BETHEL — “Earth is a crazy, changing, chaotic place,” environmentalist and teacher Bob Elliott told an audience Thursday night at the McLaughlin Auditorium at Gould Academy.

His lecture, courtesy of the Western Mountains Senior College, was on the “whale’s back” gravel ridge, or “ancestral Androscoggin esker” that rises from the ground and trails from Aziscohos Lake to North Yarmouth. It is 70 miles long and contains ideal soil for pine trees.

“Eskers are (as) significant as (they are) amazing, and somewhat miraculous creations,” he told the 35 listeners. “This one is especially significant because it’s in our own backyards and many of us travel along and on it every time we drive south.”

A field trip to the esker will be held Saturday, Sept. 10.

Elliot, who holds master’s degrees in geology, ecology and teaching, hopes people will gain “an ability to see familiar sights with new eyes (and) gain new knowledge about and awareness of natural processes.” Most of all, he said, he hopes they gain a new enthusiasm of the natural world.

Elliot said he became an environmental educator in the late 1960s, when he “began to see how little people knew, or cared about, how the Earth works and what a mess (human beings) are making of it.”

He has taught high school and college students, and developed his own small school in Maine. Since his retirement in 2007, he has taught several programs to many groups. 

Elliot will teach a six-part, 12-hour course on glacial geology, global warming and isostatic rebound of the Earth, beginning next week, organized by the Senior College.

For more information about the class and other educational events, call the Western Maine Senior College at 207-364-3137.

emeisner@sunmediagroup.net