Message from your Captain

Ahoy Schooner campers and parents,

Welcome to Week 6 of Schooner's summer activity guide newsletter, the final activity guide for Schooner's virtual summer. Scroll through this email to see an overview of this week's activities or check out our website, linked here, for past weeks' content!

This week, we'll focus on crabs, composting, and soil food webs. Come aboard, and learn with us! 

Creature of the Week

Each week, we will feature a local New Haven creature to discuss and learn more about together. This week, we discuss crabs!

Check out the Creature of the week tab on our webpage to learn about crabs' habitat, diet, and behaviors, and MORE.

DID YOU KNOW? Crabs are considered the garbage men (and women) of the sea because they eat detritus, decaying organic matter, and help keep the ocean environment clean and healthy!
 

Activity Draw a picture of the LIS Creature of the Week and upload it to our Padlet! 

Community Science Project: One of Schooner's goals is to help you understand the importance of every single organism (including humans) in maintaining a healthy and balanced ecosystem. One of those important (but possibly overlooked) organisms are butterflies.

This week, Schooner encourages you to join Big Butterfly Count, a UK based organization that uses regular citizens to obtain data about the butterflies they see. Download the Butterfly Count app to log your own observations or check out their website to upload your observations there! Compare the butterflies in the US versus the UK. If you don't see the butterflies that are on the list, make your own list. 



Download Schooner's Community Science document below for the butterfly identifying guide and more in-depth info on how to get involved!

More Activities

Do you want more Schooner-created, nature-related content? Pasted below are direct links to MORE of this week's activities!

 Printable Activities

??Nature Mystery ??

This coconut was found this past weekend at Long Wharf during the trash cleanup. How do you think it got there? Do coconuts migrate?
 

Submit your guesses to the community padlet. Label your guess-"Nature Mystery"

                                                                                                                                                       This Week's Social Media Campaign: 

In honor of this week's creature of the week-let's look for other flying  creatures; search for birds in your neighborhood and share using #insectsonmyblock  and #decomposersonmyblock hashtags. Make sure you list the town you are reporting from! 

Visit our Green spaces:

While Schooner is unable to take place in person this year, we wanted to include a list of Gather New Havens' (Schooner's Mothership) green spaces that, you and your family could visit for a socially-distanced nature outing.


Click here for a list of the available green spaces. 

Announcements / Sign-ups
 

• Did you miss the Peter Solomon talk? If so we have you covered! We recorded it. Here is the link to the presentation on our youtube channel here .
  
  
  
   

• We will be offering a "Virtual" New Haven Youth-led Trash Clean-up Challenge from August 3-21st. The crew that picks up the most trash has a chance to win prizes!

• Would you be interested in Exploring the Mudflats with us on Mudflat Mondays, held in-person August 17th and August 24th @ 4:00pm-5:30pm (Free, pre-registration required)

• Get MORE involved with Schooner this summer by sharing your own nature observations and completed activities on our community Padlet page.

• Spanish translations of the activities will be made available on the website a day or two after the emailed newsletter goes out on Monday.

• If you can donate to our efforts this summer to support this summer guide and getting food and activities to those in need in New Haven this summer please click the button below

Additional Links

newsletter archive / glossary / padlet/ website