Environmental Education

Aram Calhoun, a vernal pool expert at the University of Maine, was there two weeks ago leading the center's vernal pool program. Calhoun is not a member, but noticed the hands-on, happy approach of the Hidden Valley community. "Bambi Jones is in the Master Naturalist Course with a focus on vernal pools. She invited (me) because she wanted to broaden her level of knowledge. It's a wonderful opportunity for Bambi to develop a program and to do lots of public education," Calhoun said.

Spotting an animal's fresh footprints in the wild can conjure a world for the hiker: Why did the deer tracks disappear? Where did the cougar turn off the trail? What does it mean when two sets of footprints seem to coincide? This beautifully illustrated field guide, the first devoted to the tracks and signs of California animals--including birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates like spiders and beetles--blends meticulous science with field experience to provide an engaging companion for both armchair exploration and easy field identification.

"I was excited about the idea of creating a project with people in my own state," she said. She approached Ethan Mitchell and Susannah McCandless, an Addison County couple that she knew offered help to the local farm-worker community, and through them met some of the region's Mexican laborers. Read the full story

A bag of chips I bought recently in England had some bad news printed on the back. First, the chips had 14 g of fat. Worse, they had caused 75 g of carbon to be released into the atmosphere. That bag called my attention to my carbon footprint: those 75 g, added to the 2.3 million from the plane I took there and back, plus the total of all the carbon impacts--the emissions into the air that contribute to global warming--of everything else I do and buy. Footprint math uses life-cycle assessment, or LCA, which calculates the amount of carbon released...

They could hardly have been more different, the nomadic Masai tribesmen from East Africa and the college professor from New Hampshire. Yet, as they sat around a campfire on a remote African savanna, it soon became clear that they all spoke the same timeless language: cattle.

Elizabeth Farnsworth is Senior Research Ecologist with the New England Wild Flower Society (NEWFS), and a biologist, educator, and scientific illustrator. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the botanical journal, Rhodora. She previously coordinated NEWFS planning for the conservation and management of over 100 species of rare plants. She is the principal investigator on Go Botany!, which is funded by the National Science Foundation: