This field trip explores several sites along Plainfield’s Great Brook, the site of major flash flooding and river channel transformation in 2024.

Learn from The Mad River Valley Knotweed Project about their watershed-wide efforts and experiments to manage riverside invasive species. See what techniques have—and haven’t—worked, and learn why managing invasives requires experience in community building and systems thinking.

In this hands-on workshop and field outing, we’ll use a stream table to model stream dynamics in the classroom, then walk to the North Branch to examine these processes in action. We’ll then apply these tools to understand why Central Vermont is so vulnerable to flooding.

Using a hands-on stream table demonstration, we’ll discuss topics relevant to municipal infrastructure and town planning, such as dam removal, channelization, culvert design, dredging, and floodplain development. We’ll then explain how the new Flood Safety Act addresses flooding, and how towns and organizations can be ready for its implementation.

A group kayak, canoe, or paddleboard sunset outing to explore and enjoy the wildlife, plants, and ecology of the North Branch of the Winooski River.

This workshop will teach techniques for plant propagation, and equip participants with the knowledge to begin growing their own trees in a low-budget and low-impact method. We’ll cover seed and cuttings collection, propagation, potting soil mixtures, how to overwinter young plants, and much more.

Visit the defunct and derelict dams of Montpelier’s industrial past, and learn why these small structures lead to big problems. Old dams collect sediment upstream, increase erosion downstream, and alter the river’s flow to increase the risk of flood damage over time.

A panel-led field tour and conversation around Montpelier tributaries that caused significant damage during the 2023 and 2024 flood events. We’ll explore water’s path through Montpelier’s Terrace Street neighborhoods, where very small drainages became very big problems as culverts and ditches failed to direct the huge volume of stormwater away from homes.

A group kayak, canoe, or paddleboard morning outing to explore and enjoy the wildlife, plants, and ecology of North Montpelier Pond and the Kingsbury Branch of the Winooski River.

A panel-led field tour and conversation around Montpelier tributaries that caused significant damage during the 2023 and 2024 flood events. We’ll explore several large streams that flow through the foothills of the Worcester Range and down to Elm Street in Montpelier, damaging roadways and eroding hillsides along the way.

A two-day immersion in beaver ecology and river science, with a focus on the relationship between beavers, watershed health, and flood resilience.

A visit to successful riverside tree planting projects along the Dog River several years later. This outing will showcase good practices and effective strategies for tree planting.

A field trip to a local beaver wetland system to learn the role beavers play as climate allies and flood resilience engineers.

An informal workshop and book launch for The Field Guide to the Woody Plants of the Northern Forest by Jerry Jenkins, a compact guide to the ecology, geography, and identification of the trees, shrubs, and wood vines of the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada.

Join NBNC staff educator Ana Maria Arroyo for a guided wildlife tracking walk through the cemetery!