Remote Learning

Our new remote learning hub is designed to raise awareness and inspire stewardship for shared natural resources in the Ossipee Watershed. The following videos and tutorials were created by GMCG staff and volunteers in honor of Earth Day and to facilitate remote learning.

Earth Day 2020 Activities:

1. The Giving Tree 
2. Upcycled Stained Glass Candle Holders
3. Apple and Oak Seed Planting
4. Upcycled T-Shirt Bags
5. Nature printmaking with Blair Folts 
6. How to Nature Journal
7. 10 Peaceful Minutes: 10 RIVERS Test Sites

Experimentation Station:

1. Create a model water cycle inside a bottle
2. Create a water xylophone 
3. Explore lake stratification in a jar
4. Fresh water vs salt water: What floats?
5. Create fireworks in a jar! 
6. Dissolving Seashells 
7. Using cabbage to explore pH

Backyard Exploration:

1. Vernal Pool Exploration 
2. The Pitcher Plant
3. Forsythia Bushes with Karen Payne
4. Stumping and Logging with Karen Payne, part 1
5. Stumping and Logging with Karen Payne, part 2 
6. Salamanders in the Ossipee Watershed 
7. Nurse Logs
8. Stream crossings

Trout in the Classroom:

1. Tank Q & A
2. Trout Release

 Remote Learning with GMCG:

The following activities are designed to encourage nature discovery in the home and backyard. To get inspired we encourage you to first check out GMCG’s YouTube videos listed above that correspond to the below activities. Come back here and click the following to links to view or download the activity instruction sheet, then head outside!

Backyard Nature Scavenger Hunt for small children
Backyard Nature Bingo
Nurse Log Journey
Using Your Senses Poem
Vernal Pool Documentation

GMCG is also having a “Wonders of Water Art Exhibition” – students can submit artwork digitally to be displayed online (and at the conservation center in August if possible). More details are here: https://gmcg.org/wonders-of-water-art-exhibition/

More from the conservation community:

Dave Anderson, Forest Society Education director: Lunch and Learn on Amphibians of Vernal Pools

From Sarah Thorne at Hubbard Brook Research Foundation: “Phenology: Observing the Seasonal Pulse of Nature”
Here is a ready-to-go activity that your students can accomplish in their backyards over the next several weeks.

Grow Native Massachusetts’ set of video lectures on pollinators, restoring urban landscapes, plant adaptations, climate change and more