While the school year winds down and we settle into a heat wave in the Northeast, a word that has been on my mind is estivation. Like its partner in slowing metabolism, hibernation, creatures who estivate (or aestivate if you choose) enter a period of rest in hot and dry weather. In a way, that is the flow of our school year. While our study trees are in their growing season, we are taking a step back. As Katherine May writes in her book Wintering, “Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential.” This summer I hope you can all “winter,” even if you don’t have a traditional summer vacation, rest deeply (whatever that means for you, I’m looking at you beach readers and marathon trainers alike!), get enough sleep, and let your mind wander luxuriously. That way when we feel the seasons begin to shift again (and our calendars flip to August) you’ll come back renewed. Your students will need you—you are the ones who help curate their wonder for the natural world—an essential skill for the future world.
Have fun out there!
Katharine
Summer Institute-August 12th and 13th- Register Here
Please Share with colleagues in your network and consider joining us!
Monday, August 12th: Project Training deep dives (choose 1)
Hemlock Woolley Adelgid Invasive Species Monitoring Study
Our Changing Forests Study
Buds, Leaves, and Global Warming Phenology Study
Cost: Free! If you are considering becoming a new educator collaborator sign up here and contact Katharine Hinkle to set up a time to talk about what is involved in being a Schoolyard Collaborator (katharinehinkle@fas.harvard.edu)
Tuesday, August 13th: Dendrochronology with RETs!
This summer, two of our schoolyard educators (Karen Murphy from Summit Academy at Amherst High School and Danielle Mazur of Academy Hill in Springfield) are participating in a RET (Research Experience for Teachers) here at Harvard Forest. They will be spending their summer embedded in the Tree Ring Lab working with Dr. Neil Pederson. Come learn from them what they learned this summer and get trained on their tool kit that they will create to tell the stories of climate of our Northeast trees.
Register for the Summer Institute here
20 Years Celebration!
August 13th: 4-6 pm at the Fisher Museum
After our Research Experience for Teachers workshop on Tuesday, August 13th, please stay or come join us for a celebration of YOU and all of the amazing research that you and your students have done throughout the two decades of our program. Schoolyard educators-past and present are welcome for snacks, swag, trivia, and cake!
Please RSVP by August 1st, 2024
RSVP for the 20 Year Celebration!
Summer Reading
Join us for a first Educator Zoom call of the academic year on Thursday, September 19th. This month we will discuss our summer reading “Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet” by Ben Goldfarb. Delve into this fascinating take on landscape ecology—potential fodder for a student project or just a new perspective on how the geography of our daily lives influences our wild neighbors. In subsequent months we’ll meet on the third Thursday at 4 pm to learn from scientists, hear from outside partners, and share with each other. We’ll be skipping February and April for Massachusetts school vacation weeks.
Register here for Educator Zoom calls.
Seeking Partner Classes for STEM Identity Project
Are you a middle school teacher who participates in the “Buds, Leaves, and Global Warming” project? We are seeking partner classrooms to help us better understand the STEM identity and environmental awareness development of students who take part in our programming. Please reach out to me at katharinehinkle@fas.harvard.edu if you are interested.
Educator Spotlight
This month we celebrate the retirement of Janet Gordon, a long time (11 years!) participant in our “Buds, Leaves, and Global Warming” project at Tewksbury High School. Janet has been in education for 20 years. She took over the data collection from a colleague and Tewksbury has contributed a combined 19 years of data. Check out the Tewksbury data on our database. Janet loves the excitement that her students have in the spring and fall to be getting outside and the satisfaction that they experience in contributing to climate change research. Congratulations on your retirement! Thank you for your amazing contributions and your dedication to your student’s learning!
Data Jam 2024
On Thursday, June 6th, four classes that participate in our Schoolyard Ecology program gathered to share their learning from the year in an interactive and creative way at our first ever "data jam!" The data jam consisted of vibrant displays that showcased the long-term data collected by students- fifth graders taught high school participants about the phenology of their trees through games, artwork, and interactive sculpture. High Schoolers taught the 5th graders about how they measured carbon storage in their forest plots, how they determined the ages of their trees, and the recurrence of beech leaf disease in their field sites.
We were wowed by the TREEmendous creativity and data literacy on display. Thank you to the students and teachers from JR Briggs Elementary School in Ashburnham (Gretchen Moorman Smith), Quabbin Regional High School in Barre (Elicia Andrews), St Mary's Parish School in Westfield (Mary Reed), and the O'Hara Nature Center in Irvington, NY (CJ Reilly). For more on Data Jams and how to host your own, please plan on attending our Educator Zoom calls in the fall when we’ll be discussing this great way of getting students excited about data!
PDP Request Form
We have a new system for requesting your PDP’s! Did you know that attendance at our workshops, educator zoom calls, and even entering your data every season can earn you Professional Development Points? No? Well, now you do :). At any point going forward, simply fill out the following form and I’ll zip off your certificate to you right away. You can do this after each workshop, or at the end of the year.
Betsy Colburn, Harvard Forest Associate, Vernal Pools Project Ecologist and Data Literacy specialist, Receives Career Award for Distinguished Service
If you’ve been to one of our Winter Data Workshops, then you have benefitted from the expertise of Dr. Betsy Colburn. We are excited to share that the Society for Freshwater Science (SFS) has presented her with their 2024 Career Award for Distinguished Service.
As an aquatic ecologist with a holistic lens, Betsy has provided pivotal insight into the hydrological aspects of research conducted at Harvard Forest, whose experts often focus more on terrestrial and organismic research questions. Betsy also "wrote the book" (truly!) on vernal pools in 2004. The Harvard Forest community is thrilled to see Betsy's contributions being honored by SFS.
A researcher and educator in the Harvard Forest community since 2001, and a 2014-2015 Bullard Fellow, Betsy has also made significant contributions to the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology Program. She founded and led the Water in the Landscape: Vernal Pools study protocol, and has also led data analysis workshops for teachers for over a decade.
Congratulations Betsy!
Summer education opportunities in our network
You may be interested in some of the following summer learning opportunities offered by partners in our network of climate educators
Summer Institute for Climate Change Education from the Teach Climate Network, July 15th-19th, remote