The Wrack

Volunteers like Ed and Amy Francis ponder the marvelous minnow and other questions of coastal ecology.

In recent years, we've been excited to see a rise in the number of students visiting the Wells Reserve to participate in guided and self-guided programs. Last year, I wrote about how remarkable the increase was between 2013 and 2014, and this year the trend continued steadily. In 2015, our skilled team of volunteer docents led a total of 1,291 students on guided program on our estuarine trails, up slightly from last year's 1,219. Additionally, 533 students visited the Reserve with their teachers to explore the estuary on self-guided trips, up from 435 in 2014.

While the increases are not the giant leaps they were from the previous year, 2015 saw a significant shift in the ratio of docent leaders to students thanks to a cohort of new docents who attended our successful Volunteer Fair back in February. With more leaders, we were able to lead students in smaller groups, allowing for more individualized discovery and time to explore all of their curious questions!

The numbers are great to see, but until this year we were missing an opportunity to tell another story about our reach: where in the world are all of these students coming from (literally!)? Here's part of the answer:

Last week, we wrapped up one of the busiest school program seasons to date. Beginning the last week of April, school kids and teachers from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont (!) explored the trails here at the Wells Reserve. Some came for self-guided discovery, but many more learned from our team of volunteer docents a wealth of information about estuaries, wildlife, habitats, water quality, and much more. Today we celebrated their hard work leading these students in temperatures that ranged from 45F to 85F, in drizzle and shining sun, and learned just how big their impact was with a candy guessing game during our end-of-season potluck!

Some 1,200 students participated in 49 field trip programs during spring and fall this year. Thank you, docents and teachers!

In early November, we wrapped up the last of our fall school programs here at the Reserve. The season was packed with field trips, with students from all over visiting to learn about our estuaries, plankton, water quality, forest ecology, and much more. We couldn't provide these programs without the dedication of our enthusiastic crew of volunteer docents who lead them, so thank you, thank you to all of them! Cong…

Sixty-six second graders from South Berwick are out on the trails today, split into groups with six Wells Reserve docents. It's cool and gray, but most of them are prepared for their couple of hours in the woods, along the salt marsh, and on the beach.