Hitchcock Center for the Environment

10/14/2026

This week’s Hitchcock Happenings for community members-

WEDNESDAY 🍁 Heart of the Season: Autumn
Explore the seasonal themes of autumn through the lenses of Chinese Medicine and other Earth-based spiritual practices.

SATURDAY 🍁 Photography at The Quabbin
Come to photograph or just for the inspiration- learn from naturalist John Green, an artist deeply rooted in this place. Quabbin is stunning in fall!

SUNDAY 🍁 Hitchcock Harvest
Celebrate the 10th year in our Living Building in Amherst at our annual Harvest event- friends and food, b**r and w**e, local art and innovation.

Get out into nature with us to catch the best of fall.

10/12/2026

Join us for the first event in our Fall 2026 Climate Change in Native America speaker series with the Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP) and the Salata Institute Climate Accelerator!

📅 October 14, 2026
🕔 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
📍 Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall

Our first event will focus on Indigenous stewardship practices, land rematriation movements, and climate adaptation strategies. The discussion will examine how Native Nations are advancing land-based approaches to conservation and sustainability using traditional ecological knowledge, along with the tensions that can arise between non-Native conservation frameworks and Tribal sovereignty, governance, and self-determination.

Come learn, listen, and engage in conversation around Indigenous knowledge, land, and climate resilience!

Learn more and register for the event series at:
indigenousgov.hks.harvard.edu/climate-change-native-america-series

10/11/2026

October is Harvest time at Hitchcock Center 🍂🐢
(Harvest Hope with us on October 18!)

10/09/2026

Grades 5-8 Educators!! This fall, bring real-world problem-solving into your classrooms 🌊💦 In this Challenge, students will step into the role of engineers, tackling the global challenge of access to clean water.

Mark your calendars 📆 Massachusetts STEM Week is October 19–23, 2026! This is our sixth year expanding hands-on STEM opportunities for students across the state, with the support of the Executive Office of Education. We are making dozens and dozens of pre-packed STEM Materials kits to go to YOUR classroom for FREE. Last year, we designed the mini engineering design unit, H2Whoa! Hydroengineers at Work and we are bringing it back for Round 2 ♻️💧

You can register for just the kit or you can join us in-person or virtually for the accompanying professional development workshops!

Register at our site: https://www.wadeinstitutema.org/massachusetts-stem-week-challenges/

10/08/2026

This is the 98th monarch we’ve tagged at Hitchcock this season as part of the Monarch Watch citizen science project 🦋

Each fall we invite families to help us tag and release monarch butterflies, caught by our resident butterfly expert Jennifer! The data we collect is shared for scientific research with the folks at Monarch Watch

We hope you’ve seen monarchs around town this season, and that you’ll join us next year for this annual nature science tradition.

10/07/2026

Thanks to KEVS Foundation, Inc. we have a new AED hanging in our Visitor’s Center.

Kev’s Foundation facilitates youth heart screenings, helps to provide program resources for public access defibrillator programs, and teaches the importance of early bystander CPR/AED education and awareness in our communities.

They offer cardiac screenings to young people, as part of their goal to raise awareness of “Sudden Cardiac Arrest” FREE of charge, with a request of a donation based on financial ability. Thanks to these donations, they’ve donated 230+ Automatic External Defibrillators.

♥️ Thank you! ♥️

10/07/2026

This Sunday 🍄 Join mushroom enthusiast and educator Jessica Benson Evans of the Pioneer Valley Mycological Association for a nature walk exploring the ecology and magic of fungi.

Learn more about identifying local mushrooms, and. protecting them! https://secure.qgiv.com/for/adultcommunityprograms-naturalhistory/event/mcwjbec2026/

10/02/2026

Spider incoming…can you identify the species? 🕷️

10/02/2026

Our staff recently gathered for a Wilderness Mental Health First Responder course! How can people (of all ages!) thrive and care for their mental health in a world that increasingly demands resilience?

Thanks to Institute for Wild Med for visiting our Living Building and teaching us new skills in managing immediate mental health crises, and building resilience in ourselves and others, out in nature.

It was uplifting to collaborate with other nature-based educators, and share our experiences with outdoor programming's capacity to soothe and regulate the nervous system.

Thanks Wild Med! Can’t wait to put our new skills to work 🌿