Wachstumshormone

Oct

21

Dam Removal as a Teaching Tool

Filed Under Energy Alternatives, Forests, Resources, restoration, salmon | Leave a Comment

by Derek Jones

We erect dams assuming they are eternal, as if they’ll never topple over or be dismantled or fill with sediment or lose their financial rationale. Yet all dams will die. . . They’ll be reminders of an ancient time when humans believed they could vanquish nature, and found themselves vanquished instead.

— Jacques Leslie, from “Deep Water, the Epic Struggle over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment”

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY if I asked if you knew that the nation’s second largest ecological restoration project was happening right now only a 2 ½ hour drive from Seattle? Would you be able to name the project? If given a map of the Puget Sound Region, would you be able to point out where the Elwha River is? How many of your students could do the same? The removal of two dams on the Elwha River provides students with a fascinating case study that contains elements of a wide swath of topics covered in, and out of, the classroom; engineering, social studies, ecology, mathematics, history, and geology among others. It is up to educators to make sure that such an enormous and complex project with such far-reaching implications does not go by without being appropriately utilized as a teaching tool. Read more

Aug

31

Gertschen Interview: Talking about conservation and education with Lance Craighead

Filed Under Conservation, Forests, Interviews | 1 Comment

lancebookInterview by Chris Gertschen

Lance Craighead is the Executive Director of the Craighead Institute, an applied science and research organization that builds conservation solutions for people and wildlife in changing landscapes. Its mission is to maintain healthy populations of native plants, wildlife, and people as part of sustainable, functioning ecosystems.

Since its founding by renowned grizzly bear researcher Dr. Frank C. Craighead in 1964, the Craighead Institute has pioneered the fields of conservation and wildlife research. Over the past four decades the Institute has conducted ecological research on grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park, genetic research on grizzly bears in Alaska, conventional and satellite radio-telemetry of wildlife, and the use of remote sensing to map vegetation and wildlife habitat. Read more

Aug

10

Chris Gertschen talks with conservationists

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Chris Gertschen, Conservation, Forests, Interviews, Perspectives | Leave a Comment

Gertschenpicby Chris Gertschen

For the past three decades, I have been an activist, a volunteer, a student and a teacher of conservation.  My activist years gave me an advocacy perspective but I quickly saw a great need to expand my own natural science education – to give some foundation and balance to my life and love of the earth.  My studies of biology as an undergrad were focused singularly on human biology and physiology.  The word “ecology” was not then part of the curriculum.  As a graduate student, I was introduced to a whole new world.  In the natural history interdisciplinary program that I designed for myself at Boise State University, I studied geology, zoology, ecology and public affairs.  And, I began to learn about conservation biology. Read more

Dec

3

Best of Clearing CD-ROM Now Available!

Filed Under Art and EE, Biological Diversity, Climate change, Energy Alternatives, Energy Conservation, Environmental Health, Environmental Literacy, Forests, General public, Guest Commentary, Higher Education, Interviews, Justice and Equity, Language arts, Marine/Aquatic Education, Mathematics, Non-formal, Outdoor education, Perspectives, Programs, Questioning strategies, Resources, Reviews, Schoolyard Classroom, Science, Secondary, Service learning, Social studies, Sustainability, Technology, restoration, salmon | Leave a Comment

BOCcd-romcoverCTR.inddThe discs have been burned, and the packaging has been assembled, and the first batch of CD-ROMs featuring “The Best of Clearing, Volume VI” have been mailed out!

If you haven’t seen the advertising on this website, or seen reference to this document before, you should check it out… the best articles, activities, and reviews from past issues of Clearing compiled and published together on a CD-ROM. “The Best of Clearing, Volume VI” is a way to get the best of back issues of Clearing at a very low price (even less than the previous cost of a one-year subscription!).

And just so you know, we’ll soon be republishing an earlier B.O.C — Volume V — which gathers even more great articles from the recent past (think Mike Weilbacher, Jim Martin, and others) in one convenient reference volume for your resource library.

If you’re interested in helping to keep Clearing alive, this is one way to do it. Buy a copy of Volume VI in CD-ROM and keep an eye out for Volume V when it comes available. Click on the “Best of Clearing” link on the nav bar above to buy your copy!

Nov

30

The Forever Forest (Book Review)

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Children's Literature, Forests, Reviews | Leave a Comment

foreverforest

Kids Save a Tropical Treasure

By Kristin Joy Pratt-Serafini with Rachel Crandell
Published by Dawn Publications

Reviewed by Emily Baker LeRoux

As a home schooling mother of two, I have to admit I like books. I mean REALLY like books.  They seem to multiply in our house and I like to think of it as literary decoration. It works for us though; I find both kids sprawled in various rooms throughout the day with a pile of books next to them.

I first stumbled across The Forever Forest while browsing at the library on the never-ending search for books for my six-year-old animal-loving kid. Upon first glance, I thought this was just another book on the animals that live in the rainforest but I knew he’d love it so I checked it out.  It turned out to be so much more. Read more

Next Page →