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DCR Call for Artists Now in its 5th year, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Iron Ranger Painting Program continues to generate interest, enthusiasm and increased participation. DCR cordially invites you once again to participate in a program designed to give beautiful representations of the park’s natural, cultural or historic features on both newly installed and existing Iron Rangers – metal contribution containers that receive state park visitor donations. We are excited to discover that once painted, the Iron Rangers are attracting more attention, and patrons are contributing more generously. In some cases on existing Iron Rangers, donations have more than doubled over the previous year. You can view pictures of the painted Iron Rangers at DCR is now seeking artists to paint wildlife and landscape scenes on all of the 100+ unpainted Iron Rangers located in state parks across the Commonwealth. Donations to the Trusts received through these Iron Rangers fund educational programs and conservation projects in the parks in which the donations are made. Besides increasing donations, the Iron Ranger Painting Program also provides an opportunity for artists to display their work in one of our parks. Last year, more than 33 million people visited the Commonwealth’s many parks, beaches, and forests. Although artists will not be paid for their work, they are invited to sign the back of the Iron Ranger and leave business cards and brochures with the facility supervisor or district manager to distribute upon request. News releases, identifying the artist and including a picture of the Iron Ranger, will also be sent out to the press once this year’s program is complete. In prior years, numerous articles and photos about the program and artists resulted from these releases. See the attached Call for Artists! flyer for additional information including submission requirements. The deadline for submissions is June 22, 2009. Please distribute the flyer to your members or others who might be interested and spread the word! Perhaps you know of an artist who would be interested in participating in this program. Send them the attachment and encourage them to submit a design. Thank you and we look forward to your submissions! Very truly yours, |
The BEST Schools Around In Egremont the fourth graders are developing a scale model Sustainable Box City that showcases renewable energy and uses recycled materials. Sixth graders at Nessacus are turning off the lights and organizing a classroom competition--who can save the most energy? Chris Vreeland of Precision Decisions LLC conducted a solar site assessment, and CET assisted the district business manager in applying for an energy audit of all municipal buildings in the district through the MA DOER Energy Assistance Program. For more information on the BEST Program, contact Cynthia Grippaldi at 413-445-4556 ext. 25. |
Green Berkshires Petition to Preserve Local Control over Industrial Wind Turbine Siting This Act will also open constitutionally protected public lands to industrial wind development. These include state forests, reservations, and parks. |
Mass Audubon releases 4th Edition of "Losing Ground" For the first time in decades, Massachusetts is protecting twice as much land as developed, thanks to the collaborative effort of state government and conservation organizations, according to Mass Audubon's Losing Ground: Beyond the Footprint, a new report that looks at land use change and analyzes the impact of development on the environment. For the full press release, go here: http://www.massaudubon.org/news/index.php?id=1201&type=press To download a copy of the book, go here: http://www.massaudubon.org/losingground/download.php |
Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom has put together a schedule of 12 Educational Summer Workshops on the Farm. These workshops may be taken individually or you may choose to participate in our 3 Credit Summer Graduate Course for Teachers. Please check out the schedule and workshop descriptions below and also help us spread the word about these great educational opportunities. The list is below and a detailed description of each workshop is located at the end of this e-mail. Help us Spread the Word!!
Join us for one of more of our summer workshops and try out some hands-on activities for the classroom while you explore local farms. Each workshop runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., offers classroom-ready educational activities and focuses on a different area of agriculture with exploration of the work that takes place at that farm. The $30 fee for each workshop includes the educational program and tour, all educational materials and activities, and ten professional development points with a related classroom activity. Lunch is also included with ten of the twelve workshops. Or Sign up for our Three Credit Summer Graduate Course on the Farm, titled "Growing Agriculture in Your Classroom" It is offered in cooperation with Fitchburg State College Beginning Workshop: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom is please to announce our fourth summer graduate credit course in agricultural literacy training for educators. Using Massachusetts farms as your classroom, learn how agriculture can enhance your curriculum, enthrall your students and meet many MCAS requirements. This graduate course offers agricultural-literacy training through fun, hands-on study and investigation of agriculture education resources. It will assist new educators and those who want to expand their classroom offerings as they learn how to integrate agriculture into the classroom to create lessons and reinforce MCAS concepts This Summer Institute, title “Growing Agriculture in the Classroom” will meet of Wednesday, June 24th and Wednesday, August 12th at the Brigham Hill Community Farm in North Grafton from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Each participant will also be asked to attend six additional workshops during the summer, selected from 12 workshops on various agricultural topics offered at farms across the state. Participants must keep a journal of their summer agricultural journey and write three agricultural education unit, one of which will be presented at the final session on August 12th. The fee for the eight-day course is $475 and includes all materials; farm workshops and tours; some meals, and three graduate credit credits or 67 professional development points from Fitchburg State College. Participants will receive a letter grade. Curriculum and MCAS standards covered by the lessons will be handed out as workshop materials. Each participant will be paired with a MAC Board members to give long-term access to agricultural resources and follow-up support. Using Massachusetts Farms as your classroom, learn how agriculture can enhance your curriculum, enthrall your students and meet many of the MCAS requirements. Workshops offer hands-on, open-ended experiences, activities and resources related to a variety of agricultural topics. Participants will: All Workshops run from 9:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, June 25, 2009 Thursday, June 25th takes us to Sheep Pasture the home of the Natural Resources Trust of Easton where we'll spend the day focusing on sheep, wool and fibers. Start inside with a overview of Sheep history and breeds with Interim Director Ed Hands. Move to the barn for a quick lesson (using one of their sheep) of sheep anatomy and farming practices with a local 4-H team. Then harvest wool from sheep to yarn, including hands-on activities where participants will wash, card, and felt the wool with teacher and naturalist Monique Melcher. Following a farm lunch, there will be a yarn spinning demonstration with Donna Heir, yarn weaving, yarn dyeing and a tour of Sheep Pasture, with an overview of their mission, activities, programs and more with Ed Hands and teacher/naturalist Stephanie McNamara. (Lunch is included.) Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Spend Tuesday, June 30th at Flax Pond Cranberry Farm in Carver. This 100-acre family farm, consisting of 34 acres of bogs, a ten acre pond, twenty acres of reservoir and forty acres of woodland including 400 fraser fir Christmas trees has been owned and operated by Jack and Dorothy Angley since 1967, although the bogs have been in production since the turn of the century. They will introduce you to all the many aspects of raising cranberries in Massachusetts today. The overview will include growing cranberries; seasons on the bog; tools and equipment for cranberry farming; the importance of bogs, water and wetlands; water quality; associated plant and animal habitat; Pest Management, economics and marketing, and the health and benefits of cranberries. Spend the afternoon touring the cranberry bogs and related wetland and try out some activities for the classroom. (Lunch is included.) Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Elm Bank in Dover is the headquarters of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Spend the morning of Wednesday, July 1 with horticulturist David Fiske who will tell us about the history of this venerable institution, and will showcase the gardens including a children’s garden. He will offer an overview of horticulture and gardening with some activities for the schoolyard and classroom. In the afternoon, we’ll tour the nearby Natick Community Organic Farm with educator Trish Wesley Umbrell. She will outline the farm practices, community efforts and education programs held at this organic community farm owned by the town of Natick. (Bring your own lunch.) Tuesday, July 7, 2009 On Tuesday, July 7, visit Small Ones Farm in Amherst to learn about growing Apples, Peaches and Pears using Earth Friendly Practices. The workshop will offer an overview of tree fruit farming in Massachusetts and will highlight techniques for growing and managing these crops using sustainable practices and approved organic pest management. Bob and Sally Fitz envisioned a farm as a place where children could be nourished in body and mind, through the foods grown on the site and education programs. They spent 15 years searching for just the right farm and found these 63 acres in Amherst in 2004. The farm's history dates back to the 1850's. Most of the orchard was planted by the previous owner in the 1980's and includes 40 varieties of apples.. Explore the fruits of their labor in the orchards and the children's garden, which is the centerpiece of their education programs. Try out some activities that you can take back to the classroom. (Lunch is included.) Thursday, July 9, 2009 Spend Thursday, July 9 at the L. D. Batchelder School in North Reading. Explore an enrichment program that teaches about Colonial agriculture and shows the effort involved in bringing food from field to plate. Third grade teacher Bill Cassell, our 2007 Massachusetts Agriculture Teacher of the Year, will guide you through the fields of wheat, corn, beans, and potatoes and the apple orchard where students grow food. You will thresh, winnow, and mill wheat, make bread, husk and grind corn, make hasty pudding and more. He’ll offer curriculum-related activities and links to history, math, science, technology, language arts, and problem solving that will engage and excite you, even if you don't have a school garden. (Lunch is included.) Tuesday, July 14, 2009 Discover the lost art of home canning! Using farm-grown strawberries and all natural ingredients, you'll make strawberry jam Learn about creating safe foods, which are naturally shelf-stable with Janice Wentworth of the Warren Farm and Sugarhouse in North Brookfield. Technical topics include: sterilization, cross-contamination, vacuum sealing, low and high acid fruits, water availability, and lots more. Morning snacks, fruit, jars, and great conversation will be provided. We will also walk the farm while the jam sets. You will take home your own jam! In the afternoon, well tour nearby Brookfield Orchards. (Bring Your own Lunch. Registration Limit 10. Additional materials Fee $10 includes the canned produce that each participant will take home.)
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 At Artichoke Farm in Newburyport, young piglets are raised until they are six to eight weeks old. They are then sold to home-owners and other farms who keep them for several more months until they are ready for the freezer or market. Owners Lisa and Bruce Colby also grow a variety of vegetables for their farm market. We will spend the morning learning about how the hay fields are managed and then focus on the nutritional and health benefits of locally grown, hay feed and free range management practices for the animals and for the humans who consume them. Following a farm lunch, we'll tour the hay and vegetable fields, farm markets and meet the piglets. (Lunch is included.) Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Wednesday, July 22, takes us to the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association/Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, where Sheila Damkoehler and the museum staff will offer an overview of changes in agriculture over time. Using the town of Deerfield as an example, the workshop will present a model for teachers to use in their own towns or cities. The workshop will show responses to the needs and demands of each time period starting with a visit to the Indian House where the museum staff offer programming around Native American and 18th century English life. After a look at the Yazwinski Farm next door, a visit to Memorial Hall Museum’s Tool Room and new milk bottle exhibit will lead participants into the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. An afternoon visit to Pioneer Gardens, a wholesale perennial flower farm begun by Dutch immigrants in 1996, on the way to Clarkdale Fruit Farms will conclude the day. Third generation farmer, Tom Clark, will share his firsthand knowledge of the history – and view of the future – of local agriculture. The museum’s American Centuries website will be introduced, and other resources and activity ideas provided. (Lunch is included.) Tuesday, July 28, 2009 Karen DiFranza of Hubbardston is a small-scale organic farmer/ gardener and avid composter, as well as an educator. Over the years she has taken her composting efforts to local schools implementing an active composting and gardening program at the Hubbardston Center School and nearby Quabbin Regional High School in Barre. On Tuesday, July 28, Karen will show how 6 tons of food and yard wastes each year are recycled into rich compost, which is then used to grow food for student consumption. Tour the Hubbardston Center School garden and compost area, learn how the students weigh and graph the leftovers and chart the temperatures in the compost. Try out a variety of interdisciplinary classroom activities. In the afternoon, following a farm lunch we'll visit The Country Hen, a nearby organic egg farm that has produced outstanding compost with the bedding from their hens. (Lunch is included.) Wednesday, July 29, 2009 History and science team up for this workshop making connections between the past and present through the study of environmental history on Wednesday, July 29. Examine the use of land over time as you explore the Woodland, Pasture, and River Walks at Old Sturbridge Village with the Education Staff led by Director of Education Bette Lotterman. Four new exhibits will answer questions about where our food comes from and why the New England landscape looks the way it does. (Lunch is included.) Wednesday, August 5, 2009 Wednesday August 5 takes us to Stillman’s Dairy Farm in Lunenburg. Colleen and Bud Stillman, second generation dairy farmers, continue to milk Jersey cows, pasteurize and bottle fluid milk and retail their product throughout northern Worcester County. The Jersey herd grazes in fields that surround the barns, silos, processing room and store. You will learn how cream turns into butter on a large and a small scale. Dr. Jim Alicata from Fitchburg State College will join Colleen Stillman, math teacher, to relate the dairy business to teaching opportunities that coincide with the frameworks and discuss methods of teaching students with various learning abilities. (Lunch is included.) Tuesday, August 11, 2009 Travel far west across Massachusetts on Tuesday, August 11th to visit Holiday Farm in Dalton. This farm, owned by the Crane Family hosts a variety of agricultural enterprises. We will begin the day learning about community supported agriculture as we harvest crops to be distributed later in the day. Then explore the farms educational programs with farm educator Desireé Robertson-Dubois. Following lunch we’ll tour the children’s garden and explore a small niche daffodil business that operates from the farm with David Burdick of Daffodils and More. (Lunch is included.) The mission of Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom is to foster an awareness and learning in all areas related to the food and agriculture industries and the economic and social importance of agriculture to the state, nation and the world. In addition to the workshops on the farm for teachers, Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom offers a seasonal newsletter; mini-grants for teachers and educators; an interactive Web site; a Farm Field Trip Manual and a new School Gardening manual and more. Debi Hogan |
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