The recent chill in the air didn’t stop several families from venturing out with the Buzzards Bay Coalition on a series of three winter explorations around Wareham.

The expeditions took place in three different places around town, and ran from Dec. 28 – Dec. 30. They were led by MassLIFT AmeriCorps Community Engagement Coordinator Kari Amick and MassLIFT AmeriCorps Service Learning Coordinator Tanya Creamer. Amick said the expeditions are purposefully scheduled during the winter vacation, so kids don’t just sit inside all day.

“The idea is to give people something fun to do, something to get them outside, during the winter vacation,” Amick said. “[Families] don’t need to place something for a few hours, for three days.”

The first expedition took place at Little Harbor Beach, Creamer said, and involved the 15 people who attended looking for the different creatures who live in the wintery waters.

“A lot of those kids were locals, and had been to that beach in the summer, but had never been to the beach in the winter,” Creamer said. “We talked about some of the differences of the beach in the winter versus the summer – and the first thing the kids said was, ‘There are no people here!’”

Creamer said the kids found all sorts of things, such as more intact shells and seaweed, due to the different tides in the winter, and the recent full moon on Dec. 24.

“They found bay scallops that were still hinged together, and bay scallops that were literally the size of the kids’ hands – they loved it,” Creamer said.

Though only one family attended the second expedition, due to chilly rain, both Jacob Bessey, 6, and Noah Bessey, 4, learned to use a compass in conjunction with a map for a good hour, in order to find various places around Horseshoe Mill, such as a deer habitat, and a large, scenic rock.

“We [showed] the kids how to find north, and how to orient their compasses, and … that we started at the parking lot on the map,” Amick said. “They can see on the map also where north is, and orient themselves based on their map and compass … and figure out what path we should follow.”

Noah, in particular, seemed to enjoy the cold, wet water – which became evident when first he bent down to completely, intentionally submerge himself in a large, muddy puddle, and then proceeded to wade partway into the chilly waters at the old mill site.

Jacob didn’t have quite the hydrophilia of his brother, and found a large piece of iron leftover from the old mill’s operations.

The following day, Amick and Creamer led two separate groups of families through the Minot Forest on a photographic scavenger hunt. On the hour-and-a-half walk, Creamer showed the Rubin children and their grandmother, Sandra Casey, various kinds of plants and signs of animal life. Every time the kids found an item on their 20-some item scavenger hunt list, Creamer took a picture.

Of all the nature in the forest, fraternal twins Elliot and Sam Rubin, 9, were most fascinated by the forest’s minty yield of teaberries and fragrant teaberry leaves. By the end of the expedition, the two had collected a handful of leaves and berries each.

“I’m going to make tea when I get home,” Sam said.

“We can squeeze the berries into the tea, to flavor it!” Elliot said.