With funding from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and in cooperation with UMass Amherst’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Hitchcock Center for the Environment presented lessons on clean water issues to all of the science students of Amherst Regional Middle School in March and April. 7th and 8th graders both received hands-on lessons in class and 8th grade students concluded their lessons with an all-day fieldtrip on water.
By Ted Watt
Spotted salamanders are iconic for many people. Shiny, black and yellow, 7-9” long amphibians, they live underground for eleven months of the year as top predators of the soil community. Mating and laying eggs in vernal pools in the spring, they then return to the forest soils, sometimes crossing roads in the process. How can we help these animals when they cross roads to get to and from their breeding pools? How can we assist them into an uncertain future? This is where salamander migration tunnels fit in.
AMHERST, Mass. — The Hitchcock Center for the Environment in Amherst debuted its new 9,000-square-foot facility in fall 2016. Even though the environmental education center is built on the Hampshire College campus, the independent, nonprofit is completely separate, with a mission to develop environmental curriculums that are then implemented in schools throughout New England. Now, that mission is coming to life with its brand-new sustainable facility that doubles as an engaging learning tool for the center’s field trip, after-school and preschool programs, among others. Better yet, it’s currently seeking Living Building Challenge certification.
By Scott Merzbach
AMHERST — Backers of the bylaw adopted at Town Meeting last fall mandating that all new municipal buildings produce as much energy as they use are continuing to bring experts in zero-energy design and construction to town.
Forty local high school students engaged in the first Western Massachusetts Youth Climate Summit on November 17, 2017, bringing them closer to a range of local, state, and world-wide solutions and ideas to address climate change problems, to empower each of them to begin working at their own schools.
Executive Director Julie Johnson was the recipient of this year’s Green Giants Award in recognition of her work to envision and fund the Hitchcock Center’s newly constructed living building.
Colleen Kelley, our Education Director, and Jessica Schultz, our Sustainability & Living Building Coordinator, have both been accepted into the Environmental Sustainability for Latin American Professional Fellows Program.
Hitchcock Center environmental educators will be partnering with ten area schools thanks to over $36,000 in grant funding support from the Mass Cultural Council’s STARS (Students and Teachers working with Artists, Scientists, and Scholars) program.
Hitchcock Center educators develop and lead engaging professional development programs for K-12 teachers using real-life events. The recent Apollo 13 Challenge Professional Development workshop held on December 8th was no exception. Inspired by the film depicting America’s third Moon landing mission, Hitchcock environmental educators provided 60 Pre-K through 6th grade teachers in the Union 38 School District with a memorable learning experience that combined inquiry based science with “tinkering and making” skills that enhanced STE education (Science, Technology and Engineering) in their classrooms.
By Maureen Turner for Going Green
Hitchcock Center serves as a powerful teaching tool for the rest of us.
Signs of the Hitchcock Center for the Environment’s commitment to sustainability are evident all around its South Amherst site: the large solar array on its roof, the rain barrels at the bottom of downspouts, the station for refilling water bottles in a hallway, the composting toilets in the restrooms. But many of the green measures the center took in constructing its new home, which opened in 2016, are not immediately visible to the eye. At a recent event, “Building without Toxins: Educating for a Healthy Material World,” the nonprofit organization highlighted some of those less immediately obvious measures, the result of thoughtful, even painstaking decisions made at every step of the construction process.
Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax