What’s New at Wildlands
Green Team 2022: Working Toward a Bright Future for D.W. Field Park
Nine teens out of over sixty applicants were hired for Green Team this summer to complete improvement projects at D.W. Field Park. Green Team emphasizes hands-on learning and community service in an outdoor, team-oriented environment sponsored and led by Wildlands Trust and Manomet.
Read Time: 3 min
By Rachel Calderara, Director of Special Projects
Nine Brockton-based teens joined the 2022 Green Team at D.W. Field Park this summer, a program sponsored and led by Wildlands Trust and Manomet to provide environmental working and learning opportunities for the next generation. Chosen out of nearly sixty applicants, the team of nine met over a two-week period to complete improvement projects at D.W. Field Park that benefit both people and nature. This is a small but powerful example of what the D.W. Field Park Initiative can accomplish with a community working towards shared goals and visions for a better future.
Projects completed by the Green Team made the park a cleaner, more welcoming place for the community in just six short days. We hope you’ll swing by to enjoy the results of their hard work, which include:
8 new bird boxes built and installed at various locations around D.W. Field Park and the Brockton Audubon Preserve. These boxes provide habitat for Black-capped Chickadees, Eastern Screech Owls, and Great Crested Flycatchers, all of which have been identified in breeding bird surveys conducted by Manomet.
10 park benches and 9 picnic tables restored in the Oak St. picnic area and along the shores of Waldo Lake.
Habitat surveys conducted along 2 transects, documenting plants and animals living in the park. The team’s observations contributed to large-scale surveys conducted by Manomet.
2 miles of trails at Brockton Audubon Preserve trimmed and widened to improve access for recreation.
Gardens at the Oak Street parking lot maintained with the Brockton Garden Club. The crew raked, weeded, and removed invasive vines.
Green Team members also had the opportunity to meet various community leaders during their daily lunch break. We appreciate the following leaders for helping expand the team members’ horizons of career and community service possibilities: Joanne Zygmunt (Old Colony Planning Council), Evan Dalton (Manomet), Patrick Sullivan (Brockton Department of Public Works), Shirley Asack (Brockton City Council), Tim Carpenter (Brockton Department of Parks & Recreation), Sean Kent (Mass Audubon Museum of American Bird Art), Megan Shave (Brockton Department of Planning and Economic Development), Emilia Skogen (Manomet), Josephine Tagestad (Manomet), and Patrick Quinn (D.W. Field Park Association).
The Green Team members deserve recognition for their eagerness to learn new skills, work together through the summer heat, and discuss important environmental and community topics. We can’t wait to see what’s next for this fantastic crew: Keira Williamson (14), Destiny Cater (18), Sylvie Staco (15), Edeh Ugbo (17), Julian Jerome (16), Sanaja Gomes (16), Dawn Centers (16), Jaydah Evora (15), Dillon Him (16).
Wildlands Trust and Manomet hope to expand Green Team in the coming years. Please visit wildlandstrust.org/dwfieldpark and sign up to have email updates about the D.W. Field Park Initiative sent right to your inbox!
Figure 1: Green Team poses with their completed bird boxes before installing them around D.W. Field Park and Brockton Audubon Preserve. From left: Keira Williamson, Destiny Cater, Sylvie Staco, Edeh Ugbo, Julian Jerome, Sanaja Gomes, Dawn Centers, Jaydah Evora, Dillon Him.
Youth Unplug for a Summer of Service
By Outreach and Education Manager, Rachel Calderara
Another July has come and gone, and with it, another Green Team program has ended, but not before 26 amazing teens put in over 700 hours of volunteer work on the protected lands of Southeastern Massachusetts.
Green Team 1 crew members get their hands dirty at Bay End Farm.
What is Green Team?
2019 marks the fifth year of Green Team, a keystone program in Wildlands’ Youth Unplugged Initiative. Green Team is an interactive opportunity for teens to engage in environmental learning through volunteerism. After applying to the program in the spring, each applicant goes through a thorough interview process in hopes of being offered a spot on the team. Only those who have proven their interest and motivation to work hard in the outdoors with their peers are accepted onto Green Team. This year, we accepted 13 middle school-aged crew members into the 1 week Green Team 1 program, and another 13 high school-aged crew members into the 2 week Green Team 2 program.
What does Green Team do?
Each day, the Green Team travels to various sites across the region to work on relevant, hands-on environmental projects with professionals in the field. This year was one for the books with more crew members, more hours, and more projects than ever before!
Green Team 1 Projects:
Trail clearing at Mass Audubon’s Great Neck Wildlife Sanctuary (Wareham)
Invasive species removal in the pastures at Soule Homestead (Middleborough)
Organic vegetable farming at Bay End Farm (Bourne)
Restoring the community garden pathways at Wildlands Trust’s headquarters (Plymouth)
Green Team 2 Projects:
Farm animal husbandry at Soule Homestead (Middleborough)
Organic farming and greenhouse restoration at Round the Bend Farm (South Dartmouth)
Trail maintenance at Northeast Wilderness Trust’s Muddy Pond Preserve (Kingston)
Picnic table and bench building for trails at Wildlands Trust’s Emery Preserve (Plymouth)
Blueberry harvesting and pruning at Cornish Fields Farm (Plymouth)
Garlic harvesting and processing at Bay End Farm (Bourne)
The service days are sprinkled with educational activities like tick safety talks, birding walks, farm tours, meditation, yoga and more. On the final night of Green Team 2, we take the team on an overnight campout where they enjoy dinner, a night hike, and a campfire.
Green Team 2 after harvesting garlic at Bay End Farm.
What’s next for Youth Unplugged?
Three weeks of Green Team are a whirlwind for staff and crew members alike, leaving us all thoroughly exhausted yet still wishing for more time together. These ambitious teens will not rest and we are left feeling like there is more we can do to keep encouraging their interest in the outdoors. This nagging feeling, along with numerous requests from the crew for continued volunteer opportunities, prompted us to pilot a new program we’re calling Service Learning Saturdays. Once a month, all Green Team alumni are invited to our Plymouth headquarters to work on projects ranging from invasive species removal to gardening and more. During the first Service Learning Saturday on August 24, four crew members helped us pull out overgrown invasive vegetation at both the barn foundation and the old oak tree.
The teens we have the pleasure of working with are intelligent, kind, caring young people who give us hope for the future. We thank them for another wonderful year of Green Team, and look forward to Service Learning Saturdays this fall!
Follow us on Facebook for Service Learning Saturday pictures and updates at: facebook.com/wildlandstrust.
Green Team 2018 - Recruitment Begins!
We're looking for local teens ages 12 - 18 who are interested in environmental learning and volunteerism to apply for Wildlands Trust's Green Team this summer!
Green Team crewmembers get a summer experience like no other! Crewmembers work primarily outdoors while acquiring new skills and knowledge about conservation, agriculture, wildlife, and water resources.
With two different age groups, there's an opportunity for any middle or high school aged student in Southeastern Massachusetts to join Green Team. For ages 12 - 14, Green Team I is a one-week, four-day introductory volunteer program. For ages 15 - 18, Green Team II is a two-week, six-day internship program with an overnight campout.
Not sure if Green Team is right for you? Learn more about it from Wildlands staff and last summer's Green Team members themselves in this video:
Learn More and Apply:
Green Team Gives Gift to Local Environment
In Wildlands Trust’s third summer hosting Green Team, the program nearly triples in size and capacity, cultivating the next generation of environmental leaders.
With the summer of 2017 came the third consecutive Green Team program at Wildlands Trust. Each summer, we select teens from across Southeastern Massachusetts for this labor-intensive, career exploration internship that exposes them to conservation related work happening in the region. With a four part focus on land stewardship, agriculture, wildlife conservation, and water quality, staff at Wildlands Trust take the team to cut new trails, track wildlife, test water quality, help with farm work, and more at Wildlands properties and in partnership with other local organizations.
This year marked the first year of expanding the Green Team to include middle school aged students as well as high school aged with the addition of “Green Team 1”, a one-week volunteer program for ages 12 – 14. The two-week “Green Team 2” internship was reserved for ages 15 – 18, involving more intensive field work, longer days, and an overnight campout.
The 2017 Green Team program involve a total of 17 students from our local communities! In previous summers Green Team had six and then seven students involved. The addition of a middle school age group, offering a shuttle from Brockton High School, promotion with Healthy Plymouth, and word of mouth all seemed to contribute to the growth and success of this program in 2017.
This year’s crews were led by Rachel Calderara, Program Coordinator, and Maura Coughlin, Education and Stewardship Assistant. Rachel helped to start the Green Team program in 2015 as a MassLIFT AmeriCorps member at Wildlands Trust, and now takes the lead on planning and executing the program as a full time staff member. Maura, a student at Simmons College, was a Green Team crewmember in 2016 and now helps to plan and execute the Green Team and other educational programs, as well as help steward properties as a seasonal employee.
We would like to congratulate the students on a job very well done this summer! Our hope is that exposure to environmental learning and volunteerism will promote responsible land use and inspire the next generation of leaders to protect our natural resources. Thank you to our sponsors at Rockland Trust and The Dorr Foundation for making these programs possible year after year, to Union Point for their generous sponsorship, and to all of the individuals and organizations that hosted the crew this July! We're already looking forward to next year!
Green Team 1:
Day One: Trail cutting at Pickerel Pond Preserve and Emery Preserve, Plymouth
Day Two: Trail work and tour of New England Wildlife Center, Weymouth
Day Three: Organic farming at Bay End Farm, Bourne
Green Team 2:
Day One: Bench building in the Wildlands workshop and Geocaching at Emery Preserve, Plymouth
Day Two: Water quality testing and birding with Herring Ponds Watershed Association, Plymouth
Day Three: Trail building at Union Point, Weymouth
Day Four: Blanding’s turtle tracking using radio telemetry with Mass Wildlife, West Bridgewater
Day Five: Garlic harvesting at Bay End Farm, Bourne
Day Five, pm: Team campout at Old Field Preserve, Bourne.
Day Six: Campout cleanup and organic farming at Bay End Farm/Old Field Preserve, Bourne
Trust "Green Team" Gets Outdoors
Seven local students completed Wildlands Trust 2016 Green Team this summer. Despite being in the midst of a July heat wave, Green Team members spent two weeks learning about an array of topics in the environmental field from local professionals and volunteering with them as well. Some of the highlights included:
Constructing Bluebird boxes for Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable and learning about wildlife rehabilitation from Lynn Miller.
A birding walk and workshop with Brian Harrington at our Great River Preserve, followed by trail maintenance throughout Great River.
A beach cleanup at Center Hill Preserve in Plymouth.
Constructing a trail at the Halfway Pond preserve to connect to Myles Standish State Park trails.
Learning about organic growing from Kofi Ingersoll of Bay End Farm in Bourne and harvesting garlic.
Wildlands Trust’s Green Team provides job training for high school students interested in natural resource work. Under the supervision of Wildlands Trust Staff, students undertake trail maintenance and construction, wildlife nesting box construction, beach cleanups, and invasive species removal and farming projects. Students who complete the program receive a stipend for their efforts.