1) The problem: what invasives are, botanically and culturally Weeds are plants that grow where we don’t want them to, and invasives are weeds we spread without control, altering ecosystems to such an extent that, sometimes, native species are crowded out and go extinct. Invasives are expressions of our colonial culture; we bring them—and cats,...Continue Reading
We have room for 14 people. Reserve your spot! Join Biocitizen the day after Thanksgiving from 11 am to 4 pm for an exploration of the exposed granite ridges of the Tekoa Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Russell and Montgomery. We’ll pick up at Northampton High School at 11am, arrive at Tekoa around 11:30, walk until...Continue Reading
Our Place Summer School is designed to “unplug” your child by bringing them into direct contact with the creatures, geologies, hydrologies and infrastructures of the Nonotuck biome and the Westfield River watershed. For five six-hour days, we roam our place—the valley and the hilltowns—investigating our natural and cultural history with all of our senses, and...Continue Reading
Now Voyager Tuition and Logistics From December 27, 2016 to January 6, 2017, Now Voyager takes college students (& 18+ year olds) on an ecstatic journey through South-Central Chile, following the path of water from the Pacific Ocean in Pichilemu across the Central Range, the agricultural Central Valley, and onto the high Andean peaks of...Continue Reading
The Life Riparian (Cross-posted from Hilltown Families) Riparian is a strange sounding word that denotes “river bank”: the meeting point of river and land. We enter the “riparian zone” when we get close to a river. It is a place we want to be, because it brims with exuberant sounds and smells, and because it...Continue Reading
The Biocitizen Corps was up to its knees in chilly flowing water again this Fall, catching and inventory the bugs who live in the substrates of our rivers and brooks. River bugs that trout love to eat, & that require cold oxygen-rich water, are the ones we hope to catch, because not only do trout...Continue Reading
Biokids at Holyoke Dam From this month’s Ripple: Stories about Western Mass Rivers, cross posted from Hilltown Families The land is an organism, wrote Aldo Leopold, the Yale-trained game management specialist, about seventy-five years ago. An organism is alive, and its life is made up of the contributions of disparate organs, each of which would...Continue Reading
Aesthetic value is a keystone of environmental philosophy. We love, and take care of, things we find beautiful. Biocitizen and HCC professor John Calhoun have made a commitment to work together for a year, walking together, learning, and creating art that is beautiful, that expresses important moments in, and facets of, Holyoke’s biocultural history. You...Continue Reading
A perfect after-Thanksgiving hike for those who want to walk a few miles off trail, sweat a little and get the feel of what Nonotuck would be like if there were no houses around—i.e., if it was wild: because walking from the Westhampton Public Library over Mt Pisgah—i.e., the Berkshire ridges that divide the CT...Continue Reading
If you know what bugs live in a river, you can gauge its health. So, every year just as Summer slips into Fall, the Biocitizen Corps ventures out and catches some, following EPA protocols, in a national citizen science initiative called “Rapid Bioassessments of Benthic Invertebrates.” Certain bugs need lots of oxygen. The cleanest coldest...Continue Reading
