The Friends of Pheasant Branch Conservancy is hosting a Master Naturalist Course in Middleton beginning August 6, 2021.
The WI Master Naturalist Program is a statewide effort to promote awareness, understanding, and stewardship of the state’s natural resources. It is a network of well-informed volunteers dedicated to conservation service, leadership, and lifelong learning. The goal is to develop a corps of informed volunteers dedicated to education and service within their Wisconsin communities. The Master Naturalist training provides 40 hours of training in natural history, interpretation, and conservation stewardship. Trainings combine classroom instruction with field experiences and are taught by professional natural resources educators and scientists. Due to COVID-19, we anticipate the training to be held mostly in outdoor settings. Once trained, Wisconsin Master Naturalists provide 40 hours of service and take 8 hours of advanced training each year to maintain their certification and receive a recognition pin.
The training will include some classroom time, but will focus mostly on outdoor experiences in the Pheasant Branch Conservancy and field trips to other exceptional sites for learning in our topic areas. Experts will share their knowledge, research, tips, tricks and inspiration as they lead or present parts of the training. The Conservancy includes 660 acres of remnant and seeded prairie, oak savanna, woodlands, springs, wetlands, and stream corridors. The training will look within the Conservancy and other places in the Pheasant Branch Watershed and beyond to explore geologic history, ecology, water, animal and plant resources, and the connections between humans and the landscape. The training will have two focal points from which to cover the topics above: one is water, water resources and the relationships between water and all of the above. The other is learning through restoration and management activities – a service-learning approach. The target audience includes individuals who are interested in teaching using the outdoors as a classroom as well as folks interested in volunteering for restoration and management of natural areas all while gaining an environmental knowledge base. Plan to arrange your own transportation to outdoor sites.
For more information, view the Wisconsin Master Naturalist website .
The dates for the WIMN course are August 6-7, 13-14 and 27-28….8am-5pm. The registration opens July 6-27, 2021 or until full. Check Wisconsin Master Naturalist- Pheasant Branch Page for an active registration link at that time.
The majority of the class will be conducted outdoors in various natural settings from the Madison Lakes to Pheasant Branch Conservancy to Devils Lake SP. The emphasis will be on applying the concepts learned to environmental education and restoration/management.