Come to Maritime Gloucester for a unique art workshop! Come pick your favorite fish and leave with new art for the fridge at home. Meet in the classroom or under the tent Wednesday from 3pm-4pm.
Join Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center on a 'Beach Creature' cruise aboard Newburyport Harbor Tours Inc.'s Yankee Clipper through the Merrimack River Estuary! Teacher Naturalist, Lisa Hutchings will provide her expert pair of eyes to help your family find all the exciting sights and sounds of the marshes and varied habitats of Plum Island as you cruise along the Merrimack River. This cruise will focus on the food web of the ocean, marine mammal facts and live beach creatures!
Come to Maritime Gloucester and visit the Oyster Upweller on our pier and learn all about these incredible mollusks. Meets on the pier.
Spend February vacation learning to survive in the wilds, track animals, and create your own adventure story. Our group will meet each day in an incredible heated greenhouse, and will venture out onto the many nearby trails to find clues left behind by wildlife about how they survive the winter, and practice our own survival skills. We will learn to become keen winter naturalists; figuring out what animal’s path we are following and how it eats and protects itself. As humans, we will build warm shelters, find food and water, perform basic first aid, make fires, and cook treats over the flames. At the end, use words, photographs, or drawings to create the story of your adventures. Hosted by Kestrel Educational Adventures at Glen Urquhart School.
Your family loves spending time at the beach at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, so do many wildlife families! Come join refuge staff and volunteers to learn who else makes the refuge beach their home, and all the shoreline treasures that help support their food, water, shelter needs. This is a drop-in program. Come for 15 minutes or a few hours. Kids and families will play games, make crafts, and learn about wildlife and beach habitats using discovery kits. Earn prizes. Look for our tent on the beach at Lot #1. NO preregistration for this program.
Join park staff from the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge to learn about the federally – threatened Atlantic coast piping plover nests and how it raises its young on Plum Island’s beaches from April through August. Join a refuge ranger for a chance to glimpse this native species in its wild habitat and to hear the story of how biologists work to conserve the plover under the Endangered Species Act.
Join a ranger for a tour of a beautiful spot that few people visit: Nelson Island. If we’re lucky, we might catch a glimpse of a nesting osprey. Learn about the history of this little known refuge jewel. If weather and tide permits, we’ll take a very short walk along the marsh. (Muddy, wet areas are possible so rubber boots are recommended.) Consider bringing binoculars and/or a camera. *Please note: Those who call and leave messages after hours, your registration is not confirmed until you receive a confirmation call from a refuge staff member.
Many animals live on the refuge, but are hard to find. They are either active at night, wary of people, or both. Though you may not see them, their tracks can be just as interesting to find. Go out on the refuge with intern Dominic Noce as he teaches you how to find and identify tracks of different types of animals. Meet the program leader in the refuge visitor center auditorium for a brief slide show, after which he’ll lead you on a tracking exploration on the refuge. Please wear long pants and boots (for tick prevention) and otherwise dress for the weather. NO preregistration for th
Take your 3-5 year old youngster on a good old fashioned nature discovery walk. Meet at the refuge visitor center before driving together to the head of the day's trail on the refuge (no parking fee charged). For each session, a refuge volunteer will lead the children and their caregivers on a walk to explore different aspects of the refuge: beach, dune, marsh, scrub forest, cranberry bog. Come dressed for the weather. If the weather is completely unsuitable for outdoor enjoyment, then an indoor program comprised of a story, activity and craft will be held at the visitor center instead.
Join Mass Audubon's Joppa Flats Education Center on a 'River Meets the Sea' cruise aboard Newburyport Harbor Tours Inc.'s Yankee Clipper through the Merrimack River Estuary! Teacher Naturalist, Lisa Hutchings will provide her expert pair of eyes to help your family find all the exciting sights and sounds of the marshes and varied habitats of Plum Island as you cruise along the Merrimack River.
