Community Partners
MCLA maintains relationships with many regional and statewide
environmental groups including the Hoosic River Watershed Association
(HooRWA), the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation (WRLF), the Center for
Ecological Technology (CET), Berkshire Photovoltaic Services, Nature's
Classroom, the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC), the Friends
of Pontoosuc Lake (FoPL), and the Williams College Center for
Environmental Studies (CES). Many of our students have completed
internships with these community partners, and experts from these agencies
and organizations have presented seminars at MCLA.
In the Fall of 2005, MCLA students assisted the Friends of Pontoosuc Lake in
surveying the Pontoosuc Lake Watershed. Students participated in a pizza-fueled training session at nearby Williams College, for several hours before embarking on this adventure. During the next several weeks, students paired up in small groups, then travelled to different predetermined locations around the watershed, searching for non-point-source pollution and other factors to help determine what was getting into the lake.
These images were taken aboard a pontoon boat provided courteously by U-Drive Rent-A-Boat, a private enterprise located on Pontoosuc Lake. A Fall 2005 Introduction to Environmental Studies class helped Friends of Pontoosuc Lake take measurements of the lake to help assess its health. Measurements were taken at the lake of dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, temperature, and visibility. Samples were then brought back to the Environmental Studies lab at MCLA's Venable Hall where phytoplankton and zooplankton were identified under microscopes and meticulously cataloged.
Students in a Fall 2006 Methods of Environmental Research class assisted a local researcher with tracking and monitoring wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta), a ‘Species of Special Concern’ in Massachusetts waterways. One male and two female turtles are currently being tracked in this research project. This particular female turtle (pictured below right) is approximately 35 years old.
Researchers are trying to determine the health of this wood turtle population. So far, only adults have been spotted. An important question being asked by researchers is, where are the young turtles? Are they well hidden? Are they being eaten by preditors? Is something in the environment causing them harm? Here, students get practical experience with real world situations.
One of the more popular programs with Environmental Studies students at MCLA is participation in Project Owlnet. Here, students assist with the study of Saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus) ecology, in cooperation with the federally licensed banding station in nearby Williamstown.
These remarkably well adapted flying predators of small vertebrates are lured into mist nets, carefully removed, weighed, sized, measured, and sexed, before being returned to their migratory routes. Students enjoy the close encounter with this small predator that looks more like a cuddly toy than the ferocious preditor of the deer mouse that it truly is.
