Each spring, millions of fish return to Maine’s coastal rivers to spawn. For thousands of years, these fish runs have helped people build and sustain communities, economies, and cultures. Over time, dams, pollution, and other threats have fractured habitat and diminished historic numbers and species of migrating fish. As scientists, conservationists, and anglers seek to […]
Environmental Education
Make Earth Day Matter with Maine Audubon
The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970, the brainchild of Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin. He wanted to �get the nation to wake up and pay attention to the most important challenge the human species faces on the planet.� Designed as a day to sponsor �teach-ins� at college campuses across the […]
Apply to be an Environmental Education Assistant with our summer day camps
Are you a 15- to 17-year-old who wants to explore outdoors, play games, and create art with campers this summer? Do you want to build skills, gain experience, and have fun while volunteering? If so, we hope you�ll apply to be an Environmental Education Assistant (EEA) with Maine Audubon�s summer day camps for children ages […]
Exploring outside in winter with students
SNOW! It�s great for snowballs and sledding. It also presents a whole other way for exploring the outdoors and learning about Maine wildlife in the winter. While it may feel challenging to observe wildlife in winter, leafless trees and snow provide ample opportunities for spotting birds, evidence of wildlife, and active critters skittering amongst the […]
Reflections on Fall Preschool Outreach
It was a fun-filled fall for Maine Audubon�s Gilsland Farm based education team as we traveled as far north as Brunswick and as far south as Saco to deliver nature-based and developmentally appropriate programs for early learners ages 2-5. Between the months of September and December, we delivered 33 individual preschool programs, and reached about […]
Campers became Stream Explorers this summer in Auburn
(This is the third guest blog post in our occasional series, Stream Explorers and Youth) This summer at the YMCA of Auburn-Lewiston�s Outdoor Learning and Education Center (OLEC) we had the opportunity to run a Stream Explorers activity as part of our regular summer camp programming. The center is a 97-acre property located in Auburn […]
At Fields Pond, high school students get a week of hands-on outdoor learning
The staff at Maine Audubon�s Fields Pond Audubon Center was excited to offer a week-long summer field intensive this August for Bangor area high school students. This work-study course was designed with a focus on educating students in three main topics: wildlife habitat protection, forest ecology, and service learning projects. More importantly, this course gave […]
Fields Pond Update: Youth activities were highlights for June
There�s not much we love more than seeing young people experiencing the wildlife and habitat at Fields Pond Audubon Center. So our busy month of June brought us much delight, and with the start of summer camp, July and August promise to deliver more of the same. In June, more than a dozen youth between […]
Exploring Creek Critters in Kindergarten: Caddisflies, Mayflies and Stoneflies, OH MY!
Late in May my class of seven kindergarteners at the Children�s House Montessori School set out to explore the stream at our satellite campus in Rockport. Our small school is located in downtown Camden but since fall 2020, we have spent each autumn and late spring in a 100% outdoor based setting with ample woods, […]