Vermont Reads Suggested Activities

Host a Guest Speaker or Panel Discussion

Speakers Bureau

Our Speakers Bureau provides informative and thought-provoking presentations by scholars and experts on diverse humanities topics. These rich experiences are accessible for Vermont non-profit organizations to present in their community for a small fee.

We are offering each Vermont Reads host organization up to two free Speakers Bureau talks related to the themes in The Light Pirate.

Please note that the limit of two Speakers Bureau presentations per organization per year still remains.

More about Vermont Reads Speakers Bureau Bookings

Organize your own speaker or panel presentation

Host a local community expert. Here are some potential ideas: 

• Vermont Master Gardener
• Vermont Game Wardens
• Vermont Park Rangers
• Vermont Hatchery Technicians
• Farmers
• Survivalists

Become Citizen Scientists!

Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources and its 3 departments rely on the assistance of Citizen Scientists to enhance their mission of effective, well informed, and environmental stewardship. The Agency offers resources for educators and school groups through various programs that highlight our waterway systems, forestry, and public lands. Find more educational resources, as well as information on programming and ways to get involved here:  https://anr.vermont.gov/activities/citizen-scientists-education

The State of Vermont’s Maps and Mapping page highlights biofinder database & natural resources atlas. 

For funding support to cover honoraria, or other expenses related to supplemental programming needs, consider applying for a Vermont Humanities Rapid Response grant.

More about Vermont Reads Grant Opportunities

Listen to the Vermont Reads 2025 Podcast!

We have released two podcast episodes featuring interviews with people whose work intersects with the themes in The Light Pirate. The episodes are centered around the first two sections of the book: Power, and Water.

The episodes include a conversation with author Lily Brooks-Dalton, among others.

Listen to the episodes

Host an Exhibit

The Vermont Historical Exhibits

• Seeds of Renewel: Food, Forest, & Farming
• A Footpath in the Wilderness: The Long Trail in Vermont

How to book Vermont Historical Society Exhibits

Both are  traveling exhibits offered through The Vermont Historical Society. The Traveling Exhibit program offers low-cost, professional displays on a variety of Vermont history topics perfect for your historical society, museum, or community institution. These self-contained panel exhibitions can be used alone, or augmented with items from your own collections.

• Click here for details on terms, fees, and current offerings. For more information or to schedule a rental, contact Amanda Gustin, director.collections@vermonthistory.org, (802) 479-4264
• Fees for a twelve-week rental start at $100.
• Consider applying for a Vermont Reads-related Rapid Response grant from Vermont Humanities. More about Vermont Reads Grant Opportunities.

Vermont Folklife Center

• Portrait of a Forest: Men and Machine
  (downloadable version available)
• Growing Food, Growing Farmers
• Ice Shanties: Fishing, People & Culture

How to book Voices of Home

• Contact Vermont Folklife to determine availability of the exhibit you are interested in at (802) 388-4964 or info@vtfolklife.org.
• Consider applying for a Vermont Reads-related Rapid Response grant from Vermont Humanities. More about Vermont Reads Grant Opportunities.

Museum Field Trips

Visit a Nature Museum

• ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain – Burlington
• The Montshire Museum of Science – Norwich
• Southern Vermont Natural History Museum – Marlboro
• The Nature Museum – Grafton
• Birds of Vermont Museum – Huntington
• VINS Nature Center – Hartford
• Merck Forest & Farm Center – Rupert
• Lake Champlain Maritime Museum – Vergennes
• Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium – St. Johnsbury 
• American Museum of Fly Fishing – Manchester 

Visit a Nature Center or Conservation Site

• Vermont Fish and Wildlife Fish Hackery 
• Vermont State Parks 
• North Branch Nature Center – Montpelier
• Groton Nature Center – Groton
• Catamount Outdoor Family Center – Williston 
• Dead Creek Wildlife Area Visitor Center & Refugee – Addison 
• Lands of the Watershed Center – Bristol 
• Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge & Visitor Center – Swanton
• Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, Nulhegan Basin Division – Brunswick
• Eshqua Bog Natural Area – Hartland 

Host a Movie Night

These are available on either the Kanopy or Hoopla streaming services:

• 2040 (2020)
• When the Levees Broke (2021)
• Trouble the Water (2008)
• Frontline: Blackout in Puerto Rico (2018)
• Firestorm ’77: The True Story of the Honda Canyon Fire (2021)
• Climate Exodus (2020)
• Watership Down (1978)
• There Once was an Island (2010)
• Lost on a Mountain in Maine (2024)
• Rising Todes (2016)
• Decoding the Weather Machine (2018)
• How Prepared Are You for a Disaster? (2020)
• When Everything Fails: Surviving Any Disaster (2020)
• Electrical Power Transmission: The Grid (2015)
• Current on the Move: The Electric Grid (2020)

Online Films about Vermont Flooding:

• Flood Bound: The Uplifting Story of a Small Town Facing of a Natural Disaster (2018)
• And the Water Came Down From the Hills (1985)

Request a Screening:

• The Forgotten

Community Action

Local Opportunities

• Citizen Scientists: Volunteer: Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources and its 3 departments rely on the assistance of Citizen Scientists to enhance their mission of effective, well informed, and environmental stewardship. There are various volunteer opportunities that include invasive species patrollers, forest volunteers, bat population monitors, and more. 
• Vermont Vernal Pool Atlas: an online, interactive database that compiles and archives data for Vermont Vernal Pool Mapping Project and the Vermont Vernal Pool Monitoring Project. Vernal pools are small depressions in forests that fill with water in the spring and fall providing breeding habitat for many salamanders and frogs and have characteristic populations of fairy shrimp, fingernail clams, nails, water fleas, and copepods. 
• Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas: a group that seeks to gather and disseminate the data on our state reptile and amphibian populations so individuals and organizations can become more informed and effective stewards. You can submit your observations on both common and rare species. Additionally, they will assist with identification or answer questions about natural history and conservation of the species. 
• The Vermont Atlas of Life: Discover and share Vermont’s biodiversity. Dive into the data platform by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to explore what others have already reported. Submit your own observations on birds, butterflies, and more!  
• Vermont Center for Ecostudies: Join one of their several projects and contribute to scientific research, monitoring, and data collection. Projects vary from Alpine Butterflies, Common Loon Conservation, or Native Plants and Pollinators Ecotype Experiment. 
• Peregrine Falcon Monitoring and Management Project from Audubon Vermont: Peregrine Falcons suffered steep declines in population beginning in the 1940s due to DDT pesticide and eventually landed on the endangered species list in the 1970s. Through conservation efforts over decades, the Peregrine was reestablished in Vermont and later removed from the endangered species list. Monitoring continues in an effort to maintain the species.  
• Vermont Citizen Reporting of Wildlife: Help Vermont Forest and Wildlife track and monitor our state’s wildlife by reporting both sightings and incidents including bear incidents, heath of bats, tagged fish, or rare species sightings. 
• University of Vermont’s Field and Research Instruction and Land Stewardship’s Projects
• Vermont Institute of Natural Science: Become a Community Scientist page outlining various opportunities. 
• North Branch Nature Center Community Science: Contribute to data collection for major scientific research projects. Current projects include Owl Banding, Songbird Research, Winter Bird Count, and Amphibian Conservation. 

National and Global Opportunities

• Community Snow Observations: Contribute snow measurements from your backyard or during your outdoor adventures. Then explore the snow conditions on the interactive map. 
• EButterfly: Share your sightings of both rare and common butterflies. Collective data contributes to conservation decisions, scientific knowledge, education, and more. 
• eBird: Log your sightings or hearings of birds with a global community of birders and scientists. Sharing your observations helps track bird migrations on a global scale. 
• INaturalist: Submit your biodiversity observations, which will then be shared with scientific data repositories and shared with scientists. 
• National Phenology Network: Phenology is nature’s calendar – when plants bloom, birds nest, fall lives change, and is a indicator of climate change. Share your observations and explore the phenology data.  
• For more Citizen Science projects, National Geographic has put together this resource page with a many various biology, ecology, and earth science opportunities to projects across the globe. 
• Chronolog 
• Field Scope 
• Nature’s Notebook 
• BudBurst