BCC Faculty Sponsors:

• Thomas Tyning

• Timothy Hickey

• Bruce Winn

 

ENV-101 Conservation of Natural Resources

 

Thomas Tyning: Service-Learning Project List

 

 BCC Green Team – On campus

Attend monthly meetings on Fridays at 1:30-2:30.

Assist with BCC’s Zero Waste campaign by educating the campus community on composting, recycling and waste reduction. Students are needed during breakfast and lunchtime hours in the BCC Cafeteria to raise awareness and educate students, faculty and staff how to compost at BCC. Students will design a name tag or badge to distinguish themselves as a BCC Green Team member.

Green Team – Building Renovation Stewards:

BCC is renovating its classroom buildings! Students are needed to assist faculty and staff with cleaning out offices using principles of reduce, reuse, recycle. Choose a building (or a floor) to work with. Moving is not fun and change can be hard. Friendly Renovation Stewards will make the transition easy, fun and green!

Renovation Stewards will hand out boxes for faculty & staff to fill with documents that need to be recycled or shredded and then collect them on a weekly basis. (Depending on confidentiality of documents & college policies, students could transfer the documents to the locked shredding bins.) Additional boxes would be distributed and collected for books (campus book sale or swap, donation or recycling) and office supplies to be redistributed among college people and/or donated to Goodwill. Stewards help organize reuse & re-purpose events.

Steward will also assist Green Team with promotion, gathering & moving material to be processed on Shredding Day on Saturday, Nov. 1st coincide with the increased volume of documents generated by the college.

 

MASSPIRG – On Campus

Public Transportation Campaign

The public transportation system in Massachusetts is inefficient and expensive. In Berkshire County many people rely on buses to get around, but too often the system is unreliable. Right now, our State Representatives are working on restructuring the public transportation system across the state, so we have a great opportunity to rally public support so that people in Berkshire County can voice their concerns.

As a volunteer on the Public Transit Campaign you might:
– Coordinate a Pledge-to-Ride Day to interview people about their experiences as a way to expose the problem and distribute information for riders, possibly to be made into a video
– Research/distribute information about BRTA and other local public transit systems such as bus schedules and route maps
– Coordinate letter-writing and call-in events to give people in Berkshire County a strong voice on the issue of public transportation

 

 Project Native

Project Native is a 54 acre farm in Housatonic with the mission to inspire the stewardship of natural resources by cultivating native plants and restoring our local landscape. Our property has an 8 acre native plant nursery, 20 acre native seed bank, native butterfly house, gardens, wildlife sanctuary, a small retail shop and education facility. Community members who volunteer at Project Native are welcome to customize their experience by choosing workdays and hours as well as area of focus. Main tasks differ through out the season but the emphasis is on conserving and enhancing natural habitat, organic growing practices, seed saving and propagation.

Fall (September – December)

Throughout the fall and winter the main focus is on collecting, cleaning, storing, mixing and propagating native seeds, preparing nursery plants, seedbank and gardens for winter.

Greenhouse and Propagation

• Harvest and clean seed
• Sow seeds for spring germination
• Transplant nursery plants
• Water, weed and mulch nursery plants
• Continue insect control using integrated pest management
• Fertilize

Grounds

• Weed and mulch gardens and seedbank beds
• Remove invasive species

 

Berkshire Natural Resources Council- Position Description

Location: Berkshire County trails and open spaces

Locating and marking boundaries of open land.  Using surveys and deed descriptions, we will locate on-the-ground boundary markers and mark that boundary to reduce the chance of encroachment on open lands. Working with BNRC staff, students will help locate boundaries using the above data sources.

Schedule: At least 4 hours per service day. Weekdays & weekends available. Plan to go on 2-3 outtings with BNRC staff.

 

Pittsfield Tree Watch

Learn about “street trees” and how to grow, protect and preserve our local trees from Pittsfield Tree Watch experts. Did you know that Pittsfield was designated “Tree City USA” in 2004? Volunteers at Pittsfield Tree Watch work with the City of Pittsfield, Parks Department and Pittsfield Beautiful to grow and maintain all the trees in the city. They have a tree garden at Canoe Meadows in Pittsfield.

Students are needed to survey local trees for “heritage” status (i.e. trees of a certain age and diameter) and find specimen trees (superior trees of all types.) You can even start here with trees on the BCC Campus! Students will be trained by experts on how to grow trees, identify heritage and specimen trees as well as discovering pest problems. Students will write up findings and present it to Pittsfield Tree Watch.

Project days and times are flexible.

 

 Housatonic Valley River Association

Location: Pittsfield, Lee, Stockbridge (Housatonic River)

Volunteers are needed to collect stream data to update reports with the current status of the river and tributaries. Students will walk (and possibly paddle) a section of the Housatonic River to record observations and GPS coordinates of things of interest such as storm water outfalls, invasive species, trash and wildlife. Students will work alongside HVA staff. HVA will provide training and equipment. The information will guide HVA’s work for the next 10 years. The last stream team report, completed 10 years ago on the East Branch, indicated a stretch that would be suitable for a river trail. As a result, a river trail known as The Old Mill Trail was created.

Times and days are flexible.

 

IS183 Art School Position Description

Assisting art teachers and working with kids in the Learning through the Arts after school programs teaching Science at various elementary and middle schools.

 
Berkshire Humane Society – Pittsfield

Provide needed care for dogs and cats. Commitment of at least 3 months/3 hours per week. volunteering-at-the-bhs

Berkshire Museum – Pittsfield

– Care for aquatic life including fish, turtles and snakes while learning about museum exhibits.
Berkshire Museum web site

 

Greenagers

Phenology Trail Interns (2 positions available)

Will Conklin, Greenagers

33 Rossetter Street

Great Barrington, MA 01230

Office phone: 413-644-9090

Project Supervisor:  Contact first to schedule an interview.

Collin Adkins, Service Learning Coordinator, MassLIFT-Americorps member

americorps@greenagers.org

508-471-0184

1.      Description of agency mission and functions: Greenagers is a youth environmental organization based in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. The mission of Greenagers is simply stated: youth working to strengthen the environment and our community. The goal of Greenagers programming is to increase youth community engagement and raise awareness of environmental issues through productive labor in local agricultural and conservation work.

2.      Description of service-learning positions and responsibilities:As part of a collaborative project with several agencies in the Southern Berkshires, Greenagers is assisting to implement a phenology trail within the trail network of Great Barrington. Phenology refers to key seasonal changes in plants and animals from year to year—such as flowering, emergence of insects and migration of birds—especially their timing and relationship with weather and climate. Greenagers is seeking two enthusiastic individuals to help with a variety of tasks pertaining to the phenology trail’s installation and monitoring including but not limited to creating education materials, installation of phenology sites, light trail maintenance, and simple data entry. Particularly motivated individuals may also have the opportunity to co-lead educational hikes and programs.

3.      Essential knowledge, skills and qualifications needed to work at this agency:An appreciation for Earth’s natural systems, basic computer knowledge and a willingness to learn are all that the position requires.  Personal transportation is required.

4.      How will students be oriented to this agency: Students will be oriented by the project supervisor at the Greenagers Office as well as through attending the occasional meeting and/or observation of Greenagers programming.

5.       Schedule of SL projects (ie. dates, days and hours SL students are needed.) Preparation and gathering of materials (Jan-Feb), Installation of Phenology Trail (Mar-Apr), First educational program: Phenology Walk (Earth Day 2014), Educational programs/trail monitoring/maintenance/data entry (Apr-May)

Hours can be flexible to fit students’ agenda, Monday through Friday.

6.      Nature and extent of supervision provided participants (Example: daily, weekly, individually, in a group.)Students should expect to work individually but with frequent communication with the project supervisor either in person, via email, or by phone. Students will have the opportunity to be more involved commensurate with their schedule and motivation.

AMC-Berkshire

1 Youth Volunteer Outreach Intern position available