Workshops, Webinars, Field Trips, and Other Events

VCE Conservation Biologist Desirée Narango will share her research on the importance of native plants to food webs, why insects matter for bird conservation, and the practical steps you can take to support bird habitat throughout the year.

This event is hosted by Grow Native Massachusetts.

No registration required for in-person attendance.
Location: First Parish Church, 7 Harrington Rd, Lexington, MA

Please register if you plan to attend online.

After a winter-long hiatus, the Upper Valley Youth Birding Club is back! Join us for a morning of exploration and fun.

We will meet at the Kilowatt South Park boat ramp parking lot in Wilder, VT, for two hours of slow-paced birding, observing birds both on the Connecticut River and in the shrubby shoreline habitats. There will be excellent opportunities to see both aquatic and terrestrial birds.

Binoculars will be provided for anyone who doesn’t have them, and three to four spotting scopes will be available for looking at more distant water birds.

Any youth (plus parents and/or grandparents) with an existing or potential interest in birds is invited to join.

Please register in advance.

Trips are limited to 15 spots for kids. Registration is first-come, first-served.

The Hanover Garden Club and community partners will host a special (and free!) showing of The Extraordinary Caterpillar. A film by Jeff McKay, featuring renowned entomologist, author, and speaker Doug Tallamy.

VCE Biologist Amber Jones and Emeritus Executive Director Chris Rimmer will participate in a Q&A panel with other local experts after the film. 

Free. Registration required. Suitable for ages 5+.

Arrive as early as 5:30 pm to see the live exhibit of caterpillars and to collect resources from partnering organizations!

Interested in learning how to identify and document vernal pools? Join VCE biologist Kevin Tolan and the Salisbury, Ripton, and Middlebury Conservation Commissions for a guided vernal pool walk. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy waterproof footwear or rubber boots. Directions provided upon registration.

Nectaring Butterflies

The Second Vermont Butterfly Atlas (VBA) is an effort to document all the butterfly species in the state, and you can help! Join Vermont Center for Ecostudies staff biologist Amber Jones to learn about the VBA and explore the nectaring plants that support our butterflies. All butterfly experience and skill levels welcome.

Interested in learning how to identify and document vernal pools? Join VCE biologist Kevin Tolan and the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center for a guided vernal pool walk. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy waterproof footwear or rubber boots. Directions provided upon registration.

REGISTRATION IS FULL. SIGN UP FOR WAITLIST.Interested in learning how to identify and document vernal pools? Join VCE biologist Kevin Tolan and the Hinesburg Conservation Commission for a guided vernal pool walk. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy waterproof footwear or rubber boots.

Details about where to meet will follow in an email a few days before the event. Registration below.

We’ve moved to our rain date, April 26! The pools in the Hartford Forest are still frozen as of April 9. We hope that by waiting a few weeks we will see more frogs and salamanders!

Interested in learning how to identify and document vernal pools? Join VCE community science coordinator Dana Williams, the Hartford Conservation Commission, and the Hartford Salamander Team for a guided vernal pool walk. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy waterproof footwear or rubber boots. No registration required.

Practical Butterfly Photography

Butterflies are flighty. So most of us don’t want to fuss with complicated settings on fancy cameras when we see one. In this webinar, you’ll learn practical skills and techniques for capturing reliable butterfly images with your phone or point-and-shoot camera. Your instructor, Bryan Pfeiffer, is a writer and naturalist who has photographed butterflies everywhere from the tropics to above the Arctic Circle, and has taught photography to hundreds of naturalists and biologists. See his work at chasingnature.substack.com.

Interested in learning how to identify and document vernal pools? Join VCE biologist Kevin Tolan and the Strafford Conservation Commission for a guided vernal pool walk. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy waterproof footwear or rubber boots. Directions provided upon registration.

Interested in learning how to identify and document vernal pools? Join VCE biologist Kevin Tolan and Merck Forest & Farmland Center for a guided vernal pool walk. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy waterproof footwear or rubber boots. See registration link for directions.

A proposed rule change in Vermont puts our vernal pools in peril—we’re going to need everyone’s help to put them on the map so they’re protected! Ephemeral and often hidden in the forest, vernal pools are easy to miss. But we can confirm that a shallow wetland is indeed a vernal pool by looking for the specialist animals that inhabit them: Spotted Salamanders, Wood Frogs, Jefferson and Blue-spotted Salamanders, fairy shrimp, and fingernail clams. You probably have at least one vernal pool right in your neighborhood. Join VCE Staff Biologist Kevin Tolan out in the field to explore vernal pools and learn about this fascinating part of the forest ecosystem. Limited spots available – advance registration is required.

Firelight and the origins of storytelling
This talk will explore mounting evidence on the importance of firelight during human evolution, especially the origins of spoken language. Nate is an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist studying the behavior, ecology, and functional morphology of humans and nonhuman primates.

Butterflying by Habitat

The Second Vermont Butterfly Atlas (VBA) is an effort to document all the butterfly species in the state, and you can help! Join Vermont Center for Ecostudies conservation biologist Kent McFarland to learn how you can use habitats to find your target butterflies for the VBA. All butterfly experience and skill levels welcome.

Interested in learning how to identify and document vernal pools? VCE biologist Kevin Tolan will be giving a guided vernal pool walk during a half day of learning with the Northern Forest Center in Burke, Vermont. This event will also feature a forestry workshop led by foresters AJ Follensbee and Matt Langlais. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy waterproof footwear or rubber boots.

Snacks and beverages provided. More information to come soon!

Beyond Butterfly Basics: Swallowtail Tiger ID

The Second Vermont Butterfly Atlas (VBA) is an effort to document all the butterfly species in the state, and you can help! Join Vermont Center for Ecostudies conservation biologist Kent McFarland to learn about the VBA and puzzle through IDing Vermont’s three Tiger Swallowtail species. All butterfly experience and skill levels welcome.

On this outing, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open for warblers and other spring migrants as we follow the historic carriage roads in Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park up to the Pogue, a picturesque 14-acre pond. Led by VCE Conservation Biologist Kent McFarland and Data Manager Megan Massa, this morning of birding during spring migration will be filled with their extensive knowledge of our forests and the birds that rely on them. No birding experience is required. Participants are welcome to join the trip leaders for a casual lunch at Ranch Camp in Woodstock after our outing. Limited spots available – advance registration is required.

As flowers bloom around the farm, it’s prime time to look for pollinators—native bees, bumble bees, butterflies, and other insects abound! Join VCE conservation biologist Desirée Narango and VCE director of conservation science Ryan Rebozo to learn about two of VCE’s research projects taking place at Cedar Circle Farm and to see what pollinators we can find along the way.

We’ll explore a native plant garden while learning about the Native Plant Ecostype Experiment. Then, we’ll make our way to Cedar Circle Farm’s blueberry field to learn about the Wild Bees on Farms project. Along the way, we’ll surely find plenty of pollinators to capture our interest. Limited spots available – advance registration required.

As of 04/15/2026, all spaces on this trip are reserved. Please email Alyssa Fishman at afishman@vtecostudies.org if you’d like to join a waitlist.

Enjoy three days of exploring loon lakes, birding northern forests, and simply enjoying Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom with VCE Executive Director Susan Hindinger and Loon Biologist Eric Hanson.

Are you a science educator? Then join us for VCE’s Community Science Teacher Education Workshop!

In this four-day program, you’ll engage in inquiry-based exercises that incorporate both data collection and analysis, gain confidence incorporating field methods into your curriculum, work with open-access data, discuss both planning and conducting community science, and receive a primer on the ecology of Connecticut River’s Upper Valley.