Maple-sugaring class at Shaver’s Creek connects students to nature, community

PETERSBURG, Pa. — Vonyeh Williams didn’t know what to expect when she signed up for a Penn State Agriculture and Extension Education class on “Interpreting Maple Sugaring to Families.”

“Maple sugaring, that’s something I never heard of!” the 21-year-old senior from Burlington, New Jersey, said.

Williams had never even tasted real maple syrup before she took the class, she said.

“A lot of my family is from the south, so I’m actually used to molasses [on pancakes],” said Williams, a recreation, park and tourism management major with a focus on commercial recreation and tourism management.

The maple-sugaring class, AEE297, prepares students to be interpreters at the Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center Maple Harvest Festival, which for more than 40 years has drawn thousands of visitors to Shaver’s Creek on a March weekend to walk in the woods, learn about maple sugaring and enjoy pancakes and real maple syrup. At this year’s festival, held March 22 and 23, Williams taught visitors how maple trees are tapped as part of the sugaring process.

“It’s been amazing to see kids, families and everyone want to learn what we’re teaching them,” she said. “They’re coming here saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we actually get to do something.’ That was my favorite part to see.”

Other students taught visitors about the history and evolution of maple sugaring and how to identify maple trees and collect sap, and — in the Shaver’s Creek Sugar Shack — demonstrated how sap is boiled down into syrup.

“The festival is such a special way to welcome and celebrate the arrival of spring,” said Shaver’s Creek Program Director Laurie McLaughlin, who runs the festival and teaches the interpretation class. “It brings people together and helps to connect the community to the natural world and Shaver's Creek.” 

The class is an example of the experiential learning offered at Shaver’s Creek. Students learn hands-on the steps involved in making maple syrup, while making connections with the environment, the land and agriculture — as well as to interns, staff, community members and other volunteers, McLaughlin said.

“They learn to tell the story of where our food comes from and how we as a community connect to our place in the ecosystem,” she said.

At least seven different majors are represented by students in the class, including agricultural science, landscape architecture and bioengineering. The diversity of backgrounds and experiences is part of what McLaughlin, who has been a part of the Maple Harvest Festival since the first one was held in 1984, enjoys most.

“Shaver’s Creek is a connection point for people of many backgrounds, experiences, interests," she said. “People find it in different ways.”

“I love helping students and people I work with have these really cool moments of ‘Aha!’ and of learning and exploring,” she said. “This experience and this class is truly one of my all-time favorite things.”

At the first class, McLaughlin told students that their interpreting — or storytelling — was as important as the nuts and bolts of making maple syrup.

“We’re going to give you lots of content on how to make syrup and lots of content on the process and art and the science of making syrup,” she said. “But equally important is the opportunity to learn how to share this information in a story -- in an experiential way that allows you to connect with other people's stories and engage our visitors in this process."

At the second class session, students taste-tested real maple syrup and its artificially flavored competitors — an experience that was offered at the festival itself. Williams became a fan, she said: “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I could definitely see myself eating this!”

Williams has an internship lined up after graduation with Marriott in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and hopes to make a career in the travel industry. She said the maple sugaring class, with its emphasis on storytelling, fits in well with that.

“We're not just learning how to make maple sugar,” she said. “We’re learning how to do something and then how to teach it to somebody else.”

Katie DeSa, a 21-year-old junior from Pawcatuck, Connecticut, also worked at the tapping station with Williams at the festival. DeSa said the class was a good fit with her major in community, environment, and development.

“I want to be involved with the community wherever I am,” DeSa said.

DeSa, the starting goalie on Penn State’s top-10 ranked women’s ice hockey team, said it’s been rewarding to be a part of a great community event.

“There have been lots of smiles, lots of fun,” she said. “Being able to learn about the process in the classroom and then come out to Shaver’s Creek and teach it ourselves, it kind of clicked in my head. It’s been awesome.”