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07/10/2008
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Staff photo by Joe Phelan
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Staff photo by Joe Phelanfrom the Kennebec Journal
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from the Morning Sentinel
"The generations before us that owned these lands, they had a great attachment to it," said Howard Lake, a founding member of the Kennebec Land Trust, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
Those generations, in turn, donated plots of undeveloped farmlands, woodlots and shoreline properties to the Kennebec Land Trust. They wanted to preserve the areas and they wanted to give the next generations the same opportunities to learn to appreciate the lands for themselves.
Providing those opportunities for education, however, remains a constant challenge.
There are field trips scheduled roughly once a month to land-trust sites, where field experts talk about some of the ecological diversity of the places. Local schools are starting to get more involved, too, with programs like "Farmland Conservation and Education," being designed by retired Hall-Dale Elementary School teacher Karen Simpson.
"When you think about how important outdoors is in your own life, you want (kids) to experience that huge joy that's been your own joy," said Simpson, who taught first and second grade students for 20 years.
On rare occasions, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologists are invited to lead programs at land-trust sites.
But not everyone believes that formal, on-site education is enough, particularly when trying to encourage newcomers to learn about nature.
Lisa Kane is a natural-science educator for DIF&W. Preserving the lands and keeping them open to the public, Kane said, is only part of the equation. These days people are looking for ways to learn while working on their own.
"I think there should be interpretive signage for things like beaver dams, wood duck boxes, big oak trees, all of that stuff," Kane said. "You have to make it both accessible and simple for people, with interpretive signage and trail maps. Accessibility is a huge part of it.
"If you can make it more user-friendly, then the education aspect can come along."
With money from a large grant courtesy of the Abigail Holman Memorial Fund, the land trust is taking its first steps toward self-education. It recently published a children's guide to some of its properties.
Produced by Maranacook Community School student Emily Kerchner, "Kennebec Land Trust: Adventure, Explore, Discover" takes children and their families to places and asks them to look closely at what is around them. Emily's mother Theresa Kerchner, the KLT stewardship director, thinks it's a step in the right direction.
"The idea, really, is that even if they only copy pages, students can use those as a guided field trip," she said, noting that already the workbooks are in the process of being distributed to local schools in Monmouth and will be available to schools across the region.
"We're trying to do as much as we can with the schools to get the kids out to learn about these places."
Seeing is believing
Karen Simpson's "Farmland Conservation and Education" program is intended to be multi-dimensional.
The program will be used within the school curriculum for fourth-graders in Fayette, Manchester, Mount Vernon, Readfield and Vienna, and students also will visit organic farms and take active roles in harvesting food and working it into the school lunch program.
"Everybody has something in their curriculum that ties into it -- plants and farming in their communities," said Simpson, who taught first and second grade students for 20 years. "These are the things that really get kids excited, things they can see and touch and do."
Simpson particularly likes the timeliness of the series, as it pertains to organic farming and "green" living.
"Everybody's talking about it now, for many reasons -- health reasons, economy reasons, cost of food reasons," Simpson said. "This is the time. People want to do it."
Whether it's school children or adults interested in learning more about the outdoors, Theresa Kerchner thinks the quickest way to educate people is to put them inside the conservation areas themselves.
"You just want to make people aware that we -- land trusts and DIF&W -- are the ones preserving this quality of place, and conserving it, so it's there 30, 50 or 100 years from now," Kane said. "People are thrilled when they drive across Memorial Bridge and a bald eagle almost takes the roof of their car off. They're amazed by that.
"It's seeing a moose, or an osprey or a fox -- all those things that people love to see out there. We're all working together to preserve these places. If they don't have a place to live, they're not going to be here. It's not just about having the open space, but it's about all the thrills that people get."
Travis Barrett -- 621-5648
tbarrett@centralmaine.com
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