Climate Action Center at Arcadia
As a way to address the challenges of climate change in Massachusetts, Mass Audubon has designated Arcadia as a Climate Action Center. By bringing a big global problem to a local and more manageable scale, we can gain insight on the effects of climate change on our community.
The Arcadia Climate Action Center leads our community in the fight against climate change by working with scientists to protect wildlife and their habitats in a rapidly changing world. We also provide educational programs to help people of all ages understand both the challenges and solutions of climate change. And we advocate for policies that make our towns and cities better places to live while helping people take action to protect nature.
Program Highlights
- Informational sign in the nature center, providing tangible ways you can reduce your impact.
- A tilting, rotating solar panel that follows the sun across the sky—it adjusts to the height of the sun above the horizon as it changes during the day and throughout the seasons, harnessing 45% more power than fixed panels.
- Life in a Changing Climate program, which helps middle and high school students understand the carbon cycle, the causes of climate change, and how we can deal with it.
- Youth Climate Summits, hosted along with local partners; at these events students from several high schools come together to learn about sustainability and become climate action leaders.
Resources to Learn More
- Find out about the effects of climate change on New England >
- See how Mass Audubon is lowering our own carbon footprint and saving energy >
Our Green Features
Arcadia is doing our part to leave a lighter footprint on the environment by utilizing green technology, conserving energy, and educating our visitors through informative displays about our conservation features and photovoltaic arrays.
Solar Energy
We're solar powered! Our fixed, ground-mounted 10.2 kW solar photovoltaic (PV) array came online in November 2010, and a tilting, rotating solar PV array was installed in October 2017. See the energy production from the arrays charted in graph format.
Floodplain Forest Restoration
The sanctuary launched a new habitat restoration project in fall 2020 aimed at re-establishing a floodplain forest. While an uncommon type of habitat in Massachusetts, floodplain forests improve climate resiliency by storing stormwater during floods in addition to keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.