Chattermarks

Why is it that kids, and adults, truth be told, love throwing rocks? Nearly every Mountain School student spends some time learning and exploring along the shores of Diablo Lake. And without fail (for my trail groups at least) the first question we hear as soon as we get to the shore is, “Can we throw rocks?”  Although our packed schedule usually only allows for 5-10 minutes of rock throwing, I’m fairly certain my students would happily spend the entire afternoon engaged in this timeless pursuit. Thrown, plopped or skipped, every student becomes engrossed in this activity.

One lovely, sunny afternoon, as I sat below Sourdough Creek Falls and watched my students gradually start tossing rocks across the creek after lunch, I couldn’t help but wonder, what is it about throwing rocks that is so captivating? Is it the sound? The splash? The hunt of finding the perfect skipping rock? Or the challenge of successfully hitting a target?

Mountain School students see how far they can skip rocks across the lake. Photo courtesy of Glenda Runge

» Continue reading Rockity Rock Rock

Spring is near. I can feel it.

Here in the North Cascades, small changes signal the coming season. The surrounding forest echoes with bird song, swarms of robins and dark-eyed juncos flit between branches of deciduous alder, paper birch and vine maple. Within the last month, sounds of varied thrushes, pine siskins, red-breasted sapsuckers and Pacific wrens have again filled the forest. Each day my eyes scout for newcomers, as I learn which birds will return to the North Cascades and when. Although I know most birds were gone all winter, their vocal return reminds me just how silent the forest has been. And I welcome the jubilant sound of their song.

The sun rises much earlier and sets much later. In the forest, spring changes are slowly emerging and apparent in the smaller details of the vegetation. I noticed these changes when I passed by a young red alder that had emerged from its dormancy seemingly overnight. The tree’s maroon bud casings, which have protected the new leaves through winter, have unfurled, revealing new small, bright green leaves. It’s catkins that were so tightly bound over winter have opened. Several feet down the trail I notice small white buds of the vine maple beginning to decorate its long, green branches that stretch through the lower forest canopy.

Along nearby trails, Oregon grape begins to form buds, which will eventually bloom and form sour, purple berries in the summer. Until this winter I had only seen the plant with its berries and am excited to see how the plant will transform from its winter stage, to flowers and finally form its fruit. New blooms of coltsfoot emerge along the Buster Brown trail near Deer Creek. At this early stage, the plants looks like a tightly bound bouquet of small blooms, reminding passersby that spring is near.

Top: Mountain School students and staff awake this spring to a wintry landscape. Above: A new leaf of a red alder begins to grow, showing initial signs of spring.

» Continue reading Awaiting Spring

Despite the fact  it seems like we just said goodbye to the final fall Mountain School group only a few weeks ago, the spring season is fast approaching. Staff and graduate students at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center  began spring Mountain School training on February 28th to share new ideas for programming, reacquaint ourselves with fun logistical details, and immerse some new team members in the curriculum.

The snow we have been blessed with over the last few weeks—though unfortunately intermixed with rain most days—has added an interesting element to the training.  Our first group of students will arrive in a week, and there is a possibility that snow could be on the ground–which could take some of our Mountain School lessons to a whole new level.

» Continue reading Finding Our Inner Child

So far, winter in the North Cascades has brought us snow, rain, more snow, and until this week, several weeks of consistent rainfall. For now, the majority of snow at the lower elevations near the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center has disappeared.

On a recent rainy Saturday, I slipped on my rain gear and headed into the wet forest to poke around and explore our wooded neighborhood during the heart of winter. I began my walk on the Sourdough Creek Trail near the Learning Center, right outside my back door. The trail meanders through a mossy, lichen-clad forest of large Douglas fir, western redcedar, western hemlock and a variety of deciduous trees, including big leaf maple, vine maple, alder and paper birch. The forest’s understory is thick with undergrowth, including Oregon grape and salal. The trail ends above the Learning Center at Sourdough Falls, which flows through Sourdough Creek into Lake Diablo.

I was most interested in exploring this path because it is the trail I frequented the most this past fall with Mountain School students. With the large amount of rain and snow over the last few months, I wanted to explore the changes that may have occurred on or near the trail since autumn. I was also curious to see how the heavy rainfall that flooded Sourdough Creek in December impacted the landscape near the waterfall.

» Continue reading Exploring the Winter Forest

Has it really been two months since the start of our fall Mountain School season? It seems like just yesterday I was welcoming my very first group of fifth graders from Carl Cozier Elementary. I’m certain that I was much more nervous than they were. The four years that have elapsed since I was a summer camp counselor had distorted my memory of what it is like to hang out with eight or nine ten-year-olds all day. As it turned out (contrary to my fears), fifth graders are the perfect age. They are old enough to understand concepts like photosynthesis, the rain shadow effect and watersheds. Yet still young enough to enthusiastically immerse themselves in a funky orange fungus, a mountain-building contest or a game of camouflage. Which worked out well for me as my inner child is around ten years old, too.

One of the primary goals of Mountain School is to spend as much time as possible in the natural world, which usually means some rainy days in the North Cascades during the fall season. However, we lucked out this year, as most Mountain School groups got to wallow in some fall sun while learning about glaciation, predator-prey interactions and ecosystems. Many of my favorite moments from Mountain School were times when my students were grouped around the base of Sourdough Falls or the shore of Diablo Lake, quietly sketching their surroundings.

» Continue reading Mountain Schooling

This is a time of transition.

The warm summer season is changing as rapidly into a drenching autumn as is my progression from the residency with North Cascades Institute to the academia of Western Washington University. As the leaves of vine maples alter their hues from green to orange, I find myself pulled from the slow-paced grandeur of North Cascades National Park to the fast-paced flurry of the city of Bellingham.

It seems as if during these transitions there is no definitive line that is crossed from one season to the other, no time to look back, only to move forward into the next, into another.

But even as the final two quarters of my graduate residency are about to commence and, in only a matter of six months, conclude themselves as well, I find myself already looking back, gazing out onto the memory-scape of this landscape, of this past year’s journey when I called the North Cascades my home. Here, I came full circle.

(Title) Waving goodbye to my North Cascades home (Above) Welcoming Bellingham

» Continue reading Coming full circle in the North Cascades

What happens at Mountain School does not just stay at Mountain School.

With winter’s silence embracing the landscape up at the Learning Center, the laughter of Mountain School students seems all but a distant echo, fading as the Skagit flows down valley. The excitement, the energy, travels wherever the students fare. And where they fare is their respective home grounds.

The first few weeks of December mark post-trip visitation time to participating schools of the fall season’s Mountain School. Several of North Cascades Institute’s graduate students have traveled north to Bellingham to visit Carl Cozier Elementary, Geneva Elementary, Wade King Elementary, Larrabee Elementary, Happy Valley Elementary, Whatcom Hills Waldorf School, and Birchwood Elementary. Others have traveled south to Bellevue and Bothell to check-in with the Eton School and Evergreen Academy.

» Continue reading Bringing Mountain School back home

You can feel them approaching. It is a surge of energy, a tidal wave of enthusiasm and wonder, about to overtake this place. The momentary quiet of the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center awaits eagerly the arrival of giggles and shouts, of singing and learning once more. Standing in the parking lot on a Monday or Wednesday afternoon, we, as instructors, can anticipate only so much. Backpacks are stuffed to the brim with daily supplies and previous nights are spent late, preparing for the next day’s activities.

It isn’t about us, though. As students arrive, whether by bus or by car, with gaping grins of glee and eyes wide with wonder, every time a Mountain School tidal wave hits, we are reminded—it is about these students and this place.

» Continue reading This place, through their eyes

One of the trickiest parts of being an instructor during a Mountain School session is how to properly transition from boisterous, high-energy games and songs to more quiet, less obviously engaging activities. Too abrupt a change and the high energy spills over into the supposed-to-be quiet activity. Since the boisterous activities are often fun equally for the instructor and for the students, a tendency can emerge for the instructor to concentrate so much on the attraction of group interaction that the interaction between student and nature can suffer. By their “nature,” these latter, quieter activities have more reaching power, in terms of having the students directly encounter the close-by wonders of the world outside. Underlying all of this, too, is the goal of increasing observation skills, those of both the students and the instructor.

Here’s where the students can teach you something as well.

Students & chaperones from Fidalgo Elementary enjoying a Mountain School campfire

So what does this have to do with a magic moment? During campfire program a couple rainy weeks ago, students, instructors and chaperones were having the usual time of our lives singing songs at the top of our lungs, interpreting legends via skits, laughing and enjoying the fire and company. The warmth of the company and activities concentrated everyone’s attention on the human world within the glow of the campfire. Rebecca then led a wonderful transition activity, a “rain circle,” in which participants mimic the sounds of different levels of rainfall. This is accomplished through the rubbing of hands together, clapping with two fingers, snapping, full-hand clapping and slapping one’s thighs.  The leader transitions sounds from a falling mist to a downpour then back to a falling mist.

» Continue reading Magical Mountain School moments

This spring I was given the task of organizing and coordinating Mountain School post-trip visits, where instructors visit the many classrooms of the students who participated in the program this season. These visits are designed to connect the students’ experience at the Learning Center with their lives in the classroom and at home.

» Continue reading Memories from Mountain School