Fall Skills Project

Byron and Elaine hosting the Native Wildflowers table for Nature in a Nutshell.

On Tuesday, October 13 the cohort of 2015 held its culminating skills activity, “Nature in a Nutshell” at Bridgewater Retirement Community (BRC). Headwaters Master Naturalist members, trainees and residents at BRC considered the event a big success.

Trainees had worked as a group to develop, organize and implement an afternoon activity for the residents at BRC. Class members combined personal interests and talents together with recently learned HMN skills to offer a fun afternoon of nature exploration and interaction.

Stations open to guests included: Fall Colors, Native Wildflowers, Flood Events in Bridgewater, VA, and Birds of Our Area. The display boards and hands-on activities drew residents into the stations and the interactions began. Residents were encouraged to share their memories and knowledge, and share they did! Some of the residents had been in the area during some historic flood events and shared their experiences. Many of our guests enjoyed sharing their knowledge of wildflowers and birds. Another guest shared titles of some of her favorite books about nature. They included:

What Has Nature Ever Done for Us? By Tony Juniper
Seeds of Hope by Jane Goodall
Blue Gold by Maude Barlow and Tony Clark

A few short days after the event, the trainees reviewed its successes and areas that might have been improved upon. The group agreed that flexibility and communication as a team played an important role in the process. While we may have “advertised” a bit more and increased the number of attendees, the small group and one-on-one interactions were seen as very rewarding. Ginny and Brian were praised for their sense of fun in wearing life jackets as they shared information about local flood events. What a great reminder to not take ourselves too seriously!

Cohort 2015 thanks all of our supporting naturalists and our class leader, RoxAnna Theiss for helping with the event.
– Kathy Byers, Training Class 2015