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What is Junior Master Naturalists?
​Junior Master Naturalists is a recently developed environmental program open to children and teens who would like to expand their environmental science backgrounds as well as acquire skills in preservation, stewardship, and leadership. Junior Master Naturalists is a cutting-edge organization that plans to incorporate high levels of naturalist education into its curriculum, while developing a love for the outdoors.

It is rare in this day and age to find a child that, given the option between a game outside in the sun or an activity in front of an electronic, will choose to partake in outdoor adventures. That is why the adult advisors and Teen Leaders of Junior Master Naturalists take it upon themselves to educate the members as well as encouraging the children and public to allow their fondness of the outdoors to truly flourish. 
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​Children and teens who participate in Junior Master Naturalists are encouraged to allow their love for the outdoors to flourish, educate and learn about nature at a mastery level, and become environmental stewards in the community. ​

How did Junior Master Naturalists in Tidewater begin?
It all started with a group of ambitious little girls with a love for the outdoors, some green shirts, and a whole lot of time and devotion.  
​When Mariah Moss, age five, asked her mother if she and her friends could pick up trash in the neighborhood, it seemed like a good idea. Since that first day, when the girls came back with full trash bags, ripped gloves, and smiles on their faces, the organization has flourished into what we now know as Junior Master Naturalists. Over the past ten years, the club’s members have grown in number, the program’s assets appealing to children and their parents because of the variety of experiences, fun, education, and stewardship community service that Junior Master Naturalist has to offer.

The original homespun club, Girls Go Nuts for Nature, has now partnered with 4-H and Virginia Master Naturalists and is centered at the Brock Environmental Center, a building designed to meet the highest environmental standards possible. The building includes natural light, all renewable/solar/wind provided energy, and a myriad of other cutting-edge, environmentally friendly appliances and accommodations. Junior Master Naturalists is now open to girls and boys, as well as a wider age group, offering positions for Youth Members, ages 8-13, and Teen Leaders, ages 14-18.

​In JMN’s curriculum, certified adult Master Naturalists will act as advisors to the Teen Leaders as they guide them through the rigorous training and certification process. When we open up the program to the Youth Members on March 20th, 2015, the Teen Leaders will be ready to take on a new responsibility, closely interacting with the children on a personal level, passing down the knowledge that they have acquired in the previous months. 

What does a Junior Master Naturalist do?
A Junior Master Naturalist, whether he or she is part of the Youth Member team or the Teen Leaders, will have opportunities to meet and learn from certified naturalists and the highest level of expertise in the area. JMN offers one-of-a-kind experiences that can’t be found just anywhere.

Youth Members: 8-13 will have fun outdoors, learn about nature, and become environmental stewards.
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Teen Members: 14-18 will grow their confidence and leadership skills, while delving deeper into nature-related topic, mastering naturalist kills, and sharing their knowledge with the youth members.​

Lesson Plans
After each Teen Leader has completed his or her training, the Teen Leaders will each work individually on creating a thorough, entertaining, and interactive lesson plan based on an assigned topic. Each approved lesson plan will be included in the curriculum; complete with educational songs, puzzles, coloring pages, activities, or anything else that could pique a child or preteen’s interest and make environmental education fun and exciting.

Excursions
Every other month, Junior Master Naturalists will be meeting away from the Brock Center. The lesson plans for that day will either be taught by an expert, certified Master Naturalist or a teen leader in a new environment. We may be learning about bugs at a new site with Entomologist Stuart McCausland, planting wetland grasses at Mount Trashmore with Jody Ullmann, or going on a whale-watching boat. Each excursion will be relevant to the previous lesson plan, allowing the members to utilize what they learned at the last meeting in different scenery with a more hands-on approach.

​Trips
Fundraisers and donations will allow Junior Master Naturalists to better the experience of its members. With sponsorships and fulfilled hours of stewardship in the local community, Teen Leaders will be given another opportunity to raise funds. The Teens can then decide where they would like to journey, opening doors for learning and adventuring in a different, not-so-local environment. There are also opportunities for joint Teen and
Youth local expeditions, such as camping or kayaking. 

by Susan Austin Roth, VMN – Arlington Regional Chapter and Blue Ridge PRISM volunteer

    Whenever you hike in a local park or state wildlife preserve, or drive along Virginia’s scenic byways, are you appalled by the obvious destruction done by invasive plants? Everywhere one goes these days, it seems the landscape is overrun with invasive vines shrouding and strangling trees and invasive shrubs and grasses obliterating the native plants we should be seeing.  Unfortunately, the horror scene you observe goes unnoticed by most of the public, who thinks green is good and the unnatural is the way it should be and always has been. 
      If you are a keen devotee of Virginia’s forests, fields and working farms, perhaps you already volunteer in the effort to combat nonnative invasive plants by leading hand-to-hand combat efforts in a local park.  But here’s another way you can help the effort on a much larger scale. A new organization dedicated to fighting nonnative invasive plants, the Blue Ridge PRISM (Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management) needs volunteer help from Master Naturalists with knowledge about invasive plants and an interest in outreach to consult with landowners. If you volunteer, you would identify invasive plants on the landowners’ properties, distribute literature, and assist landowners in applying for PRISM grants for invasives control. The Blue Ride PRISM is also looking for volunteers to join a task force in scouting for wavyleaf grass in areas near known infestations. Training will be provided. If you do not reside in an area served by the Blue Ridge PRISM, you might consider organizing interested people to establish a similar organization in another region of the commonwealth.
     The Blue Ridge PRISM is a young, but fast-maturing, nonprofit organization dedicated to raising community awareness and leading control efforts to combat invasive plants in 10 counties located on both sides of the Shenandoah National Park.  It is the first CWMA (cooperative weed management area) headquartered in Virginia. Nationally, there are more than 100 such organizations, most of them in the West. The ten counties included in the Blue Ridge PRISM’s geographical range are: Albemarle, Augusta, Clarke, Greene, Madison, Nelson, Page, Rappahannock, Rockingham and Warren.
     The Blue Ridge PRISM began in 2014 as a gleam in the eyes of Rod Walker, a landowner in Albemarle County whose forested land was being wrecked by exotics, and Jake Hughes, Exotic Plant Management Biological Science Technician for Shenandoah National Park.  Now, more than 30 people sit on its advisory board, making up a broad-based coalition of private landowners, nonprofit organizations, for-profit business owners, university faculty, and local, state and federal agencies. These stakeholders have formed nine working groups, which have made great strides in moving this organization forward. Grant awards are pending and the funds will be put to work on many fronts, including education and outreach, and control and restoration implemented through the PRISM’s unique Area Stewards program.
     Effective invasives control is a community and neighborhood issue, because these aggressive plants know no boundaries – flowing water, birds, hikers, vehicles, and animals scatter and spread their seeds like a contagious disease. Steps can be taken to eradicate invasive plants from a park or private property only to have the area rapidly become re-infested from neighboring land. Community-wide action is needed. Through cooperative efforts, the Blue Ridge PRISM aims to enable citizens to reclaim the region’s natural heritage and become good stewards of the land.
     The Blue Ridge PRISM’s Area Stewards program is at the heart of its mission; control measures will focus on areas where members and volunteers encourage neighboring property owners to work together to create large areas of control. This cooperative program among neighbors and communities will create islands of invasive-free land that will reduce the likelihood of reinfestation. As more neighboring properties join the effort, the amount of invasive-free land will expand. One Greene County Area Steward just completed the first year of control of Japanese stiltgrass on several hundred acres of five adjoining properties.  Two Area Stewards are organizing work in Albemarle County, one on ailanthus and another on bittersweet.                    
     The PRISM is concentrating on controlling the worst invasives in the Blue Ridge. The “terrible twelve” are: ailanthus (tree of heaven), autumn olive, bush honeysuckle, Chinese privet, garlic mustard, Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese stiltgrass, kudzu, mile-a-minute, multiflora rose, oriental bittersweet, and porcelainberry, with an Early Detection Rapid Response effort targeted at wavyleaf grass. 
     Master Naturalists can significantly help in furthering the Blue Ridge PRISM’s mission by volunteering to become Area Stewards, helping to staff events, and scouting for wavyleaf.
 
 If you are interested in volunteering for education and outreach, please contact Ruth Douglas at 434-293-6538 or cvilleruth@embarqmail.com or Rod Walker at rwalker@alum.mit.edu. To volunteer to become an Area Steward or in your community or a wavyleaf scout, please contact Jim Hurley at jehurley@mindspring.com. See the Blue Ridge PRISM’s evolving website at www.blueridgeprism.org.
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Each January, Virginia Master Naturalists scramble to compile their reports of volunteer activities from the previous year.  We appreciate their diligence and quick turn-arounds, because we use the numbers and stories from these reports in many ways.  We share them with our sponsoring agencies to illustrate the excellent return on investment this program provides.  We use them to give feedback and support to chapters to help them accomplish their goals.  We use them to gauge how we’re doing in relation to our mission and to make changes to continue improving the program.

Next quarter, we’ll share some stories of special projects and local impacts, but for now, we would like to share 2015’s very impressive numbers.  Our program continues to grow in numbers of volunteers, hours of service, and educational contacts made. 

In 2015, 1,679 volunteers reported more than 120, 000 hours of service, more than 21,000 hours of continuing education, and more than 104,000 face-to-face exchanges of educational information about natural resources.  Their service in 2015 is valued at nearly $3 million, based on the value of a volunteer hour in Virginia as calculated by IndependentSector.org. 

Many Virginia Master Naturalist chapters are still accepting applications for their Spring 2016 training courses.  Individuals interested in the environment and who have a desire to give back to help natural resources in their communities are encouraged to apply. 

Blue Ridge Foothills and Lakes Chapter
Historic Southside
​Holston Rivers
Northern Neck Chapter
Peninsula Chapter 
Rivanna Chapter
Roanoke Valley
Shenandoah Chapter
Tidewater Chapter

For a map of the locations of all chapters, visit ​http://www.virginiamasternaturalist.org/chapters-a-map-and-contacts.html