I spent the third week of October with my 6th grade students in the Santa Cruz Mountains, learning about poison oak and banana slugs, compost and food waste, gardening and invasive plant species, and how ecosystems change as one moves higher in elevation. We ate Redwood Sorrel (tastes like green apples), munched on Douglas Fir […]
I know wildfires are good for a forest, and play a necessary natural role in maintaining our ecosystem. However, as I think about the magnificent Purisima Creek redwoods towering over me during a mountain bike trek last weekend, or a dear friend who lost her family home to the Beaver Creek wildfire last August, I […]
Catching up on emails recently, I came across a link titled “How Wolves Change Rivers”. I thought, “Come on. How could a wolf change a river?” Well, it turns out that the video unveiled a phenomenon called “trophic cascade.” Think avalanche. It’s an ecological process of destruction that starts by getting rid of the top trophic […]
This week’s blog post is from Erin Schrode, one of our dynamic advisory board members. Erin shares some information about her wonderful organization, Teens Turning Green. I believe in the power of education above all else. I endeavor to be a catalyst for critical thought. I see public and environmental health as paramount. […]
Listening to a recent broadcast of KCRW’s Left, Right and Center, co-host Rich Lowry (author and editor of the National Review) put forth a few things that concerned, or perhaps more accurately, disturbed me. He questioned how we can be certain that human activity contributes to climate change in light of evidence that while the […]
A few weeks ago I learned about a course that was open to the public at UC Berkeley, Edible Education 101: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement. The Edible School Yard Project manages the public tickets through Eventbrite. If you sign up for information, the Tuesday before the following Monday’s event you get […]
Riding the Capitol Corridor train on my most recent trip to Sacramento, I was struck by just how much I miss teaching. While it was hard to leave the high school classroom, I am happy to be involved with contributing input on the revision of the Science Framework for California Public Schools. The reason for […]
At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos last month I participated in sessions and idea forums to learn and exchange ideas about the profound political, economic, social and technological forces transforming our lives and activities that, per the United Nations, threaten irreversible and abrupt environmental change. The most compelling framework for understanding the […]