Field Trip to Harvard Forest Museum and Trails

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Program Description

Museum on Main Street

Crossroads is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and state humanities councils nationwide. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.

Event Details

This will be a free bus trip to view the dioramas at the Harvard Fores's Fisher Museum, followed by a guided woods walk. 

We’ll meet at 9:30 in the parking lot of the Athol Public Library, board the bus, and travel to Petersham together.

Our guides will be Katherine Hinkle, Schoolyard Ecology Program Coordinator, and Great VanScoy, Education Coordinator & Field Technician.    

Program participants will view 23 internationally acclaimed dioramas in Harvard Forest’s Fisher Museum. Seven of the dioramas form a historical series depicting 230 years of landscape change in central New England, beginning with European colonization in 1700. The remaining dioramas portray 20th-century forest management techniques and a series of conservation challenges including erosion and fire.

Following the diorama tour, participants are invited on an outdoor tour to visit several research sites with natural history content along the way. Highlights include:

    • the world’s longest-running climate research experiments – eddy flux towers measuring forest carbon storage; a large area of experimentally warmed forest soils
    • Research in an Eastern Hemlock stand in decline due to the invasive Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, an insect that has already killed millions of trees in the US
    • The 35-hectare Global Earth Observatory study plot

We’ll be walking approximately 1.5 miles, mostly on wide, dirt logging roads. Wear sturdy shoes and please be prepared for biting insects (insect repellent and/or hats may be helpful).

Attendees are welcome to bring a bag lunch and picnic on the grounds.

Note:  There will be an opportunity to split into two groups and offer a shorter walk, if desired. The museum and bathrooms are fully accessible, and there is accessible parking on site for participants who wish to take their own vehicles.

https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/fisher-museum