Field Skills Workshops
A field station is a tremendous resource, and one way to visit and use the station is to attend a workshop. Ongoing biodiversity and environmental projects in different habitats provide year-round opportunities. Participants learn while contributing to a census or environmental monitoring and experience being part of a field science team to conduct field work which may also include laboratory time and data handling. It starts with a lecture and overview of the project but tours Nantucket too!
We are always thrilled to have a group of students join us on to experience the outdoors in our special habitats while picking up new skills and knowledge. Workshops and events provide short term visits where interested students can for example learn how to census what lives in these habitats.
One opportunity is participating in the Nantucket Christmas Bird Count. The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) takes place all over the world and is an impressive long term Audubon bird census. This typically takes place between the end of December and early January.
Seasonal beach and marsh workshops will get students out in the field systematically documenting or BioBlitzing life and environmental conditions in this dynamic habitat.
Spring break brings opportunity to give back in service with the Beacon Voyagers for Service visit, or to come down to learn how to survey the spring intertidal life on the station beach.
We also monitor invasive species and our eelgrass in the harbor.
Stay tuned for summer events and workshops!
Spring Intertidal Survey Workshop
In March, our intertidal workshop introduces students to intertidal survey methods which translate to many other habitats. We document macroalgae found on our cobble beach along with whatever else lives there. Algae, snails, mussels, crabs and more! To be repeated seasonally.
Students help set up the transects and photo plots to be used seasonally to monitor what is living on our cobble beach. We will also record the profile of the beach, how step it is as you walk towards the water. What we find we identify, count and log. Similar types of workshops will run in the marsh and in the eelgrass beds later in the year.
If you are interested in any of these types of workshops or learning about other projects, contact the director, Yvonne Vaillancourt. Workshops are a great way to gain experience in the field, in the lab and with experimental set up. You spend a lot of time outside immersed in the environment and leave learning a lot about the communities in those habitats.
There is a fee for overnight workshop participation and cost varies with number of overnights. There are also free public events you can visit and be part of.