Category: Environmental Education

Oswegatchie Adventure for Buffalo Teenagers

5/16/2018

In April 30th, 42 Aquatic Ecology and Horticulture students and chaperones from McKinley High School crossed their fingers for mild weather as they prepared to explore Oswegatchie Educational Center in the Adirondack Park. For the next four days they would need to endure whatever mother nature had in store.

For most of the students, as-well-as the chaperones, this would be their first time away from home in a remote camp environment without cell or internet service. To continue this exciting story and pictorial by Russell Lis – Aquatic Ecology Teacher, click on the document link below!

Each day, students met at the flagpole for “Morning Motivation.” An inspirational quote was read by senior Aquatic Ecology student, Gerald (Last Name) and then translated by our multilingual students who were proud to share their culture and language with peers. It was an opportunity for our diverse students to showcase their linguistic abilities and to start new conversations about their lives and culture with campers and staff. Our ENL student population at McKinley is a cherished resource which offers a broader perspective than our traditional narrative. At Camp, they enriched the experiences of all students and staff who were surprised to learn something new about their classmates. CLICK HERE to view.

Sincerely,

Russell Lis
Oswegatchie Enthusiast

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Visit Adirondacks in More than One Way!

4/13/2018

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Plan your next school trip and stay at Oswegatchie on your way to The Wild Center.

In 2006, a state of the art environmental education facility was built in Tupper Lake. Its called the Wild Center and it is an amazing place. It showcases the most modern ways to see and feel the Adirondack experience. This place is jaw dropping! There may be no better way to understand 10,000 years of Adirondack ecology. To top it off, in 2017 they opened up the “Wild Walk” which takes you above the tree tops to see the forest and mountains from a new perspective.

The only problem with the Wild Center is that it’s in middle of the Adirondacks, making it difficult for a field trip from most schools to get there in a day and still be home at a reasonable time. What we are suggesting is that you find a way to close the distance, spend a night in the Adirondacks, and get to the Wild Center as they open the doors!

The Oswegatchie Educational Center is located in Croghan, NY roughly 2 hours from the Wild Center. You go up Route 812 to Route 3, and enjoy the ride till to Tupper Lake. Our youth friendly and school trip oriented location has budget friendly accommodations that can handle 90 people between 2 buildings. We can do meals, evening activities, and a variety of other services a group would need.

Imagine, you leave your school first thing in the morning and travel to Oswegatchie. Depending on your distance travelled, Oswegatchie can start hosting you whenever you need. Our staff can keep students busy outside on hikes, kayaks, a ropes course, or whatever you wish in order to tire out your students for a good night’s rest. We can even do marshmallows by the campfire! Teachers and chaperones do the overnight supervision.

The next day, students are up bright and early for pancake breakfast and out the door by 7:45 AM. 2 hours on the school bus puts you at the front door of the Wild Center by 10 AM. Enjoy the Wild Center and the Wild Walk for as many hours as you want, and hit the road. These leaves it up to you put in your last long haul home or decide where to stay next!

A few other options to make this field trip work…

Option #1 Stop at Oswegatchie on the way to Wild Center --- one night stays

Option #2 Stop at Oswegatchie after visiting the Wild Center --- one night stays

Option #3 Use Oswegatchie on the way up and on the way back --- two nights stays

We find that 5th graders are the right age for overnight trips. Kids away from home typically can handle the one night away from their parents. Middle school tends to work out well for 2 night trips. Older students tend to work well for many nights at Oswegatchie.

Any schools or groups interested in seeing more of the Adirondacks can use links like www.visitadirondacks.com to find other accommodations.

To learn more about the Wild Center, go to www.wildcenter.org .

To learn about all things Oswegatchie, go to www.oswegatchie.org .

Excelsior,
Bill Waite
Program Director

Oswegatchie Educational Center
Croghan, NY 13327

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2018 Spring Environmental Science & Leadership Training

1/4/2018

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This is the first time Oswegatchie has offered this program in the Spring in 10 years. We appreciate all who have supported these programs in the past and hopefully welcome more into this experience.

The Oswegatchie Educational Center is offering 33% funded Environmental and Leadership Development programs to be implemented at the center during the Spring of 2018. Funding for these programs has been made possible by NY Ag Education and Outreach. All secondary Agricultural Science, Environmental / Conservation CTE programs may apply for these special opportunities. See the attached Request for Proposals for requirements and details. All proposals must be postmarked or emailed by February 10th 2018 Please do not delay your proposals.

Since 2000, Oswegatchie has hosted these environmental and leadership development programs at the center. We are looking forward to giving this opportunity to your students again this year. The Oswegatchie Educational Center is situated on a 1200 acre expanse of land inside the Adirondack Park. This setting provides the perfect atmosphere for learning about our natural world. The property includes 4 bodies of water, various streams, wetlands, open fields, and woodlands ideal for environmental education. Don’t miss out on this opportunity for you and your students. Apply today!

This program will focus on winter ecology as we are unsure of what snow load will look like in advance. Oswegatchie has a an excellent fleet of snowshoes, cross country skis, and a maple sugaring operation to make a big impact.

Please contact me if you have any questions about this opportunity .

Sincerely,
Bill Waite, Program Director

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2017 Environmental Science & Leadership Training Program

9/18/2017

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To: All Secondary Agricultural Science, Environmental/Conservation CTE programs.

RE: Environmental & Leadership Development Program

The Oswegatchie Educational Center is offering 33% funded Environmental and Leadership Development programs to be implemented at the center during the November 2017. Funding for these programs has been made possible by NY Ag Education and Outreach. All secondary Agricultural Science, Environmental / Conservation CTE programs may apply for these special opportunities. See the attached Request for Proposals for requirements and details. All proposals must be postmarked or emailed by October 10th 2017 Please do not delay your proposals.

Since 2000, Oswegatchie has hosted these environmental and leadership development programs at the center. We are looking forward to giving this opportunity to your students again this year. The Oswegatchie Educational Center is situated on a 1200 acre expanse of land inside the Adirondack Park. This setting provides the perfect atmosphere for learning about our natural world. The property includes 4 bodies of water, various streams, wetlands, open fields, and woodlands ideal for environmental education. Don’t miss out on this opportunity for you and your students. Apply today!

Please contact me if you have any questions about this opportunity .

Sincerely,

Bill Waite
Program Director
wwaite@oswegatchie.org

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2016 Environmental & Leadership Programs

9/16/2016

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To: All Secondary Agricultural Science, Environmental/Conservation CTE programs.

From: Bill Waite, Program Director, Oswegatchie Educational Center

RE: Environmental & Leadership Development Program

The Oswegatchie Educational Center is offering 33% funded Environmental and Leadership Development programs to be implemented at the center during the November 2016. Funding for these programs has been made possible by NY Ag Education and Outreach. All secondary Agricultural Science, Environmental / Conservation CTE programs may apply for these special opportunities. See the attached Request for Proposals for requirements and details. All proposals must be postmarked or emailed by October 15th 2016 Please do not delay your proposals.

  Our 2016 Dates are:

                          November 6—8 Sunday to Tuesday

November 9 – 11           Wednesday to Friday

November 16 - 18 Wednesday to Friday

Since 2000, Oswegatchie has hosted these environmental and leadership development programs at the center. We are looking forward to giving this opportunity to your students again this year. The Oswegatchie Educational Center is situated on a 1200 acre expanse of land inside the Adirondack Park. This setting provides the perfect atmosphere for learning about our natural world. The property includes 4 bodies of water, various streams, wetlands, open fields, and woodlands ideal for environmental education.

If you wish to apply, please be thorough in your understanding of the program. In short, Oswegatchie does handle all of the programming, meals, and lodging. School groups are supervised by their teacher / chaperones from 8 PM to 9 AM and in-between activities. Lodging is being held in our Sutliff and Foster Lodges.

There will more than one group on site at a time as this program serves multiple schools on the particular dates. Each school will be held to a minimum of 10 students, but can bring many more than that.

Complete the 1 page application that is in the document below. We have set a goal date of having all requests in by Oct 15th. If you need more time to commit or have any questions, contact me directly at wwaite@oswegatchie.org or call (315)346-1222.

This a wonderful time to attend Oswegatchie. Weather can be fickle during this time of year, so groups will want to bring clothing for warm and cold conditions. Don’t miss out on this opportunity for you and your students. Apply today!

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Oswegatchie Goes Greener

9/9/2016

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Summer Camp starts full scale composting

This past year, Oswegatchie was invited to join Cornell Cooperative Extension of Jefferson County, 4H Camp Wabasso, and 4H Camp Overlook in implementing an EPA composting grant. After our first training with C ornell's Waste Management Institute, we began full scale composting.

For the record, Oswegatchie has been recycling glass, plastic, metals, refundable containers, and cardboard for 20 years. All of our wood scraps are reused and our horse manure is aged and used for soil. Sawmill waste is used for multiple uses. If we can reuse something, we do it. For example, when we bought a new flock of rubber ducks for our AdironDuck Race, we reused the old flock of 4,300 ducks as promotional items and gave them all away as retired racers.

After 27,000 meals, we composted 2,700 pounds of food

Catie Rowe worked as our environmental educator and shows off some of the tools of our green efforts.

Springtime for Composting

We modified two 400 gallon bins and started composting food scraps, leftovers, and napkins. We used pine shavings from our sawmill for carbon. It took us 4 weeks to get a quality composting “culture” to start up, but that was good timing. Before summer hit, the volume of food we composted increased dramatically.

In addition to our starter bins, we purchased a portable chicken coop and the Carthage FFA started up a small flock of chickens. We took possession of these birds in May and started feeding small batches of vegetable and fruit scraps. The chickens were small, so this part of the process moved slowly.

Cornell Waste Management Institute

Composting on Wikipedia

How to Compost

More Composting Advice

Composting from the Backyard Boss

Summer Camp Special

Once summer camp training started, we confirmed that our bins were not going to hold up under the load required. Luckily for us, the bins were designed to be emptied by tractor whenever needed. Each bin would be emptied 5 times throughout the summer. It was piled in the woods and mixed with manure and covered with sawdust.

During our first week of camp with 240 people to be fed, we produced just shy of 400 pounds of food. We weighed it after each meal, and determined that each camper was producing on average 1/10th of a pound of food waste & napkins per meal. As FFA Camp progressed, we ended up composting 1,950 pounds of food. We also composted another 400 pounds during our Saint Timothy’s Greek Orthodox Camp and we have averaged 50 pounds of compost a day with every other group that has come in before Labor Day.

With just the food and napkins composted from the dining hall, we estimate 2,700 pounds was kept out of landfills. This does not count the food that was recycled from the kitchen proper or for chicken feed. To add more to the grand total, we also composted all of the paper towels from our main bathrooms in Berkey Bathhouse. The only food items we did not compost were bones and grease.

As the chickens got bigger, they started eating a larger volume and variety of food scraps, including ham scraps which they loved. In an attempt to duplicate something I saw on the internet, we experimented with a chicken run. We used wire fencing to set up a large bin for the chickens to pick and scratch at bugs, food scraps, hay scraps, and horse manure. This idea seemed to work well, but we did get visits from a wood chuck that helped out. And Yes, we also received plenty of help from squirrels and chipmunks who would eat or stash food from our bins. I have found french fries stashed in trees up to 150 yards away from the bins.

Additionally, Oswegatchie offered classes on composting and chickens. Unfortunately, composting is not that exciting in comparison to high ropes and horses. We continued to offer classes, but started "hot composting minutes" at each meal. Our environmental educator would give out either instruction on how to compost or interesting trivia about composting. One example of interesting compost trivia included "Americans throw away about 10% of the food they buy at the supermarket. This results in dumping the equivalent of more than 21 million shopping bags full of food into landfills every year."

Give Me Some Shelter

I may or may not have the “hoarder’s itch”, but I have always hated throwing things away. Since working at Oswegatchie has always had that “boot strapping” approach to money. I also hate paying to have things hauled away.

If you have been to Oswegatchie, you may be familiar with the vintage lean-tos at our campsites. Many of the log cabin style structures have been in place for over 50 years. Age has been good to most of these structures, but not at Rocks Campsite. A new lean-to had been put at that campsite in recent years, but the old one was in a tough place to remove. We had a group of volunteers finally dismantle the lean-to and get it to a landing near the dumpster. After a call to our local “waste hauler”, it was learned that a “C & D” dumpster was going to cost $1,000 to remove it. Since the metal roofing had been salvaged, it was just spikes holding it together. I was able to convince others that we could hide in the woods of our 1,200 acres, cover it with a combination of horse manure, active compost, and sawdust. My hope is that within a few years, the old logs will be just about disappeared! More importantly, we saved at least $1,000 that we can reinvest somewhere else.

About a week later, a compost and recycling expert who is familiar with the north country waste stream was here. I asked him what happens to construction debris that is taken to the landfill in Rodman. He told me it just goes into the working face of the landfill and takes up that space forever. So the second best news from this side project has been that we kept at least 1,500 pounds of debris out of the landfill on top of the estimated 2,700 of composted food waste we saved just from the dining hall.

Meat and Dairy in your Compost Controversy

The one thing that is crystal clear about composting is the disagreement about what can go in your compost. Most people try to avoid meat and dairy in their bins. Honestly, at a household level it is totally legitimate. We were able to minimize the meat going into our compost simply by not being wasteful. Dairy did go in, but as an ingredient in foods like pizza and pastas. I found that whenever pastas or breads went into the bins, the bins got “hotter faster”. This basically cancelled out any problems caused by the dairy products.

If I was not going to compost, I would recommend planning better menus for your home. Menus actually prevent you from spending too much at the grocery store and keep you from wasting it later. Anything that is food should be consumed as food. You are better planning ahead since every ounce of food you toss out is literally money that you are wasting.

However, if you are feeding up to 3,500 meals a week, you will have some waste. Sorting out meat and dairy would take too long. If its meat or dairy, you need to compensate with higher levels of carbon like leaves, sawdust, or whatever you are using for browns. It’s doable and honestly gets that compost pile HOT!

Composting the Future

We plan to continue the composting effort. Cost savings are available as long as you are mindful of the composting / recycling process. The biggest change will be what we use for compost bins. Much larger wooden bins would allow us to compost with minimum effort to maintain the bins.

If you have 4 more minutes, watch the following video to see how Casella's Zero-Sort Recycling works. This is now how all recycling is handled in the northern New York region, including recycling from Oswegatchie.

Thank you to everyone that made this process easy to implement!

Excelsior,
Bill Waite
Program Director

Casella's Zero-Sort® Recycling Facility Tour from Casella on Vimeo.

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Oswegatchie offers 2015 November ELPs

9/21/2015

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To: All Secondary Agricultural Science, Environmental/Conservation CTE programs.

RE: Environmental & Leadership Development Program

Since 2000, Oswegatchie has hosted these environmental and leadership development programs at the center. We are looking forward to giving this opportunity to your students again this year. The Oswegatchie Educational Center is situated on a 1200 acre expanse of land inside the Adirondack Park. This setting provides the perfect atmosphere for learning about our natural world. The property includes 4 bodies of water, various streams, wetlands, open fields, and woodlands ideal for environmental education. Don’t miss out on this opportunity for you and your students.

The Oswegatchie Educational Center is offering 33% funded Environmental and Leadership Development programs to be implemented at the center during the November 2015. Funding for these programs has been made possible by NY Ag Education and Outreach. All secondary Agricultural Science, Environmental / Conservation CTE programs may apply for these special opportunities. See the attached Request for Proposals for requirements and details. All proposals must be postmarked or emailed by October 15th 2015 Please do not delay your proposals.

Please contact us if you have any questions about this opportunity .

Sincerely,
Bill Waite, Program Director
Oswegatchie Educational Center
info@oswegatchie.org

Shari Lighthall
Ag Education and Outreach