Naturalist to finally bring master course to Butler County
PENN TWP — RaeLynn Harrison traveled to neighboring Armstrong County for a class to earn the title of Pennsylvania Master Naturalist, so for her final project in the class, she decided to make it easier for Butler County locals to earn the title.
Harrison, who is also director of environment education programming at Butler Catholic School, will help lead a Master Naturalist course in Butler County in the fall. The class will go from Aug. 14 to Oct. 30, and will teach people conservationist skills to help them become “nature stewards.”
Although she is a teacher of elementary and middle school students, Harrison said she frequently hears parents and other people tell her they would like to be involved in nature the way her students are.
“I get questions all the time with people saying, ‘I want to do what you do in class,’” Harrison said. “This is what we do with the kids, and I am basically going to do the same thing for adults.”
Butler County’s first Pennsylvania Master Naturalist course is offered in partnership with the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, which operates at Succop Nature Park in Penn Township and Buffalo Creek Nature Park in Buffalo Township. Classes will take place mainly at Succop Nature Park, where Ryan Stauffer, environmental educator with the Audubon Society, already leads classes.
Stauffer said the Master Naturalist course and the classes people are required to become Master Naturalists fit hand-in-hand with what is already offered at Succop Nature Park.
“To have such a program there has to be some infrastructure; Succop is providing structure and a home base,” Stauffer said. “Master Naturalist is coming to Audubon with a curriculum already in place.”
On March 11, Harrison walked through Succop Nature Park, and pointed out how many natural resources and habitats it contains.
The classes Harrison took with the Master Naturalist course in Armstrong County taught students how to identify plants and different types of animals, and how to promote biodiversity and a good environment. The Master Naturalist course provides 50 hours of training. Some of the identifications were trouble for Harrison, at least at first.
“The hardest class for me was rock identification,” Harrison said. “We did salamander identification where we had to just look at one and be able to know what it is.”
Some of the classes listed on the Butler County course schedule are “introduction to field geology,” “aquatic and plant communities,” “interpretation and field instruction” and “PA geology, soils, weather and climate.”
Service hours are also integral to the Master Naturalist program. Service hours give Master Naturalists an opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills they have learned during the training, said a post on the state Master Naturalist website. After the initial training course, trainees must complete at least 30 hours of service to become certified Pennsylvania Master Naturalist volunteers. To remain certified, volunteers must complete 20 hours of service each subsequent year, the post said.
Harrison said working service hours has been one of her favorite experiences of becoming a Master Naturalist, because she gets to put the knowledge she gained through it to practical work.
Helping to bring the class to Butler County is one of the final steps in becoming a Master Naturalist, but Harrison said she is happy to have the opportunity.
“The big thing to me was Butler County deserves to have this class,” Harrison said. “It’s just about getting adults aware of what’s happening around you.”
Comprised of about 50 acres, Succop Nature Park, Stauffer said, is “a lot in a small package” when it comes to nature and habitats.
“Within those 50 acres we have almost 100 species of trees,” Stauffer said. “What you're going to experience is a lot of different microhabitats that you can see all together. We see lots of different birds there because we have these niche habitats that supply their needs.”
Butler County is also a prime spot for the birds that migrate south in the winter and north in the spring to breed. Stauffer said Succop’s numerous habitats and miniature ecosystems makes for a good place for many bird species to stop on that migration journey before continuing the next leg of their journey.
“I enjoy leading bird hikes during migration season because we might see 50 species in an hour,” Stauffer said. “In early May, this is a great place to be; 400 species of birds either live in Pa. or migrate through.”
Throughout the Master Naturalist course, Stauffer plans to go from more easily accessible nature knowledge to in-depth lessons about specific pieces of Succop’s ecosystem. In addition to his own environmental expertise, Stauffer will bring in other experts in different ecological fields, so students of the course can learn a range of lessons.
“I'm hoping we can go even deeper into the nature,” Stauffer said. “We have some people into birds, rocks, different aspects of natural history. We are definitely looking forward to having members of the public come and do a deep dive into some of those subjects.”
Although some of the classes for the Master Naturalist course will take place in an actual classroom at Succop, Stauffer said he hopes to make the program as interesting and interactive as possible for its participants.
“Succop is a gem, it's easily accessible from Butler proper,” Stauffer said. “I want to keep this fun and let us experience nature together and not just give them facts.”
Harrison said that even though she works with nature almost every day at her full-time teaching job, she still has a lot to learn about the environment and how to be a good steward for it. She said the Master Naturalist class made her get out of her comfort zone by having her have to hold snakes — a scary prospect for her.
“With kids I’m always asking them to push their boundaries,” Harrison said. “That’s what I did with (holding) this snake. That was a big moment for me.”
To register for the Butler County Master Naturalist class, visit pamasternaturalist.org, and click “training courses” to navigate to Butler County’s course. The deadline to apply for the Butler County class, which begins in August, is May 12.
