April 22 is special for The Vermont Institute of Natural Science. The Upper Valley institution was founded more than 50 years ago in 1970, around the time of the first ever Earth Day.“1970 was the first Earth Day and that is also the time that there were some citizens who were gathering together to clean up the river,” said Alden Smith, executive director of VINS. “And once they were really successful at that, they also knew they wanted to leverage all of the community partnerships that they had developed to found an organization that could help them, inspire others to care for nature as much as they did.”Their nature center in Quechee will be doing the usual raptor shows all week to celebrate but will also have an intro to bird ID presentation on Tuesday and a film screening of Overland on Saturday.“What we’re trying to do is to try to scale out our programs to meet the kind of needs that the world has right now for education, about the environment, protection of biodiversity and the kind of watersheds beyond the Ottauquechee that we need to be focused on now,” Smith said.Families and students chose to spend their earth day with VINS on Monday, like Emmett Beiner, whose favorite part was “the birds,” he said. VINS has put a lot of money into facilities over the past five or so years. That includes the Forest Canopy Walk that gives visitors a birds-eye view of the forest and wetlands below. The Songbird Aviary, another newer addition, is a chance to be up close and personal with the animals. A crucial part of VINS’ mission is their Center for Wild Bird Rehabilitation & Ambassador Care.The organization’s rehabilitators treat over 1,000 injured, orphaned or sick birds from throughout Vermont and New Hampshire every year. That’s one of the driving factors of educating the youth of the region, on Earth Day and every day, according to staff. “To help inspire them to move toward not just observation of the natural world, but also move toward collective action and think about what can we do to protect the biodiversity around us,” Smith said.Even if you’ve been to VINS before, there are plenty of new exhibits to entertain the whole family in celebration of Earth Day.
April 22 is special for The Vermont Institute of Natural Science. The Upper Valley institution was founded more than 50 years ago in 1970, around the time of the first ever Earth Day.
“1970 was the first Earth Day and that is also the time that there were some citizens who were gathering together to clean up the river,” said Alden Smith, executive director of VINS. “And once they were really successful at that, they also knew they wanted to leverage all of the community partnerships that they had developed to found an organization that could help them, inspire others to care for nature as much as they did.”
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Their nature center in Quechee will be doing the usual raptor shows all week to celebrate but will also have an intro to bird ID presentation on Tuesday and a film screening of Overland on Saturday.
“What we’re trying to do is to try to scale out our programs to meet the kind of needs that the world has right now for education, about the environment, protection of biodiversity and the kind of watersheds beyond the Ottauquechee that we need to be focused on now,” Smith said.
Families and students chose to spend their earth day with VINS on Monday, like Emmett Beiner, whose favorite part was “the birds,” he said.
VINS has put a lot of money into facilities over the past five or so years. That includes the Forest Canopy Walk that gives visitors a birds-eye view of the forest and wetlands below.
The Songbird Aviary, another newer addition, is a chance to be up close and personal with the animals.
A crucial part of VINS’ mission is their Center for Wild Bird Rehabilitation & Ambassador Care.
The organization’s rehabilitators treat over 1,000 injured, orphaned or sick birds from throughout Vermont and New Hampshire every year. That’s one of the driving factors of educating the youth of the region, on Earth Day and every day, according to staff.
“To help inspire them to move toward not just observation of the natural world, but also move toward collective action and think about what can we do to protect the biodiversity around us,” Smith said.
Even if you’ve been to VINS before, there are plenty of new exhibits to entertain the whole family in celebration of Earth Day.