NEW AND IMPROVED ARMN.ORG – During the evening of 1/31/12 we will turn on our new website! It is possible that armn.org may not be accessible for a number of hours during this transition; but I assure you that any delay will be worth it. Check out the new blog and please tell your friends about this exciting resource!
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Applications now being accepted for volunteer training for the Spring 2012 Class of Arlington Regional Master Naturalists
You can make a difference in our community by becoming a Master Naturalist volunteer! The Virginia Master Naturalist program trains volunteers to provide education, citizen science and outreach to conserve and manage natural resources and public lands. Master Naturalist volunteers gain certification through state-approved natural history courses and a commitment to volunteer service. Fun and interactive training is provided by recognized experts in a wide range of disciplines such as ecology, botany, herpetology, ornithology, forest and aquatic ecosystems and much more.
Arlington Regional Master Naturalists will be conducting training this spring beginning February 23 through June 7, 2012 on Thursday evenings from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm at Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington. (There will be no class on April 5.) Additional field training is tentatively scheduled for the following Saturdays: March 17, April 14, April 28, May 19 and an optional canoe trip on June 2. Applications are due January 30, 2012.
For more information and to complete an application, click the “Apply” tab
Virginia Master Naturalist programs and employment are open to all, regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital or family status.
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Please join members of the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists for our work in Barcroft Park:
Join us for our monthly Barcroft Park Habitat Restoration Work Parties on the 3rd Saturday (note change from 4th Saturday) of each month, from 9:30 am to 1:00 pm. We meet at the picnic pavilion in Barcroft Park. If you park in the Barcroft recreational area parking lot, walk past the soccer fields, bear right and then and cross the stream on the wood and steel bridge. Wear long pants and long sleeves. Bring gloves and any favorite weeding tools, especially pruning tools and shovels if you have them. We will also supply gloves and tools.
This project needs you! Every pair of hands makes a difference for this valuable ecological site. Enjoy the satisfaction of clearing invasive plants to encourage growth of native plants and birds.
Update on December work day:
We had another inspiring turnout December 17, with 26 volunteers (Master Naturalists, Tree Stewards, Americorps, Windgate residents, hikers, spouses and friends of the above) reluctantly ending the invasive work after almost two hours, in order to turn our attention to Deep Time. We began the morning again with coffee, cider, and donuts on a cool and cloudy day, fueling more intensive work on the natural area between the bikepath and the drainage ditch. Some revisited the area worked last time, continuing to dig the remaining extensive root systems of the Multiflora Rose forest that had been left in the ground in November (Jerry Schrepple brought his own pickaxe and Margaret Chatham her own weed wrench for the heavy work). Others such as Cliff Gay and Martha Cogdell pushed on upditch, clearing the rose back to the edge of the ditch. Still others worked on Garlic Mustard patches in the area. Allison Willochs and Elizabeth Rives, dedicated Tree Stewards, freed Spicebush ((Lindera benzoin) from choking Porcelainberry vines. Again, as in November, great fun and very satisfying.
Back to Deep Time, Joe Marx, Geology Professor at NVCC, then compressed a billion years of Barcroft geology into a stimulating 1.5 hours for 30 of us. Joe talked us through the forming, splitting, then forming again and splitting, of the ancient North American continent and adjacent oceans. He made especially apt references to current geography and geological processes such as the island arc Japan moving toward China, or the 60-foot seafloor jump of the 2004 Sumatran earthquake and resulting underwater cliffslides, to illustrate the bedrock geology of Barcroft. The photo below shows the whole group standing on the Indian Run formation bedrock in the middle of Four Mile Run, a “metasedimentary melange” that formed in a similar geological setting as that Sumatran earthquake, only some 500 million years earlier, evidence that, in geology, what goes around comes around.
More recent geological events (only 145 to 100 million years ago) produced the sandy and clayey layers of the Potomac Formation that lies on top of the bedrock, and is responsible for the special hydrology that produces the seeps and bog that support the valuable plant communities of Barcroft Park. In a fascinating detail with implications for possible ecological work on the park, Joe noted that rainwater falling on the Skyline area of Baileys Crossroads, the surface source of the aquifer that feeds the Barcroft bog, takes 27 years to travel from Skyline to the bog.
We are grateful to Joe for sharing his knowledge in such an approachable, stimulating way, a fitting, final Barcroft focus project event of 2011. In a subsequent mesasge we wil report on ARMN efforts and results in Barcroft Park in 2011, and set the stage for our work there in 2012.
Thanks to everyone who showed up in December, and we look forward to more good work together in 2012.
Join the Barcroft Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/barcroft
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ARMN Members – We have completed the transition of all of our member-only information, previously found here, to the new Virginia Master Naturalist/Volunteer Management System (VMS/VMS). Please visit the new site at http://virginiamn.volunteersystem.org to quickly and easily access all member information and our calendar. If you have problems or questions, submit the “Contact Us” form on this site.
What is ARMN?
As a chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalist Program, the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists (ARMN) provides the training and volunteer opportunities for the citizens of Arlington, and other Northern Virginia jurisdictions, to become Master Naturalists. ARMN is an all volunteer-organization with chapter members serving as officers and administering the program at the local level. The mission of the Arlington Regional Chapter is to provide environmental education, research, citizen science, outreach, and stewardship of Virginia’s natural resources and public lands by a corps of trained and certified volunteers. The Virginia Master Naturalist program is jointly sponsored by five state agencies: Virginia Cooperative Extension, Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Department of Forestry, Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
The process for becoming a certified Virginia Master Naturalist typically takes 6 to 12 months. One starts by applying and completing a basic training course offered by a local chapter of the program. An additional 8 hours of advanced training are also required. An important part of the certification process is the required 40 hours of volunteer service per year.
Note: The Arlington Regional chapter accepts volunteers from any jurisdiction, even those with their own chapters, however eligible volunteer work must be completed within Virginia.
If interested in becoming a master naturalist volunteer and taking the volunteer training, please submit your contact information on the “contact us” link above. You will be notified when the next training class is announced.
Click here for additional information about the Fall basic training class.