I will never forget my first encounter with a spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum).

I had been an intern at Boston University Sargent Camp’s residential outdoor education program for only four months, and the ecology of the Monadnock region in southwestern New Hampshire was revealing itself to me in new and surprising ways each day. A rainy, dark evening in mid-March, 1994 proved to be one of the most surprising.

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Book Review:  Raising Elijah: Protecting our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis

                        By Sandra Steingraber

“As soon as you know, you can’t not know.” Some may find this overly-simplistic, while others will surely relate. I experienced this notion recently after news reports of elevated arsenic levels in apple juice. The reports struck me as odd for two reasons. Why is there arsenic appearing in apple juice at all, and why is it suddenly elevated?  For my family, and like many others across the country, we banned all brands of apple juice from our home, right on the heels of banning cantaloupe after a listeria outbreak a few months prior.

Author Sandra Steingraber, a PhD scholar in residence at Ithaca College, has written a very eye-opening book on a theme that keeps many parents awake at night. Part biologist, part poet, Steingraber is the heir-apparent to Rachel Carson, is also the author of Having Faith: an Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood and Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and Environment. This, her third book takes the reader through the first six years of her son’s, Elijah, life as he faces a variety of health setbacks (asthma, attention-deficit, even a rabies scare) due to environmental factors.

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What's important for kids to know about the Earth they live on?

• Discuss how food is grown and harvested, what resources are used to get it to your table for dinner, and where your drinking water comes from.
• Grow herbs, plant a small garden, tour a farm or join a CSA.
• Find out together what materials are used to make the pencils they use in school, or for the sneakers they are wearing. 

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Earlier this month, Anita Wright and I organized a habitat restoration project at Meetinghouse Creek Pocket Park in Aquebogue. This project, like many of the ones we have done in the past, involved a collaboration between a number of different groups. We had financial support from the Peconic Estuary Program, planning support from the Town of Riverhead, and most importantly hands-on help from Ms. White’s 3rd grade class at Aquebogue Elementary.

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More than 150 years ago, Henry David Thoreau offered this observation about himself: “I never go out knowing what I am going to find. The interest is in finding what I didn’t know I was going to find.”

These words aptly describe my experiences when bringing school groups to Long Island’s ocean beaches. Through the years, Group educators and our students have stumbled upon numerous intriguing finds during field trips to the beach: gray seal pups resting on shore, large pieces of driftwood showing the chew-marks of beavers, sand dollars, sea urchins, and mummified sea horses.

Last week definitely qualified as another exciting episode of “finding what I didn’t know I was going to find”. I arrived at the Napeague beach about forty-five minutes ahead of the Springs School fifth-graders, and so decided to do a little beachcombing on my own. As I walked the edge between surf and beach, something caught my eye that initially appeared to be a hair-brush.

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A group of enthusiastic fourth graders from Springs School Project MOST are participating in an environmental stewardship program led by Group for the East End Educators, Jennifer Skilbred and Anita Wright. The program, which takes place after school, is funded through a grant from the Levitt Foundation and will continue throughout the school year.

The goals for this program are consistent with all of Group for the East End educations programs. We strive to cultivate interest and wonder for the East End’s natural surroundings, provide a foundation to appreciate the values of local natural resources, and instill a sense of responsibility to live in harmony with the environment.

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“We are pleased to submit for [the Spring School Board’s] consideration a proposal for a pilot environmental education program to be collaboratively developed and implemented with the teachers and students of Springs School and the professional staff of the Group…” Submitted two decades ago, in January 1992, this letter served as the official commencement of Group For The East End’s T.E.R.N. program. [T.E.R.N. is an acronym for “Teaching Environmental Responsibility Now”.] From such beginnings, a truly special educational opportunity has blossomed.

This fall Group educators continue the legacy of the T.E.R.N. “pilot environmental education program”, for 2011-12 marks our 20th year collaborating with Springs School to teach children about their natural surroundings. Just as in 1992-93 and every year since, this year’s fifth-graders will experience field trips to the local salt marsh, ocean beach, forest, and freshwater pond. In the coming months, they will also benefit from classroom lessons about Long Island’s geologic history, drinking water, taxonomy, and ecology. Group educators thoroughly enjoy partnering with the Springs fifth-grade teachers – Irene Tully, Tracey Frazier, and Christine Cleary – to maximize learning experiences for each and every student.

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Fall is finally here! While it may mean digging out warm sweaters from the attic and getting the furnace cleaned for us, for much of our local wildlife this means it’s time to head south. The fall migration has definitely begun, and while many of us notice birds and butterflies starting their long trek, we may not think about our marine friends who make their own journeys as well. Among the many migrating marine animals that pass our shores are a variety of sea turtles.

There are four different species of sea turtles commonly found in Long Island waters during the summer: Green, Loggerhead, Kemp’s Ridley, and Leatherback. Green sea turtles are not named for their body color, but rather for the consequence of their largely herbivorous diet -- green body fat! Loggerheads have a worldwide distribution, and feed mainly on crustaceans, squid, jellyfish, bivalves, fish, and eelgrass. Kemp’s Ridleys are considered critically endangered and are the smallest of sea turtles, while Leatherbacks are the largest living turtles of any kind. Leatherbacks are named for their black leathery skin. These amazing marine animals also do a lot of travel, including migrations that extend from Newfoundland to Argentina and beyond.

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A few weeks back, I was performing some juvenile antic at the dinner table. Since this is not an uncommon occurrence at the Biasetti household, I can’t quite recall the specifics of what I was doing. In any event, my 15-year-old son – who considers himself an expert on these matters – turned to me and said, “You’re such a child”. I don’t think he meant for his utterance to be a compliment. But I took it as one just the same.

In Richard Louv’s thought-provoking book, Last Child In The Woods, the author links “the absence of nature in the lives of today’s wired generation to some of the most disturbing childhood trends: the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.” Louv posits that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development as well as for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.

As Group educators, my colleagues and I are doing our part to expose children and adults to nature through school and summer field ecology programs, community service projects, and the GEE calendar of public nature tours and activities. We strive to cultivate in our students a curiosity and wonder for our natural surroundings, and there’s no better way to accomplish these goals than to embrace a host of child-like qualities ourselves.

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Now you are probably asking yourself “How should I celebrate this great holiday?,” good question! Before we get to that though, lets start with a little background. Estuaries, while not a commonly used word, are a pretty large part of all of our lives here on the East End. They are bodies of water partially surrounded by land, in which saltwater and freshwater mix creating a unique environment that is wonderful habitat for a large variety of marine organisms.

On the East End we are lucky enough to be surrounded by two nationally recognized estuaries, the Long Island Sound and the Peconic Bays. This is a very big deal because out of the hundreds or more estuaries in the country only 28 have this special designation, highlighting the importance of these habitats.  Estuaries are sometimes called the “nursery of the sea,” because over 75% of all commercially important marine species depend upon healthy estuaries and many use them as spawning grounds and safe habitats for young.  This means that estuaries are not only important for wildlife diversity, recreational opportunities, amazing vistas, tourism, and a variety of ecosystem services, but also for their economic value. 

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