Author: Sarah Gladu

On November 13th, Anne Tibbetts, a fourth-grade teacher at Great Salt Bay School (GSB) emailed me, “Thank you both for putting up with our boisterous group. They do get so much out of the experience. I found some cool related material about what we learned today and I will extend it in the classroom.” Few comments from teachers are more exciting to me than this kind of message. Anne’s enthusiasm for the experience, and her willingness to help the kids draw connections between what we learn and other concepts in the classroom, have the capacity to greatly magnify the educational value of what we can offer during one class. 

Trees silhouetted against the bright January sky, or reaching out of the shadowy forest during a snow squall, tell the story of that place – the plant community – and the light that reaches it.

A tree with large, low, sprawling branches, the kind from which one might hang a child’s swing, grew in an open space like a field or forest clearing. With no neighbors to restrict its spread, it could stretch its arms outward to maximize the exposure of its leaves to the sun. (…)

  Walking through the woods in November is surely a pleasure – with the brilliant sunshine, the leaves swirling through the air in a gust of wind, and all the piles and piles of brown leaves in which my feet disappear. And every leaf tells a bit of the story of the forest that summer. How an insect alighted on a leaf, inserted its ovipositor, laid an egg – perhaps many times that season. And then how the tree responded – perhaps forming a gall around the egg or sending chemical warning messages to surrounding trees of possible defoliators in …

November tells a story of the summertime forest Read More »

Two free summer programs expand horizons for local schoolkids Imagine a free, outdoor summer adventure program for kids that includes transportation, snacks and lunches. This summer, for the first time, local kids from the AOS 93 school district were invited to participate in just such a program, the result of a partnership between the school district and Coastal Rivers. Free of charge thanks to grant funding, the programs took place three days a week from mid-July through mid-August. Participating schools included Great Salt Bay Community School, Jefferson Village School, Nobleboro Central School, and South Bristol Elementary School, which also hosted …

Outdoor adventures for every child Read More »

Earlier this week I visited Biscay Pond in preparation for a class with some Lincoln Academy students on identifying aquatic plants (they will be helping me to do some patrolling for invasive plants this fall). As I waded into the water at the beach I spotted a small turtle, floating lazily among some plants. I was able to catch it in a bucket and positively identified it as a musk turtle, which is a rare find here in Maine.

Musk turtles are sometimes called a “stinkpot” turtle because of their propensity for (…)

The American Woodcock is known by many colorful names including timberdoodle, bogsucker, Labrador twister, big-eye, night partridge, and mudsnipe. What could this diminutive bird have done to earn such memorable appellations?

Trace the bracts of a pinecone, the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower, the patterns of galaxies in the sky, the turn of a snail shell, or your inner ear cochlea – and you will find spirals. In fact, once you start becoming aware of spirals in nature, you are likely to see them everywhere.

Is this a pattern? Or just coincidence?

Can these endearing roaming caterpillars predict the weather? Did you happen to observe more than the usual number of woolly bear caterpillars motoring across your lawn this fall? There seemed to be a definite uptick in their populations this past year, and I remember seeing them everywhere! Woolly bears, or Isabella Tiger Moths as they will become, are one of the few caterpillars that overwinter in their larval stage in Maine. Lately my family has found many of them in our woodpile, looking quite dead in their wintertime state of torpor. But in just a matter of months, they will …

Woolly bears leave us wondering Read More »

Have you been missing the warblers? The monarchs and alewives? Here in the Northeast, twice a year, we witness the movement of many animals that survive winter by temporarily relocating to places where food is available throughout the season and it’s not so much work to stay warm. Maine’s tree bats (hoary, silver-haired, and Eastern Red) migrate, as do many shore and songbirds and a number of fish – including American eels, shad, herring and salmon. Even some dragonflies, like the green darner, head for warmer climes. (…)

For me, autumn culminates not with the falling of the leaves, but with shore birds standing on the shore, waiting for the tide to turn and expose the mudflat buffet where they will fuel up for the next leg in their migration. (…)