Environmental Education

Oil Distress

Say you are driving along a two lane road, and you find your way obstructed—a large truck has parked where it doesn’t belong. I have noticed in myself and others a tendency to take possession of the left lane, and to expect oncoming cars to wait while I exercise an assumed right to proceed.
The catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico stems from another prerogative we award ourselves—the right to burn up fossil fuel. We all know this, but we are trapped in our way of life, which is the envy of the world, and its despair.
Americans who admit partial responsibility for the unfolding environmental disasters attempt to mitigate their personal impacts. Some take the time to hang their laundry in the sun, or they install solar panels. Others run errands on their bikes, and drive a hybrid car. They prefer locally-grown foods, try to consume less packaging, and recycle all they can. They keep their houses cool in the winter and warmish in the summer. They avoid recreations based on the use of fossil fuel.

Dams and Floods in Eastern Massachusetts

During the recent flooding, Tyler Dam, in Marlborough, restrained Assabet River water that could have inundated the downtowns of Hudson, Maynard, Concord, and Billerica.
The weather, ever-serviceable as a commonplace, becomes the principal topic of conversation when it closes our roads.  When people hear that flooding would have been much worse along the Assabet River except for the mitigating effect of flood control dams, some ask, “What’s the difference between flood control dams and other dams?”  The answer is that while most dams store water all the time, flood control dams only work during periods of high flow. 
Over the years, residents of eastern Massachusetts have found many reasons to store water in ponds.  They’ve used dams to capture nighttime flow for turning water wheels the next day.  Other dams made ponds in which ice could be cut, or to supply water for drinking or fighting fires.  A dam at Billerica diverted Concord River water into the Middlesex Canal, which floated freight and passengers from the Merrimack River to Boston Harbor.  Long before beavers returned to eastern Massachusetts, our friendly little rivers and streams were thwarted by many dams.

Fullness of Life

Biodiveristy Day VIPs, from left to right, Concord author/naturalist Peter Alden, conservation biologist Richard Primack, and Harvard professor Dr. Edward O. Wilson, at Estabrook Woods in Concord.
            Determined to have a close look at his first northern bog, a naturalist from Georgia waded into the beaver-flooded moat surrounding a buoyant mass of vegetation in search of a moth found only on pitcher plants. His name was Henning von Schmeling, and he had come to take part in Walden Biodiversity Day.
            This singular happening had begun the evening before, at Minuteman National Historical Park. We amateur naturalists watched fireflies flicker near the Old North Bridge as our leader, a professional, challenged us to rigorous observation. Instead of merely letting the silent yellow blips sooth us with recollected summer evenings, we timed intervals between flashes, referred to charts comparing the rhythms of various species, and watched as captured individuals were gently inspected, identified, and released.

Managing Habitat for Climate Change

If we do not reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, by the end of this century...perhaps our state bird, the Black-capped Chickadee, will be displaced by its cousin the Carolina Chickadee. Photo by Donna Moy-Bruno
            Massachusetts' climate has changed dramatically over the past twelve thousand years. Plants and animals that like cold weather pursued the ice sheet northward. As centuries went by, tundra-like conditions warmed, becoming suitable for evergreen forest, then gradually, for the trees we have today. As the vegetation changed, so did the animals that relied on it for food and shelter.

Civility Cheats Global Warming

Concord’s Natural Resources Commission hosts a Conservation Coffee, a breakfast gathering open to the public. Each monthly session follows a regular format. After announcements and updates from the leader, people take turns introducing themselves and speaking to any topic they choose. As the invisible spotlight works its way around the room, people raise a broad variety of subjects. Recycling. Water conservation. The management of community gardens. Litter.

Autumn Music

Some Eastern Screech Owls are red; others are grey. In this illustration from Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States, illustrator Louis Agassiz Fuertes shows how effectively the gray owl blends in with tree bark.

Yesterday, walking in a residential neighborhood near the Assabet River, I heard a bird singing. Regrettably, I lack the gift for recognizing every bird call. But I guessed the identity of this musician, when I remembered that the season was autumn. Mornings have been quiet—the last bird I’d heard was an owl.

Trees of Water

Schoolchildren know that woody plants store energy in their roots. As the new growing season opens, trees pulled these reserves up their trunks, fueling the revival of every branch and twig. Similarly, before they were dammed, rivers and streams—trees of water—drew fish from the ocean. En route to and from spawning in freshwater, many fish died inland, nourishing terrestrial food webs.

Estabrook Woods Imperiled

If protection of Massachusetts’ natural resources were our only value, I suppose we’d all move out, leaving coyotes and fishers in charge of the Bay State. But in all likelihood people will stick around and we will continue trying to preserve decent habitat for the whole variety of life forms: winged, two-legged, four-legged, green-leaved, and the eccentric menagerie of creatures who creep, slither, or swim.

Winter Water

At our house, where winter precipitation is concerned, I do most of the heavy lifting. While shoveling snow I sometimes muse that anyone who thinks we don’t have enough water can’t be hoisting much of it. From the fluffy cold stuff to gravity-loving rained-on leaden slush, every kind of precipitation falls here in quantity. How could such a well-watered state run dry?

Safe Passage

Route 2 is being undermined by our state’s road builders, for the benefit of wildlife. At night, when traffic is the lightest, MassHighways is installing four concrete tunnels with the purpose of keeping our ecosystem stitched together. The culverts will allow fishers, bobcats, and other animals safe passage across this busy, deadly, highway.

Or so we hope.

Why Conserve Land?

Stearns.jpg

Part of Framingham has kept its rural character because of farmers such as the Hanson family, who sell their produce in a stand on Nixon Road, and Stearns Farm Community Supported Agriculture on Edmands Road, where I enjoyed a recent visit. Starting from the farm shed to gather vegetables, I headed the wrong way, as I am apt to do, and wandered among rainbow beds of flowers until a helpful volunteer delivered me to the proper row and set me to work picking, of all things, purple green beans.

Exploring Nature and History

In June of 1971 two friends and I drove from Illinois straight through to Boston, to begin the post-college chapters of our lives. It was daylight by the time we picked up the Mass Pike. I was surprised at how far one end of the state was from the other—Midwestern pupils looking at a U.S. map assume that any state too small to hold its name must be teensy, and New England states are labeled in the blue Atlantic.