NEES 2004

On the Shores of Lake Champlain

Hosted by the Environmental Program

University of Vermont

October 15 - 17

The height of the foliage season!

PLEASE REGISTER BY SEPTEMBER 15.

This year’s annual NEES meeting will take place at the Basin Harbor Club located 30 minutes south of Burlington on rocky shores of Lake Champlain facing the Adirondack Mountains of New York [ www.basinharbor.com ]. Still surrounded by farmlands, the Basin Harbor Club, which goes back to 1886, has cottages scattered in woods and on points amid numerous flower gardens and nature trails. Immediately adjacent are Button Bay State Park

[ www.vtstateparks.com/htm/buttonbay.cfm ] with numerous camp sites, and the stunning Lake Champlain Maritime Museum including the reproduction Revolutionary gunship the Philadelphia.

The basic schedule:

Friday Oct. 15th:

Registration 3-6 pm; Basin Harbor Club

Dinner and evening meeting 6-9; Basin Harbor Club

Saturday Oct. 16th:

Morning: Breakfast and breakout sessions; Basin Harbor Club

Afternoon: Field trips (see below)

Evening: Dinner and meeting on Lake Champlain aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen

Sunday Oct. 17th: Place-based meditation and get-away brunch at the Basin Harbor Club

Registration: $150.00 (meals and sundries)

Lodging: Double occupancy at Basin Harbor Club is $151.50.

Other rates available from the Basin Harbor Club

800-622-4000; 802-475-2311

info@basinharbor.com

Additional lodging in the Burlington area can be accessed through traditional means (we can give you assistance if you need it). Being the height of foliage season rooms will be very hard to find. If you think you want to stay elsewhere than at Basin Harbor, making reservations as soon as possible would be wise.

Transportation: Burlington International Airport is served by several airlines. We can arrange transportation to and from the airport. Amtrak services Burlington at Essex Junction, and nearby New York at Ticonderoga and Port Henry.

Field trips:

Sustainable initiatives in the Champlain Valley (Tom Hudspeth, leader)

Long-time member of the Environmental Program Tom has been involved with sustainable communities and practices in Vermont and internationally for many years. This trip will include several of the widely varying activities underway in the Champlain Valley.

Trip to Shelburne Pond and Woods Natural Area (Rick Paradis, leader)

The Environmental Program manages the University’s nine natural areas, totaling several thousand acres including the summit of Mt. Mansfield, Vermont’s highest mountain. Rick is the long-time Natural Areas Manager and Director of the Natural Areas Center.

Aerial field trips: Champlain Basin and Adirondacks (Ian Worley, leader)

For two decades Ian has given natural history and environmental based aerial field trips to numerous courses and students with environmental, ecological, geological, art, history, and English interests, as well as conducting many research and conservation aerial tasks. These flights will combine natural history, leaf-peeping, and an example of teaching landscapes from the air. There will be a fee of $15-$25 (depending on length of flight) per person. Weather permitting there will be flights both Friday and Saturday afternoons. The flights will depart from the grass airstrip at the Basin Harbor Club.

Local hikes: Mt. Philo or Snake Mt. (accompanied by local naturalists)

Both thrust fault remnants, these low, mini-monadnocks sit in the Champlain Valley offering outstanding panoramic views of the Champlain Basin, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondack Mountains. Short drives from Basin Harbor, Mt. Philo is an easy 30 minute walk to the top while Snake Mt. is slightly more strenuous and will take about 1º hours. Mt. Philo is a state park, and Snake Mt. had a Victorian era hotel complete with roller skating rink and 60 foot tall observation tower. Stage coaches met vacationers from Boston and New York at train stations 40 miles away to bring them to a weekend’s get-away. [Sounds like a NEES weekend at Basin Harbor!]

Canoeing: Lake Champlain bays, inlets, islands, cliffs, and wetlands (accompanied by local naturalist)

There is excellent quiet water canoeing all along the shoreline adjacent to Basin Harbor and the mouth of wetland lined Otter Creek and nearby Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area. The Champlain Basin is a major part of the Eastern flyway, and birding will be outstanding this weekend. There may be up to 20,000 snow geese at Dead Creek along with many, many species of shorebirds, as well unusual seabirds passing over the Lake’s open waters.

Shelburne Farms [ www.shelburnefarms.org ] (led by environmental ed staff)

Designed in 1886 as a model agricultural estate Shelburne Farms is now a National Historical Landmark on the shore of Lake Champlain, with amazing architecture in numerous and sometimes enormous buildings, 1,400 acres with working farms, and a major environmental education center. One of our former students is the founder of the educational center, and over the years dozens of our students have been interns for its diverse programs.

Nearby opportunities: (check out their websites where listed)

Lake Champlain Maritime Museum: [ www.lcmm.org ] Immediately adjacent to the Basin Harbor Club this outstanding museum is the outcome of one diver’s fascination with the sunken nautical relics dating from the Revolutionary War, thru the lake commerce of the 1800’s, to the present. Lake Champlain is considered the most historic body of water in North America, and this is documented in excellent displays and collections. Wonderful programs are run for children, and replicas of important watercraft, including the gunship Philadelphia are constructed on site.

Revolutionary Forts: Within 15 minutes of Basin Harbor are the remains of two Revolutionary Forts, the French Fort St. Fredrick and the English Fort of Crown Point. Further down the lake are the lands and relics of the American fort at Mt. Independence across the lake from restored Fort Ticonderoga [ www.fort-ticonderoga.org ].

Historical Museums: The Henry Sheldon Museum [ www.middlebury.edu/~shel-mus ], is community museum in a Federal-style home and annex in the heart of Middlebury. It contains many artifacts that chronicle the past 250 years of life in the Champlain Basin.

The Shelburne Museum [ www.shelburnemuseum.org ] is an eclectic museum of houses, buildings, round barn, galleries, and collections of folk art, tools, textiles, vehicles and other Americana … plus, of course, a 220-foot Lake Champlain side paddlewheeler steamer, the Ticonderoga. There are also artworks by Monet, Manet, Degas, Wyeth, Cole, Homer, Grandma Moses and many others.

Science Center: On the Burlington Waterfront is the new ECHO Center (ECHO stands for ecology-culture-history-opportunity). [ www.echovermont.org ] This brand new, multimillion dollar science and education center focuses on Lake Champlain, includes an aquarium, and has many hands-on, interactive exhibits. Adjacent to the ECHO Center is the   The Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory of UVM’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. It houses state-of-the-art research facilities, including laboratories for the study of contaminants, water and sediment quality, and aquatic biota including fish, invertebrates and algae.  The UVM research vessel Melosira is docked adjacent to the facility, providing access for research and teaching on Lake Champlain.

New England Environmental Education Alliance Conference [ www.neeea.org ]. Concurrent with our NEES meeting is the annual conference of the Alliance, which is an umbrella organization for the six New England State Environmental Education Associations. There are scheduled a full slate of activities for Friday, so if anyone wanted to attend they could. It will be held at Middlebury College’s Breadloaf Campus in the Green Mountains. Check out the website, or contact Tom Hudspeth [ Tom.Hudspeth@uvm.edu ] of our faculty for more details.  

Contacts:

Ian A. Worley, Director Ian.Worley@uvm.edu 802-656-4055

Ibit Getchell, Student Services Elizabeth.Getchell@uvm.edu 802-656-0176

The Environmental Program

The University of Vermont

“The Bitterwsweet”

153 South Prospect Street

Burlington, VT 05753

www.uvm.edu/~envprog/