BACK TO NATURE: It’s adults only at a new series of courses running through the fall at the Watershed Environmental Center in Pennington. This view is from a Saturday morning field trip that was part of the first course on birds of New Jersey. Coming up are sessions on plants and flowers, insects, and trees of New Jersey. (Photo by Lynn Butler)

Offering ecology-based experiences for adults is a regular part of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association’s mission. But a new series of courses and field trips geared to grown-ups is designed to take these experiences to another level.

“We’re digging deeper with this,” said Jeff Hoagland, the Watershed’s director of education and a designer of “The Language of Nature,” which began last month and will run through the fall. “We had reached out before to staff and other experts in the community to teach classes. But that was really just scratching the surface. This is different.”

The first course, a six-session series focused on birds of New Jersey and completed last week, sold out. The next, “Plants and Wild Flowers of Woods, Fields, and Roadsides,” taught by Rider University associate professor Laura A. Hyatt, runs on Tuesday evenings May 5-20. Mr. Hoagland is hopeful that it will inspire similar enthusiasm.

“You could say that we’re preaching to the choir a little,” he said. “But what we’re doing is capitalizing on what we believe is people’s inherent interest in the environment, giving them an opportunity to really understand the ‘language’ of nature. As naturalists, we see things happen. We’re trying to shine a light on that. So we’re taking it further.”

The idea for the series has been in the back of Mr. Hoagland’s mind for some time. But a conversation with board member Fred Spar brought it into sharper focus. “He sat down with me one day and we started to talk. I have to confess I was really pleased to hear what was coming out of his mouth as a board member,” Mr. Hoagland said. “He feels the same way I do — that it’s one thing to learn on one level about these aspects of nature, but it’s another thing to dive in deeper.”

Mr. Hoagland is especially enthused about the approach Ms. Hyatt will take with the upcoming course on plants and flowers. “It’s a mixture of old-school tools and hi-tech gadgets,” he said. “She’ll have a plant press, which is a nice, hands-on and rather basic technique. And she’s bringing a piece of equipment I hadn’t heard of before, that you can put around a plant to indicate how much photosynthesis is taking place. All of this allows people to get up close and personal and discover the magic of these things we walk by every day.’

In September and October, Mercer County Community College associate professor Amy Iseneker Ricco will teach “Insects of New Jersey,” with field sessions on insect collection, identification, and preservation at the Watershed Reserve. Next is “Trees of New Jersey,” with specific dates and location still to be named. All of the courses are designed to appeal to learners of all levels, Mr. Hoagland stressed.

“Sometimes these might feel almost like college courses, and that can sound intimidating,” he said. “But we have a whole range of learners, from people who are new to this to people who have some depth of knowledge already. And the teachers have been chosen to carefully accommodate that.”

Fees for the courses vary according to how many sessions are being taken and whether a student is a member of the Watershed, starting at $185 for one session and ranging to $840 for four. Visit www.thewatershed.org for more information.

The hope is to make the series a regular part of the Watershed curriculum. “We might offer some of the same courses next year, as well as some new ones,” Mr. Hoagland said. “There is a feedback loop we need to digest once we get into this further, and that will help us determine the next step.”