Galax Enrichment Week - Build A Beast
BRDCs Build A Beast course taught students the principles of physics and mechanics while building a mechanical walking "beast" operated by pedal power.
Galax Enrichment Week - Primitive Technology
BRDC recently hosted a Primitive Technology course as part of Galax Middle School Enrichment Week. The students were engaged with a variety of hands-on activities that connected them to skills used by early American Indians and materials found in their backyards.
Build-A-Beast
The Bearded Tinkerers are hard at work preparing the first iteration of "The Beast" for the kids at Galax Enrichment Week. Hopefully it will be up and walking on all four legs by the beginning of next week...
BRDC Welcomes New Board Member
BRDC would like to welcome Blake Edwards as the newest member of our Board of Directors. Blake has been a long time champion of BRDC and will bring a regional network of connections along with vast fiscal experience. He officially joined the board at the start of 2016.
Wandering Through Winter
"Edwin Way Teale (June 2, 1899 – October 18, 1980) was an American naturalist, photographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Teale's works serve as primary source material documenting environmental conditions across North America from 1930 - 1980. He is perhaps best known for his series The American Seasons, four books documenting over 75,000 miles (121,000 km) of automobile travel across North America following the changing seasons."
Students Study Whitetail Deer impact on forest understory
Through the cooperation of Matthews State Forest and forester Zack Olinger, and along with Alan Webb (Ag teacher), and Rachelle Rasco (stem lab manager) from Carroll County High School, BRDC initiated a research project at one of the two deer exclosure sites on MSF. This project is expected to encompass not only this fall semester, but also a spring 2016 return visit or two for further comparisons.
Young Explorers turn their attention to the rocks and may never look back!
Geology is literally at the foundation of everything having to do with Natural History, the root of it all, but even beyond that, there is the spectacular emotion that comes over a person when they spot a shiny speck in the dirt that might be a crystal. These two powerful draws pulled the Young Explorers out into the field on Saturday November 21, 2015 for a day of rockhounding, history lessons and exploration.
2016 Program Planning Session
We held our annual program planning session for the 2016 slate of activities this past Wednesday, November 18. Joining the round table work session were 10 enthusiastic contributors.
Owl Pellet Journal: A Collaboration with Grayson County’s 4-H and Blue Ridge Discovery Center
Our local 4-H has established a tradition of bringing owl pellet dissection to 4th grade science classes for a number of years. Covering the geographic extent of Grayson County ‘s elementary schools required two days, the first beginning in Fries and ending in Fairview, on the 4th of November. In between we hit Baywood. On our second day, November 11th, we started at Independence Elementary and finished up at Grayson Highlands School. For the two days our student total reached 119.
Young Explorers Find an American Chestnut Tree
The plan was to find an American Chestnut Tree in the wild, a rarity. Saturday morning, the club headed out in search of this mighty tree.
Fall at Bluff Mountain
On Sunday, October 11, the Blue Ridge Discovery Center sponsored a tour hike to the Nature Conservancy's Bluff Mountain Nature Preserve on a perfect fall day. Temperature in the low 60's, light breeze under a cerulean sky, the forest at near peak fall coloration, the group of eleven hikers strolled through some of the rarest ecologies in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
Blue Ridge Illustrated: Oaks of Matthews State Forest
14 students spent two hours in the field defining the difference between the bark, acorns, leaves and tree structure of six species of oaks in the forest while effectively blocking out the myriad of other species in the forest. Their investigative efforts began the latest BRDC poster: The Oaks of Matthews State Forest.
Galax Middle School Attends Hokie BugFest
Heidi Breedlove (BRDC volunteer), Mark Robinson, (Galax 5th grade science teacher), and Scott Jackson-Ricketts (BRDC Program Director) hopped on a bus with our young charge to make the trip to Virginia Tech’s annual Hokie BugFest.
Galax Enrichment Week - Aquatic Adventures
Despite the LOW pressure system hanging over the area bringing inches of rain, the students enthusiasm remained HIGH. They spent the week away from campus at Dannelly Park enjoying Aquatic Adventures.
Galax Enrichment Week - Primitive Technology
Galax Middle School Students spent the week at Matthews State Forest learning all about basic materials through a course on primitive technology.
Blue Ridge Discovery Center’s Fall Mushroom Walk
Twelve curious hikers joined Ken Crouse for his second annual BRDC mushroom walk on Saturday, September 19th. We met at Cox’s Chapel Low Water Bridge at 10am for a brief introductory show-and- tell prior to carpooling to a location across the river and into the woods.
Signs of Fall
Although signs of the fall season are usually evident enough from changes in the weather, there are many clues from nature that a seismic shift in the seasons is occurring. Even if you did not have a calendar, you should be able to predict the month if you study the many signs that nature provides.
Educational resource planted last Fall shows us life!
Last fall, BRDC, led by Sarah Osborne, planted a brand new butterfly garden on the grounds of the Galax High School as part of the Fall 2014 Middle School Enrichment Program. The results a year later are astounding!
Students conduct first survey of Deer Exclosure Plot
For our first research day, 9/9/15, the students focused on describing the forest floor and canopy densities, comparing percentages of herbaceous and rocky or barren coverage, taking a census of all the trees within an approximately 80 foot radius of the deer exclosure including diameter, height and species of each tree.
Young Explorers find possibly the ugliest but coolest creature in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Suited up and ready to roll we made our way downstream to form lines of snorkelers. With 64 deg water even the experienced snorkelers were hesitant, but once the crew laid flat and got their heads in the water the elation began to ring out.