Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on February 27, 2014

Jennifer Greene’s study of water began when she was a child playing in mud puddles.  Today, as director of the Water Research Institute in Blue Hill, Maine, she consults with municipalities on waste water management and teaches hands-on workshops that explore the hidden language of water and foster a sense of wonder and respect for it.

Hosted by Spikenard Farm, Blue Mountain High School and the Floyd EcoVillage, Greene visited Floyd over the weekend.  She presented a Friday night lecture and facilitated a day long workshop at the EcoVillage on Saturday.  She also spent a school day with BMHS students, guiding them in science experiments that deepened their understanding and connection to water as a vital resource.

“Our task is to try to understand water on its own terms; how it behaves when it flows.  It’s a very, very special fluid. We’re going to explore some aspects of its intrinsic nature … We’re going to meet a friend,” Greene told the students at Blue Mountain High School.

At the day long workshop, titled Seeing Water with New Eyes, Greene led about 25 participants in a series of empirical experiments to learn more about the living nature of water.  “Water observes its own laws of meandering and flow formation that allows it to maintain its own vitality and to serve and support other life forms,” Greene said.   – Colleen Redman

Post notes: Photo #1 shows adults at the all day workshop using a trickle board to investigate how water follows its own laws of meandering. Using dye they observed what goes on in eddies and side pools. Photo #4 shows participants walking with a tray full of water, observing its sensitivity and wave formation at varying speeds. Some noted that the faster they walked the less water was disturbed, while others reported that they walked slow to keep the water waves from spilling over.

The last two clips here are from Greene’s workshop with Blue Mountain High School Students. You can see photos from that and more by checking out  THIS post (from which some of the above was adapted from). Some of the photos from Greene’s visit to BMHS appeared in The Floyd Press with the above ones.

Read more about Greene’s work HERE.