncated by the sound of the bell.
“I always feel bad in science class when kids ask, ‘What will happen if I do this?’ ” but they run out of time to discover the answer for themselves, she said. Without time constraints, “you can just look at something until you start to think of some questions.”
Aimee Caruso can be reached at acaruso@vnews.com or 603-727-3210.