Hilltown Families 
When Our Wetlands Become Icelands Perhaps you love to walk in the woods in winter because, when the leaves are down, the shape (or “geomorphic character”) of our biome is exposed....
What We Can Give to Our Rivers This summer I was lucky enough to visit the West Coast, and spent two days in Big Sur, that rugged part of the California...
Families Learn about the Relationship Between Benthic Invertebrates and River Ecology with Hilltown Families & Biocitizen Halloween’s upon us and the leaves are almost down—and for river lovers that means it’s...
Thinking Like A Watershed One of the funnier thoughts I’ve heard goes like this: “I want to be one with nature.” You might have heard of this thought, or a variation...
Adopt Your Local Stream or River Rivers and streams are beautiful. That’s why we are drawn to them, deeply and elementally. The first colonists in Western Massachusetts hugged close to the...
What Are We Going to Do Now Aldo Leopold was one of the shining lights of our long-awakening ecological movement; and he said that one of the drawbacks of seeing the...
Connecticut River’s Anadromous Fish A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting both the Holyoke and Turners Falls’ anadromous fish recovery operations with a group of intrepid high schoolers...
RiverFest in Shelburne Falls Saturday, June 9th, 2012 Celebrate the Deerfield River and its role within the community at Shelburne Falls’ annual Riverfest! The event takes place this Saturday, June 9th,...
Heart of the Biome: Rivers A few days ago I was walking along the Connecticut River, at the Bashan in Hatfield (the green space off “Bashin Rd.” on this map), and...
Get Into the Flow Like a Mayfly “Rivers can take this—don’t worry!” said Jason Johnson, who works with Masswildlife’s Caleb Slater to stock our streams with trout and salmon, after hearing...
What the Peepers Are Telling Us Last night, I sped my family home from a week of Spring Break that took us far from the Nonotuck biome. As they slumbered in...
I Like Winter I was supposed to write about ice. I wanted to take you away from the CT river, up into the higher elevations, where the crystal trickles are, and...
Robert Krampf’s Experiment of the Week: SOLAR POWER Visiting the world’s largest solar power plants to explore reflection and refraction. Video: Solar Power
The Heart of Our River The Connecticut River is ours, right? It doesn’t really matter if you live in the Pioneer Valley or the Hilltowns of Western MA: when you drive...
The Ripple We who live in and around the Nonotuck biome (also called the “Happy Valley”) don’t have much of the lore, and language, of rivers. The Pocumtuck people who lived...
As You’d Expect, Hurricane Irene Drastically Altered Local River Ecology Kurt Heidinger, Executive Director of Biocitizen School of Westhampton, MA writes: The past Wednesday afternoon, Biocitizen teamed up with Hilltown Families...
100 Links (Spring/Summer 2011) Nearly every day we add recommended links to the Hilltown Families bank of on-line resources. Some of you might find these links well suited for your family,...
Earth Day Eco-Tips from Western MA Families “Egg cartons make great seed starters! Windows sills are wonderful places to grow the tiny seeds! Kids love to watch life happen inside and...
Northampton Public Schools Join Together to Make a Giant Earth Day Ball! Charlotte Causton on Northampton, MA writes: All Northampton Public Schools will work together in April to make the largest...
Maria & Friends: Planting Seeds One of our favorite artists, Maria Sangiolo, has gotten a bunch of her friends together to create a new album all about farms and gardens. The...
We’ve become big recyclers, we drive fuel efficient cars, and we take our reusable bags to the grocery store...but even though the best way to teach a kid any lesson is...
Educational & Fun Competition for Students Promotes Awareness About Transportation, Technology and the Environment On Saturday, June 5th, area middle school students will gather at Reid Middle School in Pittsfield, MA...
Three Great Media Giveaways In Honor of Earth Day This year commemorates the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, and Western Mass is filled with events that raise awareness and honor the...
40th Anniversary of Earth Day April 22nd, 2010 marks the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. This month we have many opportunities to work towards building a healthy community as local organizations,...
Channel Island Allen Hummingbird Many families have expressed how much they enjoyed Jamie’s recommendation for Molly the Barn Owl live cam, we thought we’d share with our avid birders and budding...
Turn Out Your Lights & Send a Message In 2009 hundreds of millions of people around the world showed their support by turning off their lights for one hour. Earth Hour...
Course to Establish Forest Garden at Williamsburg Elementary School on May 28th-31st, 2010 The garden curriculum at Williamsburg’s Dunphy Elementary School will get a boost this year, when a special kind...
Jamie Bishop of Plainfield, MA writes: The link below will take you to a live streaming camera inside the nest box of Molly the Barn Owl. Her eggs are due to...
Transition Towns Informational Meeting In Williamsburg on Sunday, March 21st The Transition Towns Movement is a vibrant, grassroots movement that seeks to build community resilience in the face of such challenges...
DIRT! The Movie Free Screening In Cummington, MA At the Sustainability Library Monday, March 15th @ 7pm If you missed the screening of DIRT! The Movie at the Farm Film Fest...