Our Mountains Are Blushing. Do You Know Why?
Katharine Eneguess, President of White Mountains Community College
This time of the year it is hard to travel anywhere in northern New Hampshire without being awestruck by the breathtaking beauty of the autumn foliage. Though I have seen this annual burst of vibrant color my whole life, I am still stunned into silence when I turn a corner and a familiar maple tree that was green just a few days before is flaming red, lighting the roadside like a second sun.
We often write, on these pages, about degree and certificate programs that you can take to further your academic and professional careers, but we often forget to write about the joys of learning. Simply put, it is fun to learn and fun to broaden your understanding about the world around you. Learning can change the way you look at things, giving you a greater appreciation of your environment.
Which brings us back to the color of fall leaves. It's the chlorophyll in leaves that make them green. Chlorophyll is a chemical that aids in photosynthesis, the process that describes how plants, using sunlight, turn water and carbon dioxide into glucose. As the trees shutdown this process at the end of summer and into fall, the green chlorophyll disappears, and other colors, which were there all along, show through. Those colors are the bright reds and vivid yellows and oranges that so delight us all as we drive around the North Country.
Knowing the science behind what we see, whether it's the changing of the leaves in autumn or the beating of our own heart, can make the world a much more interesting place. At White Mountains Community College, we offer a full slate of science courses. One of the courses we offer as part of our Environmental Science associate degree is Introduction to Tree and Shrub Identification, an introduction to the morphology and classification of common trees and shrubs in northern New England. This class emphasizes identification in the field.
The trees of the North Country are rooted in the soils of the North Country, and what better way to increase your understanding of the place we call home than to take our Geology and Soils course. This class includes an introduction to the processes that have help shape the earth's crust. How did the Glenn Boulder get stuck in such a funny position on the flanks of Mount Washington? Why are the ravines deeper and more sharply cut on the eastern slopes of the mountain? And how did the Androscoggin River carve the Berlin Falls? We also offer courses in biology, chemistry, human biology, microbiology, and more. Take any one of these, or take them all, and you will never look at the world the same.
In another month the leaves will be off the trees, revealing the bare bones of the mountains. It can be a visibly stark time of the year, but you can enrich those days with a greater knowledge of the world around you.
The evergreens, the coniferous trees that keep their needles year-round, are dominant in the higher elevations of the North Country. Do you know the difference between a black spruce and a balsam fir? Can you identify each tree by its outline against the sky? If you answered no, we can help! For a full listing of the courses we offer go here.
Back to News List9/26/2008
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