ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES: 

Activity

Evening Sound Walk
Materials: 
1. Flashlight or headlamp
2. Phone or camera (for pictures or sound recordings- optional)

Instructions: 
1. As it gets closer to dark hand out a headlamp or flashlight

to everyone and head outside.  

 
2. Tell everyone to keep their ears and eyes open.  

You might see tiny spring peeper frogs but most likely you will hear them.

Wood frogs can sound like quacking ducks.  Spotted Salamanders are

silent but a very interesting sight to see.  
***If you handle any creatures make sure your hands are clean and wet.  

Wash your hands well with soap once you’r back home.

What sounds did you hear?
Did you see any frogs or salamanders?
What other animals did you hear?

Read Aloud

The Secret Pool by Kimberly Ridley and illustrated by Rebekah Raye

Click the link below to hear L.E.A.'s Alanna Doughty read this springtime story

about vernal pools and the life it supports.

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To Listen to The Secret Pool, Click HERE

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Vernal Pool Coloring Book

Enjoy learning more about the plants and animals supported by

vernal pools with Kristine Hoffmann's "My First Field Guide to Vernal Pools."

Click the image or link to get started!

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Listen to the Vernal Pool Song

Understanding the vital connections between landowner concerns,

municipal planning, conservation activities, and the ecology of vernal pools

will be the focus of natural and social scientists from the University of Maine,

Boston University, and Bowdoin College as they embark on a multi-year

research project concerning Maine’s small natural features—vernal pools.

To Listen to "Come With me to a Vernal Pool" click HERE.

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NATURALIST QUOTE: 
Each week we feature a lesser known naturalist in our Pocket Journal Series. 
In this space you will find the full quote and more information about the author.  Enjoy.
 

Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ph.D Botany, Professor at SUNY College

of Environmental and Forest Biology

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Braiding Sweetgrass, Collatoral Damage:

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“To a salamander beneath a log, the first heavy raindrops must sound like the knuckles of spring knocking hard on the door overhead. After six months of torpor, stiff limbs slowly flex, tails wiggle out of their winter immobility, and within minutes, snouts nose upward and legs push away cold earth as the salamanders crawl up into the night. The rain washes away traces of clinging soil and polishes their smooth black skin. The land is waking up, rising to the call of the rain.” 

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“What is it that drew us to the hollow tonight? What crazy kind of species is it that leaves a warm home on a rainy night to ferry salamanders across a road? It’s tempting to call it altruism, but it’s not. There is nothing selfless about it. This night heaps rewards on the givers as well as the recipients. We get to be there, to witness this amazing rite, and, for an evening, to enter into relationship with other beings, as different from ourselves as we can imagine.” 

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“Being with salamanders gives honor to otherness, offers an antidote to the poison of xenophobia. Each time we rescue slippery, spotted beings we attest to their right to be, to live in the sovereign territory of their own lives. Carrying salamanders to safety also helps us to remember the covenant of reciprocity, the mutual responsibility that we have for each other. As the perpetrators of the war zone on this road, are we not bound to heal the wounds we inflict?”

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Click the links below to read more and listen to interviews with Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer

Book: Braiding Sweetgrass

Book: Gathering Moss

OnBeing podcast episode, “The Intelligence In All Kinds of Life”

TEDxSitka, “Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest”

‘Returning the Gift’, Center for Humans and Nature

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