It's Sweet to Learn Close to a Forest

Powder Major's Farm fuels school's maple syrup production

March 28, 2016

Tags:: Powder Major's Forest

“I just struck gold!”

“This one is really, REALLY full!”

“Ready? Let’s run, okay?”

The day is amazingly warm for March, and kids shout exuberantly in the sunshine as they dart to a row of huge granddaddy maple trees to lift the lids of the silver pails hung on their trunks.

On this Saturday morning in Madbury, kids dressed in light jackets are on a mission to gather buckets of maple sap and dump them into large tubs in a wagon at the Powder Major's Farm, a Revolution-era farm featuring a mature sugarbush.

They lug and laugh, pour and splash. Some of the sap soaks into shoes; most of it makes it into the tubs. Parents and volunteers help as needed, encouraging and celebrating the haul.

Then volunteer Jim Davis, a jolly, mustached retired firefighter, drives the tractor and wagon down the road to the sugar house at Moharimet Elementary School, where students from kindergarten through grade four will get to help produce maple syrup for their community --somewhere between 50 and 75 gallons, depending on the sap run.

As this scene attests, something sweet and strong and life affirming happens every spring in Madbury. It’s all about the proximity of trees and people who are wise to the nurturing gifts in nature.

It started with just a couple of teachers in the early ‘90s tapping a maple tree and boiling off the sap to show their students how maple syrup is made. As the years passed, more teachers got involved, more volunteers stepped up and they tapped more trees and boiled more sap on a stove in the parking lot. By 2001, the community rallied with volunteers and donations to build a beautiful sugar shack on school grounds. Now each spring, it steams to life as sap is boiled in the big stainless steel evaporator and excited students walk over for lessons, tastings and to bring more buckets of sap throughout the sugaring season. Some sap comes from the school property while most of it comes from the Powder Major Farm nearby, where the owners, the Goss family, welcome them each spring.

After the last jug is filled, the community celebrates with a huge pancake breakfast that brings together some 900 people to enjoy the fruits of the labor presented by some very proud students.

While they’re having fun, the kids learn. A lot.

“This has become a major part of the curriculum of the school,” Davis said. “This is not a field trip; this is not something we do for a couple of weeks in the springtime. Every class is engaged at some level or another.”

Teachers use the sugarmaking program however their creativity leads, so some may do maple math with ratios (40 gallons of sap = 1 gallon of syrup) or graphing the amount of sap collected, while others may use it to teach evaporation and condensation, poetry, the life cycle of trees, the history of sugarmaking… the applications are endless.

Principal Dennis Harrington has led the school for 28 years and has supported the project from its start. He points out unequivocally that one of the reasons they do it is to make school fun.

“Having fun is not a Common Core standard, but it is one that should be in every school,” he said. “This makes the curriculum come alive and it’s (based on) the kids’ own environment where they’re living. It really is very special.”

Moharimet Elementary draws kids in kindergarten through grade four from Durham, Madbury and Lee. It’s part of the Oyster River Cooperative School District, which has made teaching environmental sustainability a district-wide initiative. Each school has a Green Team that coordinates programs for recycling, composting, energy conservation and many others.

Moharimet’s Green Team Leader Kristin Houle visits classrooms to support teachers and coordinates sugarmaking activities with a core group of volunteers. They teach the kids how to tap the trees and how the whole sugarmaking process works. One of the latest initiatives is to forego Styrofoam plates at the pancake breakfast in favor of more sustainable alternatives.

“We’re creating a culture of sustainability,” said Harrington, with the goal of helping kids develop an understanding of their environment and mutual respect for people and nature.

So basically they’re trying to produce sweet people and sweet syrup at the same time. Time spent in forests can yield both.

There is a form of economic recycling going on in the sugarmaking, too. The pancake breakfast is a fund raiser, and proceeds go back into the maple program. Though Davis said the operation will soon meet state regulations for the selling of maple syrup, for now the state Dept. of Agriculture has supported their tradition of making jugs of syrup available to parents and community members on a “donations suggested” basis. Those donations then go right back into the program so that it is self-sustaining.

An elementary school running its own sugarmaking operation is a unique feat. For the folks who have fostered its growth over the years, the benefits are clear and far reaching.

Harrington gives personal exit interviews to every fourth grader who graduates from the school, and he said that most of the students mention the maple syrup experience, spending time in the woods during the school day, and the culminating pancake breakfast.

Those memories, Davis said, are what will stick.

“It’s heartwarming to hear what they remember year to year,” he said, “which means you’ve left something there.”

Revolution-Era Farm is Part of Community Conservation Project

Though the sugarshack and a 27-acre forest are on Moharimet Elementary School property in Madbury, more than half of the students’ sap collecting actually happens on the adjoining farm. The farm’s owners, the Goss family, welcome the students each spring. The Goss farm is a Revolution-era farm with towering sugar maples lining the long driveway and growing in a sugarbush not far from the farmhouse.

The farm is already a community resource thanks to the Goss family’s generosity, but it may soon become much more so. The towns of Madbury, Lee and Durham (the farm extends into all three) are working with the Forest Society to conserve 195 acres of the farm’s forestlands by buying the land and creating a conservation area there for use as a community resource for hiking, hunting, horseback riding, cross-country skiing and other low-impact recreation.

The new conservation area would be called The Powder Major’s Farm and Forest, because the land once belonged to Maj. John Demeritt, a local Revolutionary War figure. He became known as the Powder Major after hiding gunpowder on his property and then taking it by oxcart to the Continental Army for use in the Battle of Bunker Hill. There’s another interesting historic tie-in here: The land was once the planting grounds for a Native American chief named Moharimet, for whom Moharimet Elementary is named.

The land is not only close to the elementary school but it is also just behind the playing fields managed by the Oyster River Youth Association. A 10-mile trail system already exists on the property, which hosts a quarter mile of the Oyster River, a drinking water source for Durham and UNH.

You can find out more about this conservation project at www.forestsociety.org.

News

Community Conservation

Dave Anderson | October 23, 2017

Traditionally, dividends cited by land trusts working to conserve tracts of open space are quantified in ecological terms: protecting the ecology of forests, water quality and habitats for native wildlife. Economic values of conserving forests include clean air, clean community drinking water supplies and opportunities for sustainable forest management to yield wood products and revenue to pay property taxes. Well-managed forestland can often pay for ownership costs.

With a shift in focus to the “people side” of the conservation ledger, the social benefits include recreation access – places to hike or walk dogs. Scenic beauty, quality of life, serenity and spiritual renewal are less tangible values. Many NH communities wrangle with a Master Plan goal to “retain rural character” – those remaining undeveloped farms, forests, mountains; clean rivers and lakes and open space. Land conservation advocates appeal to our New Hampshire sense of place.

If that were not enough, communities also benefit from local conservation land when their students use the land for learning, perhaps its highest and best use.

Students Take Action

Last year, students in the Oyster River High School Sustainability Club helped the Forest Society to permanently protect the new “Powder Major Forest” located along the Oyster River in Madbury, Durham and Lee. The conservation price tag was $2.2 million for 193 sprawling acres now permanently owned by the Forest Society and for the purchase of a conservation easement on the adjacent private 33-acre Powder Major Farm. The Town of Madbury donated a second conservation easement on its adjacent 60 acres for a grand total of 286 acres permanently conserved.

Students in the club raised awareness and funds during community events held at the property: a pie auction and a hugely successful spaghetti dinner with music and raffle prizes as students prepared the meal, served guests and cleaned-up while donating all proceeds to the protection of Powder Major Forest.

It worked. That commitment to public relations and fundraising inspired more generosity from donors and public agencies integral to the success of the fundraising campaign. Students rolled up their sleeves, donned aprons, enlisted friends and families and hosted events designed to protect a significant tract of forestland in their community.

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A Full Circle Kind of Day

Now students from Oyster River are shaping the future of Powder Major Forest as an environmental science laboratory, an outdoor classroom. Oyster River High School science teacher Jon Bromley, said “it felt like a full circle kind of day” when his biology students and students in Kara Sullivan’s “Literature and the Land” classes enjoyed an outdoor classroom experience at Powder Major Forest.

Kara Sullivan offered: “It’s essential that students engage with the natural environment while they are reading about the land and writing about their own experiences within it. Students focus on a land site and observe changes in that site over time so their own understanding of the land is imperative to their growing engagement with the land. The ‘Literature and the Land’ course is built around our connection to the environment and specifically our land use philosophy.”

Oyster River High School already has an on-campus tract of forestland – the “Oyster River Natural Area” where students set up study plots to count and measure trees, inventory vegetation, look for invasive species and collect soil samples.

At nearby Powder Major Forest, student teams set-up temporary 15 x 15 meter plots to count and measure the diameter and circumference of trees and record the presence or absence of invasive plants. Students obtain soil samples from the corners of each plot. Mr. Bromley dugs temporary soil pits to reveal the layers of soil “horizons” which contrast in color and texture.

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While working to investigate the trees and soil, students better understand the influences of a long human history of agriculture and the role of soils in shaping forest composition. While hiking the trails at Powder Major, students visited several distinct forest communities and made journal entries - looking for similarities and differences with the on-campus natural area back at Oyster River High School.

Jon Bromley reflects on the student experience thus far:

“As I’ve worked with students to study forests in a scientific sense, I feel the kids are starting to develop a greater land ethic. That ethic helps them understand their place in nature and how their actions affect - and are affected - by nature.”

For Bromley, getting students outside to collect data and make observations helps them become more connected to the land. “By doing science in the woods, it helps kids slow down to really see what’s in front of them so that they can enjoy the beauty and meaning of nature. So while I tend to start with science - always trying to quantify something – I think that draws out of students a sense of meaning that wouldn’t have been there if we hadn’t started with the science. Using real places like Oyster River Natural Area and the Powder Major Forest provides context for learning science but also for developing a land ethic and a sense of stewardship and belonging.”

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The Forest Society is working to protect and manage our forest reservations and seek partnerships with local schools - particularly in southern NH communities where students may have less familiarity with natural resources. Partnering with local schools creates student learning opportunities on conservation land. We’re creating new outdoor classroom pilot programs at Mt. Major in Alton and at the Powder Major Forest in Madbury, Durham and Lee.

Feast Raises Funds for the Forest

December 28, 2016

DURHAM – Dec. 12, 2016 – As diners left the Oyster River High School’s cafeteria Friday night and students cleaned tables and washed dishes, Lauren Quest, a senior and co-leader of the school’s Sustainability Club, smiled and shook her head in amazement.

“I am ecstatic with the outcome of this event,” she said. “We did better than we could possibly have imagined.”

The Sustainability Club’s Italian buffet and raffle filled every table in the room, and by the time the diners ate the last meatballs and celebrated the last winning raffle ticket holder, $4,295 had come in for the Powder Major’s Farm and Forest conservation project, a collaborative effort of the Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests (Forest Society) and the towns of Durham, Madbury and Lee to conserve nearly 300 acres of land located in all three towns.

“It is heartening to see such strong community support for conserving the Powder Major’s Farm and Forest, and we’re really excited to see the younger generation working to save what’s special about their own community,” said Susanne Kibler-Hacker, the Forest Society’s vice president of development.

“Now we hope the older generation will give these kids a lasting gift by helping us raise the remaining $346,000 in private funding we need to complete the project by the end of the year,” she said.

Several businesses donated more than $2,400 in goods and services for the club’s raffle. NEMO Equipment, Seven Rivers Paddling, Eureka! and Jetboil donated tents, sleeping bags, kayak rentals and other items for the raffle.

Guest speaker Dave Anderson, the Forest Society’s director of education, brought a glass of tap water to the podium and sipped it during his talk to highlight one of the major goals of the project, to preserve the water quality of the Oyster River, a drinking water source for Durham.

“This is good water,” he said with a grin. “I wonder where it’s from?”

Sustainability Club co-leader Nicholas Dundorf also spoke, looking ahead to the creation of a new community resource.

“This is the people’s land,” he said, “It’s for all of us to share.”

Jon Bromley, the ORHS science teacher who advises the Sustainability Club, said before the event that club members wanted to raise awareness about an opportunity to safeguard important natural resources in their community that might otherwise be lost to development.

“From so many levels – environmentally, educationally, culturally, historically – it is too important of a property to see it go to housing,” Bromley said.

The Forest Society has raised the bulk of the $2.25 million project costs through a combination of public and private grants and donations and is in the final stretch to raise the remaining funds. For more information or to donate to the project, visit www.forestsociety.org/powder_major.

Nature-Minded Donors Turn $100,000 into $200,000 for Powder Major’s Farm Project

November 10, 2016

Donors giving anywhere from $10 to $10,000 have helped the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests (Forest Society) to claim a matching $100,000 challenge grant in support of the $2.25 million Powder Major’s Farm and Forest Conservation Project.

The Thomas W. Haas Fund of the N.H. Charitable Foundation issued the challenge grant in August, promising to match the next $100,000 raised in a regional effort to create a new conservation and recreation area on land being sold in the towns of Madbury, Durham and Lee.

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“There are 229 acres of tremendous regional, ecological importance at stake in the Powder Major’s Farm project, and reaching this goal underlines the broad community support this project has,” said Jane Difley, the Forest Society’s president/forester. “It inspires us to keep working hard to protect this land from future development.”

The Forest Society is working to raise $2.25 million by the end of the year to complete the project’s three components. The first is to buy a 195-acre property, located behind Tibbetts Field on Route 155 in Madbury and extending into Durham and Lee, from the current landowners. The land contains an extensive trail system and frontage on the Oyster River, a drinking water source for the town of Durham, including the University of New Hampshire campus. It’s known as the Powder Major’s Farm because in the Revolutionary War era it was owned by the “Powder Major” John Demeritt, known locally for hiding stolen British gunpowder on the farm. If successful in its fundraising campaign, the Forest Society will manage this land as a forest reservation that will protect the water quality of the Oyster River and Great Bay, provide public recreation opportunities and protect wildlife habitat.

The second component of the project is to protect an abutting, 34-acre agricultural property by buying a conservation easement on it from the landowners, and the third component is to accept and manage a donated conservation easement on an abutting 60-acre parcel owned by the town of Madbury.

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The Forest Society has raised nearly $1.5 million in grants and donations so far, and is reaching out to community members and applying for additional grants to raise the remaining $750,000 needed to complete the project by the end of the year.

“We’ve applied for about $350,000 in additional grants, and we’re reaching out to community members to help us raise the remaining $400,000 needed to keep this incredible property from being sold on the open market and very likely into development,” said Martha Twombly, capital campaign specialist for the Forest Society.

The Forest Society has been working with the three towns and community groups to hold guided hikes on the property, field trips for local students and fundraising events. The next event is a fundraising Italian dinner being planned for Dec. 9 at the Oyster River High School in Durham, sponsored by students in the Oyster River High School’s Sustainability Club.

“Students in the Sustainability Club have learned about this project’s importance for preserving their community’s natural resources and are really committed to helping the Powder Major’s Farm and Forest to become a reality,” Twombly said. “They’re still working out the dinner details, but we hope community members will save the date and come out to help.”

To learn more about the project, visit www.forestsociety.org/powder_major.

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