ecology – Cambridge Outdoors

Animals Unleashed at Magazine Beach

The Cambridge Wildlife Puppetry Project’s animals make a visit to Magazine Beach.

Five Questions for Cambridge’s Monarch Nannies

Why are Monarch butterflies so special? We recently asked five questions of Martine Wong, Fresh Pond Reservation (FPR) Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator, and her Cambridge Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP) intern, Shewit. On August 6th and 7th, amidst some fanfare—kids and puppets—Martine, Shewit and other staff and volunteers released most of the butterflies that they had helped raise,Continue reading “Five Questions for Cambridge’s Monarch Nannies”

A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation

Information about the Secret Life of White Oaks walkabout at Fresh Pond Reservation

There is sometimes too much, or too little, simplification that goes on when “environmental education” takes hold. Starting with a single species, as Fresh Pond Reservation staff in Cambridge, Mass., will do on January 31st with “The Secret Life of White Oaks,” can make a path for kids, families, anyone, to start small and grow curious from there.Continue reading “A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation”

Airport Owls, Hooting Toddlers: A Feathered Friend in Cambridge

Owls visited our fair city last weekend and kids were there in droves to see them. Licensed wildlife rehab maven and Massachusetts resident Patricia Bade (given the punchy name “Owl Woman” by her Penobscot elders before she could say “boo”) brought her un-releasable saw-whet owl and screech owl to Maynard Ecology Center for a familyContinue reading “Airport Owls, Hooting Toddlers: A Feathered Friend in Cambridge”

Butterflies and Caterpillars: Notes from Downeast Maine

I’ve got butterflies and moths on the brain this week, what with the numbers I’m seeing here in Hancock County, Maine, the book I happen to be reading (Bernd Heinrich, Summer World, especially on insects of summer), and the project I’ll be tackling next week, involving mapping out phenology study for Kindergarteners and younger. ToContinue reading “Butterflies and Caterpillars: Notes from Downeast Maine”

A Web of Spiders

“Take the time to look,” says the Dragonfly Woman. Her spider tale is a great read-aloud for nature clubs and classrooms.

Fungi at Fresh Pond Reservation

Behind Neville Place, built in the early 1920s as a hospital for the aged, there’s a mixed forest of beeches, oaks, a few birches, maples, on relatively flat ground. The old folks’ home is still a home to quite a few old folks, whom Ranger Jean has been galvanizing into tree study. The posters onContinue reading “Fungi at Fresh Pond Reservation”