Working to Keep Arkansas

in its Natural State

As Northwest Arkansas Master Naturalists, we seek to contribute to the improvement of our local ecosystem and the education of the next generation of environmentalists. A powerful example of these ideals in action is the new pollinator garden at Frank Tillery Elementary School in Rogers. 

 Fifth grade teacher and fellow Master Naturalist, Frankie Jackson, began with the simple goal of getting K-5 students outside to teach them how to grow some basic vegetables. After witnessing the sheer joy the kids had “playing” in the garden, which then consisted of three 4X8 raised beds shared between thirty classrooms, Frankie knew an expansion was in order. She applied for and received a grant from the Rogers Noon Rotary in partnership with the Rogers Public Education Foundation to expand the existing garden and add an outdoor classroom. 

Applying her NWAMN training with her classroom experience, Frankie created an eight bed pollinator garden that allows students to interact with native plants, observe a wide variety of pollinators, act as nannies to caterpillars found in the garden and, perhaps most importantly, learn the value of nature.

 The community has also taken notice. Frankie has been contacted by other Rogers area teachers and teachers from surrounding districts asking for ideas and advice on how to create pollinator gardens at their schools. Community members have reached out to her wanting to know more about NWAMN and how to get involved with the school garden. The Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce honored Frankie by awarding her the 2018-2019 Virginia Mocivnik Award for “demonstrating outstanding community service beyond the classroom.”

5th Graders weeding the beds.  

2nd Graders 3 looking at the caterpillars found in the garden.

Warren Fields and Phyllis Stair working in the beds and planting.

Christie Waggoner working in the beds.

Dave Leisure’s Fun Factoid of the Month:

3,000,000,000

 3 Billion – a 3 with nine zeroes

Dave asked what that number represents.  A few in the crowd knew this was the number of birds lost in North America since 1970,  a loss of 29% of the total birds population.

 And the cause for this decline, while due to several factors, is primarily attributed to two primary causes:

1. Loss of habitat
2. Pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers

 On the bright side, there are two categories of birds seeing an increase.

1. Eagles - primarily due to habitat protection (think DDT)
2. Waterfowl - primarily due to conservation efforts (think Ducks Unlimited, which might seem counterintuitive but not so!)
   

According to a story on NPR: 

Their results show that more than 90% of the loss can be attributed to just a dozen bird families, including sparrows, warblers, blackbirds and finches.

Common birds with decreasing populations include meadowlarks, dark-eyed juncos, horned larks and red-winged blackbirds, says Rosenberg. Grassland birds have suffered a 53% decrease in their numbers, and more than a third of the shorebird population has been lost.

NWAMN is leading a new project to reintroduce native Ozark Chinquapin trees to the Lake Wedington park. A devastating Chestnut Blight wiped out most of the native Ozark Chinquapin trees in Arkansas during the 1950's. Only a rare remnant of blight resistant trees survive.

The Ozark Chinquapin Foundation has been searching out surviving trees and collecting seeds that are documented and tracked for blight resistance. NWAMN have identified areas suitable to plant seeds at Lake Wedington, and we're making an effort to get other NWAMN members to join the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation to receive seeds in early 2020 to pool together for plantings at Lake Wedington.

The Ozark Chinquapin Foundation is providing seeds from surviving, blight resistant trees to new members who join the foundation.  We ask that anyone who can join, sign up on their website by clicking HERE then email jay_pitts@hotmail.com to put your name on the list of people from NWAMN who will be pooling seeds.

To anyone who joins, we thank you and also know that the plantings will be monitored by NWAMN to document their growth over the years and reported to the OCF our scientific data on seedling growth for blight resistance research and development of the best seeds. Jay Pitts is leading this NWAMN project and any questions should be emailed to him at jay_pitts@hotmail.com.

Chinquapin nuts, burrs and leaves.  Photo courtesy of Ozark Chinquapin Foundation.

Several NWAMNs visited the under-construction Arkansas Game and Fish Division Ozark Highlands Nature Center in Springdale.  The 27,000-square-foot center is being built on 62 acres donated by Springdale along Spring Creek.  One official said it was 70% complete.

The land was donated by the City of Springdale, but had been used as a construction dump so there was more site prep than they anticipated. In one case, they had to go down 24 feet to get to suitable ground, then haul in dirt to build back up.

The Meeting Hall holds up to 200, has a kitchen and can be divided into three smaller meeting rooms.  As a partner, we will be able to book the rooms for no charge if they are available.  The Indoor Archery and BB range are for students and adults alike to learn.  There is a more advanced outdoor archery range as well.

The Meeting Hall and Exhibit Hall are connected by an interior walkway with one glass wall looking out on the native plant garden. Visitors will walk through the garden to enter the building.

Volunteer opportunities for NWAMN will range from working the information desk, giving tours, helping with education, native garden maintenance, stream monitoring, and many more as the center develops. The center is projected to open in October 2020.

Her volunteer activities include invasive species removal, native plant project, stream smart monitoring, and assisting at Mount Kessler 3rd grade nature education program. Karan has tried bird box monitoring but it wasn’t something she thoroughly enjoyed, so she has tried other opportunities.  She appreciates the opportunity to experience a number of volunteer opportunities, ranging from picking up trash to helping plant native plants in local parks. 

Karan says it’s wonderful to find such a large group of people with common interests and willingness to share their knowledge and expertise. She learns something new on each outing and feels like she has "found her people."

In December, winter sets in and the full moon is called the Cold Moon. It is also called Long Nights Moon, and the Moon before Yule.  

In ancient times, it was common to track the changing seasons by following the lunar month rather than the solar year, which the 12 months in our modern calendar are based on.

For millennia, people across Europe, as well as Native American tribes, named the months after features they associated with the Northern Hemisphere seasons, and many of these names are very similar or identical.

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Bufflehead at Craig State Fish Hatchery photo by Jim Klinger.