Online Courses with NBNC

**The live Zoom sessions are FULL for this ongoing course. Recordings of these sessions, as well as all other content will be posted as they become available**

For many in the Northeast, an idyllic winter day might consist of hunkering down next to a wood stove or careening across mountain slopes. But somewhere out there in the snowy woods, our native flora and fauna undergo bizarre transformations, embark on remarkable journeys, and withstand extreme conditions in the hopes of longer days and warmer weather ahead.

This course is designed for those who wish to embrace the cold — to explore, understand, and appreciate the winter world. Students will learn how to read the winter landscape, explore ice age relics clinging to alpine summits, decipher animal tracks, tackle the challenge of winter tree ID, and discuss the implications of Lake Champlain’s warming waters.

It may seem like an eternity before the resurrection of warblers and spring ephemerals. But once we know where to look, there’s much we can learn from the tenacity and resilience of the winter world.

Unit 1 - New England Winters: Past and Present (Unit Released: Dec 8)

From axial tilts and ice ages, to the physical properties of snowflakes, we’ll explore the fundamental forces that have shaped New England’s landscape and established the seasonal patterns that we know today. 

A combination of geologic, geographic and climatic factors has placed Vermont at a crossroads — a boundary between the cold-hearty coniferous forests to the north, and the temperate hardwoods to the south. By traveling north through the state, or climbing in elevation, we can go back in time and find relics of New England’s frigid past. By heading south, or decreasing in elevation, we can glimpse our future.

In this unit, we’ll decipher what makes winter in the northeast so special and learn to read the landscape from a deep time perspective. Field exercises will focus on discerning patterns in the landscape — using clues from the past, and observations from the present to see the winter world like never before.

Unit 2 - Plant Survival Strategies (Unit Released: Dec 22)

Winter is a rough time to be rooted in one place. When light becomes scarce, and the threat of snow and ice increases, many of Vermont’s plant species shed their leaves and lay dormant until spring. It’s a delicate calculus — fine-tuned over millennia — resulting in a brilliant color show each autumn. But much of our flora retain their leaves, developing strategies to ward off damage from the elements, and capitalizing on what little light is available.

In this unit, we’ll explore how our plant communities have adapted to deal with snow, ice, wind, and darkness — from the cliffs of Smuggler’s Notch to the shores of Lake Champlain. Field exercises will focus on winter tree identification, winter botany, and plant phenology.

Unit 3 - Animal Survival Strategies: Migration, Hibernation and Resistance (Unit Released: Jan 5)

In response to the stressors associated with long, Vermont winters, our native fauna pull off incredible feats of ingenuity. Turtles hold their breath for months, frogs freeze solid, chickadees alter the size of their brains. Some creatures go through great lengths to avoid winter altogether, embarking on cross-continental journeys.

In this unit we’ll discuss migration, hibernation, and the myriad strategies employed by those creatures who remain active year-round. We’ll look at the physical and chemical processes going on within some of these animals and learn how humans have borrowed some of these tactics to thrive in cold climates. Field assignments will include observing winter bird behavior, and an introduction to animal tracking.

Unit 4 - Humans, Phenology & the Future (Unit Released: Jan 19)

Our winters are getting warmer — growing seasons have become longer, our snowpack has diminished, and Lake Champlain has frozen only twice in the last decade. What are the ecological repercussions? Which species will benefit from milder winters, and which will struggle? How will our natural communities adapt to the new winter world?

In this unit we’ll discuss how humans have adapted to winter climates in the past, we’ll speculate our role for the future, and we’ll discuss the importance of phenology and monitoring. Field assignments will build on those in previous units to establish a yearly phenological calendar.

About the Instructor

Jason Mazurowski is an ecologist, naturalist, and adjunct instructor at the University of Vermont. Most of his work focuses on native bee conservation and pollination ecology, but during the winter months — when flowering plants and flying beasts are harder to come by — he can be found enjoying the peace and quiet of winter in the north woods. Jason has explored snowy summits and boreal biomes across the country from the Rocky Mountains to the Maine Woods. He has led winter expeditions as a dog sled musher in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, a winter guide in New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo mountains, and as a teaching assistant for Bernd Heinrich’s immersive Winter Ecology course.