Have you ever gotten a botany lesson from the top of a mountain? In the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, you don't just hike to see the grand views from the summits: the Adirondack Mountain Club wants to make sure you take a little bit of the mountains' extensive knowledge back with you.
While climbing Cascade and Porter Mountains this past summer, I noticed a blockage in the trail up ahead. I moved to the side to let the people coming from the summit pass the ascending family in front of me as well as myself, when a woman in the descending party asked if the family wanted to learn about lichen.
Lichen? Really? I mean, I love plants and all, but I was on a mission: I was trying to summit four peaks as fast as I could in a day! While the family decided to stay, I thought otherwise. Just as I was about to pass the couple and their son, I overheard the naturalist describing how lichen are a symbiotic conglomeration of algal and fungal cells, and they can survive thousands of years, even in dry environments. The biologist in me stirred, and I slowed down and listened to this woman, who was blazing a "Summit Steward" patch on her shirt sleeve, talk about the ecological importance of a such a small plant.
Many people every summer day run to the highest mountains in the Adirondacks in the name of conservation and science, except they are not necessarily researchers or scientists. These men and women are volunteers of the Adirondack Mountain Club's Summit Steward Program, and they sit as guardians of the summits, shielding the fragile plants hanging onto what little soil there is in the crevices of the peaks from the heavy boot of the hiker. They build rock pathways and cairns that guide backpackers safely up the mountain and away from endangered alpine plants, as well as teach people of the importance each little plant has in the grand Adirondack ecosystem.
These Summit Stewards, more like saviors, climb these high peaks day in and out to plant a seed in every hiker, in the hopes it will grow into a love of the wilderness and respect for the Adirondacks that will lead to future conservation of nature.
Work Cited:
http://botanydictionary.org/lichen.html
Educating people about wilderness is the easiest way to get them to respect it. Once you know how much we depend on natural resources and processes, it's hard to justify exploiting nature. I went on a trip last year in which the leader brought us to the top of a mountain once night fell and taught us about astronomy. It was beautiful and the lesson was captivating. The outdoors are a wonderful classroom where we can apply the things we've learned in our actual classrooms at school. It's really important for the sake of all organisms that we educate ourselves on wilderness, so that we can protect it.
ReplyDeleteNow this isn't related to the application of scientific or book-based knowledge to the outdoors, but outdoor education is something that is obviously related to the Adirondacks. In the fall I co-taught the whitewater seminar through HOC, and Andrew Jillings gave me feedback after ever skill I demonstrated. It was great feedback, and I'm very grateful to have had that experience to improve my teaching skills. The one thing Andrew told me that I will never forget is that an instructor should always have the sun in his or her eyes while instructing, so that the participants never do. This is almost aways applicable when teaching in the outdoors (unless it's cloudy) and when I remember to face the sun, I feel like a really good instructor.