Fall Field Trips

It’s been a busy season for Howard County Conservancy Field Trips for K-4.  This is my second fall as a volunteer naturalist. There was an uptick in the number of field trips and there were definitely times that it would have been easier with more volunteers….but I enjoyed every one of my hiking groups. The buses generally arrive about 10 AM and the children are divided into hiking or lesson groups. The volunteer naturalists take 5-10 students with their chaperones on about an hour long hike then there is a big swap and the lesson group gets divided into hiking groups….and the volunteer naturalist guides a second hike. At the end there is hand washing and a picnic lunch (or return to school for lunch).

Everything is outdoors so the weather is sometimes a concern. The last field trip was last Friday and it was, by far the coldest of them all. But everyone dressed for the weather. Some of the children even decided it was worth taking a glove off temporarily to feel milkweed down!

You might be wondering what the pogo stick looking object in the picture is. It is a soil auger that is the favorite of all second graders on the soil hike. Everyone gets to use it and all the students are hands on with the samples collected. It’s my favorite from volunteer naturalists perspective too: it is indestructible, gets participation from everyone (sometimes even the chaperones), and the students are thrilled with transitioning what they’ve learned in class to ‘field work.’

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 19, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Two articles related to elephants caught my eye this past week: Does this trunk make me look fat?  about overweight zoo elephants and Short lives, violent deaths about the findings from the CT scans of the remains of 2 Siberian mammoth calves (one was 30-35 days old and the other was 52-57 days old).

Icelanders Grieve for the Peculiar Lake Balls - Lake Myvatn used to have balls of algae all over its bottom. Now the lake is full of algae-smothering sediment after mining operations dumped extra phosphorous and nitrogen into the lake cause dense bacteria blooms. There are a few other places in the world where the balls of algae form but one is gone.

NIH Senior Health - NIH has a web site specifically for health and wellness information for older adults!

Longhorns on the Prairie - Not cattle….beetles!

Journey Underground to These Eye-Poppingly Incredible Old Mines - The images look like science fiction (dystopian). Many appear to be open for tourists.

Exploring the Parks: New River Gorge National River - Looks like a beautiful place in West Virginia. I’m putting the link on my ‘vacation planning list!

One injection stops diabetes in its tracks: Treatment reverses symptoms of type 2 diabetes in mice without side effects - Lots of research to come on this. Too good to be true for humans?

14 Fun Facts about Piranhas - From Smithsonian.com. Somehow these fish rank right up there with sharks as ‘scary things in the water.’

Contributing factors to groundwater table declines identified - The article includes color coded maps of Texas from the 1930s to 2000s and shows how much deeper one has to look these days to find groundwater in the state. The declines are mostly due to irrigation and population growth….but there are other factors too. The population of the state is expected to double by 2060 while the water supply is expected to decline by 10%.  Something has to change (probably more than a single thing)!

The Soil Pollution Crisis in China: A Cleanup Presents Daunting Challenge - Third and final of a series. The links for the other two articles in the series are at the bottom of this final article. Scary stuff. With population growth, it is tragic to damage farmland. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 5, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

How Did This Ancient Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years? - This article linked well to the Paradoxes of War course I am taking right now….one of those little serendipities of life. There are hints of other cultural norms that were so different from our own that we can’t quite fathom how they worked.

Oklahoma earthquakes induced by wastewater injection by disposal wells, study finds - I saw a story about the Oklahoma earthquakes on the evening news that featured a home owner from Prague, OK whose house had been badly damaged. I have a family connection to the area: my great-grandparents farmed in the area and my one of my grandmother’s first memories was of their house blowing away. They worried about tornadoes rather than earthquakes. I’m glad there are studies being done to understand why the dramatic increase in earthquakes is happening….and help us make better decisions about wastewater disposal.  On the positive side for Oklahoma, at least they had data available that could be used to determine the problem. Now the question is - what action will result? And what about China’s Dirty Pollution Secret: The Boom Poisoned Its Soil and Crops? Both of these instances seem to be cases where the price of ‘development’ is becoming unexpectedly high - and maybe it is going to get higher over time.

Chemist with Visual Flair Answers Burning Food Science Questions - A high school chemistry teach in the UK has a flare for chemistry info graphics. The ones collected in the NPR post are about food but he has others at his open web site: Compound Interest.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #69 - I have to include one of these periodically. Which is your favorite? Two near the end are mine: the egret and peacock (and I can't resist including one on my own peacock pictures with this post).

Why Online School? Why Full Time? - A survey to find out why parents and student use online schools full time. The two reasons are “want a change from their local school” and “require or want greater flexibility.”  The survey was of parents of students of Connections Academy, an online school.

Slow media - Sometimes the alternative to ‘fast’ is what we need!

Ancient baby boom holds a lesson in over-population - A case study from the American southwest: farming and food storage resulting in high birth rate until there was a drought which caused the crash.

4 New Energy Maps Show A Lot about Renewables - Wind, solar, biomass and geothermal…the US has a lot of potential.

New study from population and development review finds flaws in mortality projections - There is good news and bad news: The good news is that the decline in cigarette smoking will almost certainly result in longer-living older populations. The bad news is that current public policy around the world has not included that change in mortality projections (i.e. governments are underestimating the number of older people for the next decades…and were already struggling with the shifting demographics).

50 States, 50 Spots Natural Wonders - From CNN. There are a lot of natural wonders is virtually every state I’ve visited….too hard to pick just one…but fun to think about.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - January 2014

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for January 2014. I’ve grouped them into 4 categories this month: food, my past, looking outdoors and learning something new.

Food

Scones. I’m not sure why I thought scones were too difficult for my cooking skills….but I avoided trying to make them for long time until I saw a recipe that used a food processor for the hardest part! Now I make them a couple of times a month and vary the recipe. The original was pumpkin and ginger. The scones I celebrated this month were raisin and ginger (I like the slivers of crystallized ginger so they are part of the ‘basics’ for all my scones!

Baked Apples. I’ve always liked baked apples but I tend to forget about them. This January we had apples that needed to be used up quickly….so I got back in the habit. I had baked apples three days in a row! I bake the in the microwave for 2 minutes then add other ingredients before microwaving for another 2 minutes. My favorite ‘other ingredients’ are orange zest, pecans, and marmalade!

Homemade soups. Soup is my favorite food on cold days - and I never buy soups in cans these days. Many times I enjoy the leftovers used in soups more than the original meal they came from!

My Past

Wedding Anniversary. I celebrated over 40 years of marriage this month. Noting the date always reminds me of the broader need to celebrate and appreciate the durability of our family ties overall.

Friend from Long Ago. Rediscovering a friend from a long time ago is such a pleasure. It is invigorating to rediscover that the kernel of our younger selves is still within us!

Look Outdoors

This January has been too cold here in Maryland to do much outdoors….but the views through windows have been intriguing.

Snow. The snow has stayed on the ground for a long time. At first it is pristine and there are bits on the larger branches of the trees. Then the tracks of deer and squirrels are evident the snow on the trees either melts or is blown away.

Fog in the forest. One morning the humidity and temperature combined to create a dense fog. The forest behind out house looked as if it were holding the fog in its branches.

Robins. The flock of robins from a few days ago was a pleasant surprise.

Learning Something New

The new semester on Coursera. I’ll write a longer post early next month …when I’ll have more experience with the courses. What I am celebrating right now is that the first week of the courses I’ve started has been so good!

Soil science. I went to a lecture on this topic and was surprised at how much I learned…..and that I followed up to check the soil suitability for my neighborhood (It was quite a relief to know that the soil was suitable for houses with basements!).

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 18, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Over 4,000 Reasons to Love (and Protect) North America’s Native Bees - many agricultural plants are primarily pollinated by native bees (rather than the honey bees that were brought from Europe that are uniquely equipped with the tools and techniques required to do the job. )…and they are declining.

Web Soil Survey - The WSS interface allows you to find out about the soil for a specific area in the US (i.e. an address). It’s provided by the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service. Reports can be generated about the suitability of the soil for specify uses. For example, I requested a map about the suitability for houses with basements for my neighborhood. Where my houses sits was coded ‘green’….but at one edge of the neighborhood it was ‘yellow’ because the soil changes and there was another small area that was ‘red.’ This would certainly be a resource to check if you were building a house or buying one in an unfamiliar area! The builder can take steps to overcome the soil suitability issues….and avoid wet basements! There is also a site that provides the detailed descriptions of soils here. Did you know that there are 26,000 soil types in the US?

Ray Archuleta Soil Health Lessons in a Minute - Short videos about aspects of soil health from the USDA NRCS. Watch the one about the benefits of no-till farming!

Spectacular Photos of a Powerful Volcano Erupting in Chile - Awesome power of the earth to reshape itself.

Long-Forgotten Photographs Reveal Challenger Disaster As It Happened - Most people old enough to remember January 1986….know where they were and how they found out about the Challenger. It’s one of those sad, defining moments for the psyche of the US.

The truth about technology’s greatest myth - The impact of technology in our lives is not straightforward at all…there are positives and negatives...complexities…unintended consequences. Technology cannot be evaluated without the context of the people and societies using it - which means that it isn’t ever simple or entirely rational.

Which scientific ideas do we need to get rid of? - Some answers from some prominent thinkers

Salman Khan’s TED Talk ignited the conversation about online education. Why he’s doubling down on the school of the future - How can education keep up with the pace of the rest of society and the cultural nuances around the globe? One pathfinder is the Khan Academy.

European word translator - Enter one or two lower-case English words and see translations overlaid on a map of Europe!

5,900 Natural Gas Leaks Discovered Under Washington, D.C.: A Dozen Locations Had Concentrations High Enough to Trigger Explosion - Aging infrastructure can be dangerous…and very wasteful.