Earth Day worth celebrating in Dover

DOVER — The middle school gymnasium at the Dover Middle/High School had plenty of environmental flair on Friday, April 15, as part of the Dover Conservation Advisory Council’s (CAC) third annual Earth Day event at the school.More than a dozen booths filled the school’s gymnasium, where a variety of exhibits and interactive displays kept the revolving student body interested as it passed through. Although Earth Day is technically April 22, the Dover school district will be out on spring break during that time, hence the April 15 event. The Sharon Audubon, in its first year attending the event, brought a number of birds to display, which drew the largest crowd of students.Mid-Hudson Trout Unlimited set up a number of petri dishes with samples of the small animal life from the Ten Mile and Great Swamp rivers.“We want the students to appreciate life in the surrounding steams,” explained Trout Unlimited member Donald Jiskra.“Hopefully this shows them how the food chain works,” added Trout Unlimited member Theresa Ryan. “What we brought today is a good indication that our streams are healthy.”Elsewhere, Lester Wojnar from the Pawling Nature Reserve brought turkey feathers that were distributed to students, as well as animal pelts to give students an idea of the animal diversity in their own backyard.“I was a teacher for 32 years, so I know you gotta get something to hook the kids in,” he said of the feathers. “But really, I hope that they’ll learn a bit about the reserve and take the time to walk the trails.”Most of the exhibitions were held in the gymnasium, but there was also an in-classroom exhibit using the “Steam in a Box” exhibit on loan from the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Millbrook.This was the first year that the event has been held in the gymnasium.“Pat [Rizzo, Dover’s middle school principal] expressed an interest at the outset in moving the event to a larger, well-lit space,” explained Dover CAC member Stancy DuHamel. “As a result, this year’s venue was more conducive to engaging the students. Not only was there a lot of interaction between the students and the exhibitors, there were productive exchanges among the teachers, administrators and exhibitors.”