News From the Museum
By Lillian Willis, Executive Director
Unique holiday wreaths by Melissa Gullotti, top, and by the mother-and-daughter team of Stevie Hudson and Jamie Freitas.
Fall Highlights
In the last three months we initiated two new program fundraisers for the Museum and its members and visitors. The first Fairy Houses Tour in Vermont attracted scores of people from around the Northeast. In our first holiday wreath workshop people selected items from a massive array of natural materials and then decorated a totally personal evergreen wreath. We will repeat both popular events in 2010. The experiences inspired people to examine nature closely and appreciate its beauties, and introduced new people to the Museum and its educational programs.
Other unusual programs included a silversmithing demonstration by Catherine Cannnon of Rupert, VT, who created a silver pendant featuring part of an actual butterfly wing. The heirloom apple-tasting session at Alyson's Orchards in Walpole, NH, introduced people to delicious old varieties and movements to protect them. A tour of her property by Liisa Kissel introduced participants to lesser-known trees hardy to the area. For the first time, Museum staff and volunteers participated in the Annual Source-to-the-Sea Cleanup along the Connecticut River by clearing a section below the Fish Ladder and Visitor's Center in Bellows Falls; we will plan to tackle that section again next year. A fascinating "36 Miles of Trouble Hike" of the West River Railroad's track beds (along with a visit to the restored South Londonderry railroad station) opened a door to new trail and railroad enthusiasts, so we are searching for more of these old track trails. If you can reveal some of those natural and historic features, please let us know.
Grants
A grant from the Grafton Fund of the Windham Foundation permitted us to purchase an ELMO projector and a large screen that will be permanently mounted in our Program Room. These items will allow a closer investigation of nature with group discussion of the details. Another Windham grant has funded some small digital screens that will allow us to interpret and expand some of our larger dioramas and displays with additional, new information. We are working on enhancements to the beaver diorama and the mine. If anyone has the equipment and ability to film beavers in action, please let us know. We would like to add actual beaver videos to the new information.
Interns
Three students from Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene, NH, will help the Museum expand its educational programs and exhibits this winter. Demonstrating appreciation for the Museum's productive educational efforts and its positive impact in the region, two of our interns are returning for a second 150-hour commitment! We are delighted to have the enthusiastic and skilled help of all of these women.
Sage Maurer will continue to work in education by focusing on creating signs and informational packets for our garden and writing for our upcoming blog that will augment our Nature Journaling classes for educators. Jennifer Bowman will continue to work on the exhibits at The Fish Ladder and Watershed Visitor's Center in Bellows Falls. She plans to create murals, a binder of local wildlife information, and many additional interactive exhibits to engage future Fish Ladder visitors.
New intern Leigh Reynolds is pursuing a Master's degree in elementary education with a focus on environmental education. She will dedicate 300 hours by shadowing our educators and then teaching camps and both public and school programs. She also will correlate our school programs with State of Vermont education standards and create curricula to help students understand inquiry-based science more thoroughly.
Thank You to Sue Nostrand
Sue Nostrand of Chester is leaving the Museum's Board of Directors after 17 loyal and active years when she also taught programs and was the Coordinator for the Museum's Second Nature Shop. Staff and Board Members appreciate her remarkably positive attitude, naturalist experience, passion for educating young people, and her practical, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable help. We will miss weekly contact with her, but are very glad she will continue to volunteer to help educate children and adults. She is a volunteer extraordinaire!
