BURLINGTON — The ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain hosted Community Science Night, an annual celebration for local youth mentoring pairs from the Chittenden County Mentoring Network (CCMN) on Thursday, March 21. More than 200 adult mentors and youth mentees from 10 mentoring programs in Chittenden, Franklin, Grand Isle, and Addison counties attended the free event, which featured an open exploration of the museum’s exhibits, a scavenger hunt, and hands-on demonstrations led by the ECHO E-Team (Environmental Leadership Team).
The event was sponsored by ECHO’s Open Door Program and MENTOR Vermont, and participants received free pizza courtesy of Domino’s. The featured exhibit for the event was the “Age of Dinosaurs,” featuring replica dinosaurs and interactive stations include a fossil dig pit, fossil rubbing, and remote-control dinosaurs.
“The mentoring trip was really fun,” said Alexis Isensee, a nine-year-old mentee with the Starksboro Mentoring Program, who attended the event along with her mentor Betsy Dunham. “I was really interested in the dinosaurs and how they moved, then I figured out it’s just by buttons. The second thing I was really interested in was the scavenger hunt and what to look for.”
Isensee and Dunham were two of 30 youth mentees and adult mentors who attended the event from the Starksboro Mentoring Program.