Step into an animal’s paws for the week! Create camouflaged creatures, study skulls, and get a bird’s eye view on life. Registration required.

Conservation Genetics of Salamanders: July 27 - July 31 Dr. J.J. Apodaca, Tangled Bank Conservation The field of conservation genetics is rapidly emerging as an exceedingly vital component of conservation biology. This course focuses on salamanders to explore the fundamentals, cutting edge techniques, theories, and issues surrounding conservation genetics. Salamanders are one of the most endangered vertebrate groups in the world and are extremely diverse in the southern Appalachians, making them an ideal focal group for an introduction to the world of conservation genetics. In this short course, participants will become familiar with how to design, carry out, and interpret a conservation genetic study. We will also focus on learning to identify, work with, and appreciate the local salamander diversity. Participants will become acquainted with commonly used laboratory techniques and current literature pertaining to the conservation genetics of salamanders. This course is designed for students and others interested in working in the field of wildlife management that want to learn more about conservation genetics. Prerequisites: Introductory biology, ecology, or permission of instructor. Click here to apply.

Create art inspired by and made with nature! Practice weaving, try your hand at pottery, and mix up your own plant-based paper. Please Note: An exhibition of campers’ works will take place Friday at 1:30pm in the Nature Center with refreshments provided. All are invited to view the artwork and converse with the young artists. Registration required.

Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: William Bartram and Naturalists of the Southern Appalachians with Brent Martin on July 28-30 $325 July 28-30, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm William Bartram provides western North Carolina with one of our most important literary and artistic renderings of this landscape with his 1791 publication, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Participants will explore the western North Carolina landscape and writings of William Bartram through daily field trips, readings, and meetings with authors. At the end of the three days, students will have experienced the landscape of Travels firsthand and will have gained insight into the 18th century literary and intellectual world of Bartram, along with the cultural and natural history of western North Carolina at that time. Cherokee history of this area and era will be a focus, as will the art and descriptions of the southeast through the eyes of other early explorers, such as Andre Michaux and Mark Catesby. Brent Martin lives in the Cowee community in western North Carolina where he and his wife Angela Faye Martin run Alarka Institute, a nature, literary, and art based business that offers workshop and field trips. He is also the part-time director of the North Carolina Bartram Trail Society. He has served as the Southern Appalachian Regional Director for the Wilderness Society, Executive Director of Georgia Forestwatch, and Associate Director of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. He has an M.A. and ABD in History from Georgia State University and is a recipient of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Southern Environmental Leadership Award. A collection of his natural history essays, The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present was recently published by History Press. Click here to apply.

July 28th 9 pm-10 pm Nature Center Nights: Salamander Meander Kick off Highlands Nature Center’s summer season searching for salamanders in the Botanical Garden! Discover strange and fascinating facts about our slimy amphibian friends, then join naturalists on a walk through the gardens to find local species. Please bring a flashlight for this adventure! This program is weather-dependent.

Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: William Bartram and Naturalists of the Southern Appalachians with Brent Martin on July 28-30 $325 July 28-30, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm William Bartram provides western North Carolina with one of our most important literary and artistic renderings of this landscape with his 1791 publication, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Participants will explore the western North Carolina landscape and writings of William Bartram through daily field trips, readings, and meetings with authors. At the end of the three days, students will have experienced the landscape of Travels firsthand and will have gained insight into the 18th century literary and intellectual world of Bartram, along with the cultural and natural history of western North Carolina at that time. Cherokee history of this area and era will be a focus, as will the art and descriptions of the southeast through the eyes of other early explorers, such as Andre Michaux and Mark Catesby. Brent Martin lives in the Cowee community in western North Carolina where he and his wife Angela Faye Martin run Alarka Institute, a nature, literary, and art based business that offers workshop and field trips. He is also the part-time director of the North Carolina Bartram Trail Society. He has served as the Southern Appalachian Regional Director for the Wilderness Society, Executive Director of Georgia Forestwatch, and Associate Director of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. He has an M.A. and ABD in History from Georgia State University and is a recipient of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Southern Environmental Leadership Award. A collection of his natural history essays, The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present was recently published by History Press. Click here to apply.

Conservation Genetics of Salamanders: July 27 - July 31 Dr. J.J. Apodaca, Tangled Bank Conservation The field of conservation genetics is rapidly emerging as an exceedingly vital component of conservation biology. This course focuses on salamanders to explore the fundamentals, cutting edge techniques, theories, and issues surrounding conservation genetics. Salamanders are one of the most endangered vertebrate groups in the world and are extremely diverse in the southern Appalachians, making them an ideal focal group for an introduction to the world of conservation genetics. In this short course, participants will become familiar with how to design, carry out, and interpret a conservation genetic study. We will also focus on learning to identify, work with, and appreciate the local salamander diversity. Participants will become acquainted with commonly used laboratory techniques and current literature pertaining to the conservation genetics of salamanders. This course is designed for students and others interested in working in the field of wildlife management that want to learn more about conservation genetics. Prerequisites: Introductory biology, ecology, or permission of instructor. Click here to apply.

Create art inspired by and made with nature! Practice weaving, try your hand at pottery, and mix up your own plant-based paper. Please Note: An exhibition of campers’ works will take place Friday at 1:30pm in the Nature Center with refreshments provided. All are invited to view the artwork and converse with the young artists. Registration required.

Cliff & Rock Outcrop Communities of the Southern Appalachians: August 3 – August 7 Laura Boggess, Mars Hill University & Gary Kauffman, USFS, National Forest in NC (undergrad credit only) Rock outcrop and cliff communities represent a small fraction of land area in the Southern Appalachians but contain a disproportionately large number of rare species and unique community types. This workshop will give you first-hand experience of several of these unique and beautiful habitats, including high elevation granitic domes, high elevation rocky summits, montane cliffs, and montane red cedar woodlands. We will spend part of each day in the field (with at least one full-day trip) as well as time in the lab, identifying species and discussing cliff-related scientific literature. We hope you will gain a better understanding and deeper appreciation of the diversity, ecology, and conservation value of Southern Appalachian outcrop and cliff communities. Prerequisites: Introductory biology, ecology, or permission of instructor. Click here to apply.

Field to Database: Collecting Biodiversity Data in the Age of Global Databases August 3 – August 7 Dr. Joey Shaw, UC Foundation Professor of Biological Sciences, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga & Caleb Powell M.S. Candidate; The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga During this course, students will obtain a comprehensive understanding of how biological collections are made in the field and eventually uploaded to national and international data portals, like iDigBio or GBIF. We will help you to download and install important helpful apps and teach you how to use them in series to go from field to data portal. Students will leave the course having collected Plantae specimens, made labels, mounted specimens, and uploaded digital data to global portals. In addition to teaching and focusing on these skills, I can also help you to key out and identify plant species that you might encounter and want to collect in the field, although you should have some cursory skills. Prerequisites & Prior Training: This course is designed for young professionals who will be making biological collections of plants or fungi (professors, conservation workers, graduate students, undergraduate students, and naturalists), although it would certainly be open and we would make it interesting to anyone with an interest in this subject. No previous experience is required. Depending on the different field trips, participants should be prepared to put in at least a couple 12-hour days. It would be great if you have had at least a class in Field Botany, Plant Taxonomy, Local Flora, or similar, but that is not necessary either. Course Outcome: Leave having collected and digitizes Plantae specimens, including labels, transcribed text data & images. Click here to apply.