Intensive Learning @ MFS
The World At Your Fingertips
We started the day at 9:00 am with a 52-minute bus ride to Batsto Village. Once we arrived we hiked the four mile Batsto Lake Trail and followed the white blazes on the trees. Throughout the hike we saw the remains of the controlled fires that were held in the last year. About halfway...
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Today we began our adventure by learning all about the Pine Barrens from a variety of perspectives: historical, cultural, ecological, and, surprisingly, political. We began the day by sorting ourselves into our research, blogging, and video project groups. Each group researched the sites we will visit during this project, and completed a slide deck...
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Today we went to Belleplain State Forest in Egg Harbor Township. We got to see more of the Pine Barrens, but this area was closer to the coast so featured more wetlands and cedar trees. We walked along the Old Cape Trail. There were some smaller waterways around us. Our plan was to walk...
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On our journey in the Pine Barrens, we went to Apple Pie Hill. Our first stop when we got off the bus was the Carranza Memorial, which was built in honor of Captain Emilio Carranza Rodriguez. He was an aviator that is known today as a symbol of peace for Americans and Mexicans. Therefore,...
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Today we hiked around the Franklin Parker Preserve in Chatsworth in the Pine Barrens. We walked along a mix of the Green and Red trails for a total of about 5 ½ miles. Along the hike, we saw some beautiful small bodies of water. We saw some giant Adirondack chairs, and we visited the...
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On the first day of our Pine Barrens adventure, we went to Batsto Village. We also took a four mile hike down a beautiful trail. We spotted lots of interesting plants throughout the day. Due to the weather yesterday, we walked through some muddy, yet very fun, trails. We walked through forests that had...
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Today, we went on a really big hike to Apple Pie Hill. We first went to a memorial place dedicated to Emilio Carranza. His plane crashed in the Pine Barrens when he was trying to fly from New York City to Mexico City. The memorial was really impressive and we learned it was constructed...
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We started off the day with introductions and met a man named Mr. Volpa from Pinelands Adventures. He would be our guide for the day as we hiked for 2.5 miles through Oaks and Pines. The forest was filled with 3 different types of moss and the path was covered with pine needles. We...
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Today at Pine Island Cranberry Company, we saw many aspects and tools of how cranberries are produced and distributed to the world. For example, two employees (Matt and Mike) gave us an annual timeline of the stages of growing cranberries. Even though the sandy soil is not great for conventional crops (corn, wheat, etc),...
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Today, we went to Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge as a group. We were met by Lauren, an employee at the reserve, and were treated to a brief summary of the reserve, as well as an opportunity to meet a snake (Orin) that the reserve was treating. Lauren told us that each animal they...
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The day started off with an hour-long bus ride to the Batsto Village. We started at the museum that preserved the life of people in the Pine Barrens. We looked at all the interesting things that we could for a bit (including some great facts about the history of iron-working in the Pine Barrens),...
Continue readingToday on our final excursion for the 2017 Pine Barrens Intensive Learning, we visited Pine Island Cranberry Company. Pine Island Cranberry Co. is a 14,000 acre stretch of land in the Pine Barrens that includes cranberry bogs, forests, and wildlife. We first watched a presentation on the history of the company, what jobs they...
Continue readingWith our prior knowledge of the Pine Barrens, today, we took a guided hike with John Volpa, the education director of Pinelands Adventures. Throughout the five mile hike, he described the ten necessities of hiking, went in depth about the ecological and historical background of the Pine Barrens, justified the name behind the “Pineys,”...
Continue readingToday is the third day of the Pine Barrens Intensive Learning. We spent the whole day at Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge in Medford, NJ. There we learned about the multitude of animals that live in the Pines from: turtles, snakes, owls, hawks, crows, deer, and a raccoon. Some of the animals were even albino...
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Our day started by watching a short film on the myth of the Jersey Devil. While a little cheesy, the clip did explain the history of this myth and then we set out for the hike – Apple Pie Hill in Tabernacle. When we arrived at the trail, we first checked out the Carranza...
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