The B.L.U.E. staff will provide a combination of classroom visits and field trips to Al-Lens Farm, which will serve as a “classroom out of school”. WR NRCD will collaborate with Four Winds Nature Institute, a community-based environmental education organization presently working with Newbury Elementary School (NES), to deliver a year-long curriculum. As an example, during May 2008, Four Winds staff presented students to the “Stream” ecosystem, with classroom programming and an excursion to a nearby stream. B.L.U.E. staff then followed up with a presentation exhibiting how we (that is, the Boltonville Land Use Explorers) can learn about the health of the stream ecosystem through the identification of aquatic invertebrates located in the stream. The following week, students "got their feet wet” amid the shallow stretches of the Wells River at Al-lens Farm. Here, the concepts presented by Four Winds and WR NRCD were experienced first hand in “the classroom out of school”.
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During all field trips to Al-Lens Farm, a human impact theme, such as how agricultural practices may impact the Wells River, will be exhibited. Other land use impacts to be presented and discussed during field trips include: the interstate, railroad, landfill and hydroelectric dam. Simple but engaging activities will be designed to explain one aspect of how human activities impact the watershed ecosystem. The partnership between Four Winds and B.L.U.E. will bring a place-based focus to the units of study, thus resulting in an expanded learning experience for students at NES.
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Collaboration between WR NRCD B.L.U.E. Conservation Program and Four Winds Nature Institute may result in the development of new units of study, the idea being that these units could be made available to other participating schools in the future.
Thanks to the following for their generous contributions to the B.L.U.E. Conservation Education Program:
A C & M R Sigler Foundation & Norwich Farms (Norwich, VT)
Organic Valley Farmer Profit Share Fund (La Farge, WI)
Organic Valley Regional Working Group (Randolph, VT)
Wellborn Ecology Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation