Photo by Lori Scheibe
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
7-8 pm
Registration required.
Join Jacob van Schilfgaarde, wildlife conservationist and Facility Supervisor at Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve, for a Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy presentation on wildlife in Loudoun. He will describe three strategies that wildlife use to survive, and discuss their typical habitats, feeding behaviors and how to identify tracks.
Five Universal Policy Goals to Enable a Circular Economy at Scale
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
8 am EST
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is excited to announce the return of The Circular Economy Show — where guest speakers join live to discuss circular economy solutions to global challenges. The show will be broadcast live at 15.00 GMT (8 am EST) every other Tuesday on the EMF YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter channels. Join them on February 2, when speakers from the World Bank and Inter IKEA will discuss universal circular economy policy goals.
Laura Beaty, photo courtesy of VNPS
Thursday, February 11, 2021
7:30-9 pm
Register here
Growing numbers of gardeners are incorporating native plants into their landscapes in an effort to mitigate the growing loss of pollinators and leafeaters. This loss is global and compromises interactions in natural habitats worldwide. Here at home, many gardeners have been surprised by what they are observing in their wild gardens. Join the Virginia Native Plant Society to see inside a wild garden — then look deeper into yours. Presented by Laura Beaty.
Laura Beaty has been working in the great outdoors since she was old enough to hold a rake. She earned a degree in history followed by a degree in horticulture, and worked nearly 20 years for the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and the National Parks Conservation Association.
Laura is VNPS Horticulture Chair and serves as the propagation chair at the native plant beds at Green Spring Gardens. She is a popular speaker about native plants to Master Gardener candidates at Green Spring Park, local garden clubs, and occasionally, propagation workshops at the chapter’s beds.
Laura is converting her own property to a “modified meadow,” which includes some trees and shrubs—all native plants. She hopes that her plant installations will soon become easy maintenance. But as all gardeners know, a garden is a life-long labor of love.
Tuesday, February 23 – Thursday, February 25, 2021
Cost: $25/person for members, $35/person for non-members
Full schedule here.
Register here.
The Region 2 Chapter of the National Association for Interpretation, Chesapeake, is a society of professionals dedicated to helping visitors make connections at parks, zoos, museums, nature centers, aquariums, botanical gardens, and historical sites. Join them for this virtual series featuring the most knowledgeable professionals in our region as they discuss the ever-evolving role of interpretation in the post-2020 world. In addition to two keynote speakers, they will have six sessions with 13 presenters.
Coursera offers this excellent 7-hour intro-level class from Johns Hopkins (no charge so long as you don’t need the certificate). In addition to the easy-to-follow lectures and short assessments, the class offers downloadable reports and other resources, and enables you to download the videos and slides as well.
Overview
What we eat and how we produce that food have significant effects on human health and the sustainability of our planet. But what is a ‘sustainable’ diet? A sustainable diet, as defined by the FAO, promotes health and well-being and provides food security for the present population while sustaining human and natural resources for future generations. This short course looks at the urgent need to address the sustainability of our food systems, including better understanding the complex relationship between diet and climate change. Learners explore current research on dietary shifts needed in high, middle, and low-income countries to achieve both sustainability and food security goals and discuss evidence-based strategies to promote sustainable diets. This course is offered by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and draws from the graduate-level food systems curriculum at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. You may also be interested in our eight-week flagship Coursera course, “An Introduction to the US Food System: Perspectives from Public Health”.
Introduction to Food Systems Sustainability and Public Health
Our food system is much more than a supply chain that brings food from the farm to your plate. What is a food system? How can thinking about food as a system help us understand and address the messy overlapping issues of diet, food production, planetary health and climate change? What does ‘sustainability’ mean, in the context of food systems, and is it the same as resilience? How has COVID-19 pandemic amplified the many challenges faced by vulnerable workers and consumers? Roni Neff addresses these questions – and many more – in this opening series of lectures.
Sustainable Diets and Climate Change
What defines a sustainable diet? Why do sustainable diets matter? And what might sustainable diets look like in the US and around the world? The answers may surprise you. In this engaging and thought-provoking set of lectures, Brent Kim will address these questions and explain recent research that compares the impact of different diets on greenhouse gas emissions and water use across 140 countries.
Strategies for Advancing Sustainable Diets
The final week explores sustainable diets through the lens of a public health practitioner and registered dietician. They apply the concept of a sustainable diet to different parts of the world, considering the nutritional needs of different populations and why it is difficult to define a ‘sustainable’ diet for everyone. They share evidence-based strategies for communicating about sustainable diets and how different sectors can play a role in advancing change.
For FMN members: The course has been submitted to the continuing education calendar for credit. check back for information on approval.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
12-1pm
Please register for the free event here. It will be recorded.
Join Capital Nature and well-known local naturalist Alonso Abugattas, the Capital Naturalist, for a fascinating talk on trees during the winter months. Evergreens like American Hollies and the Eastern Cedar provide life-sustaining food and shelter for birds and other wildlife, and reward us with sightings of refreshing green and red in the winter environment. Deciduous trees reveal stunning winter forms while they gather strength for spring blooms.
With a keen eye you can recognize amazing oaks, beech trees, and sycamores by their distinctive bark, nuts, and fruits. Alonso will draw on his abundant knowledge of the natural world, and on the legends of indigenous peoples to reveal the amazing living world of trees in winter.
Find out more about Capital Naturalist at http://capitalnaturalist.blogspot.com
Photo from City Nature Challenge
Invented by citizen science staff at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (Lila Higgins) and California Academy of Sciences (Alison Young). The City Nature Challenge is an international effort for people to find and document plants and wildlife in cities across the globe. It’s a bioblitz-style competition where cities are in a contest against each other to see who can make the most observations of nature, who can find the most species, and who can engage the most people.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers made some modifications to City Nature Challenge 2020 to help keep everyone safe. Firstly, CNC 2020 pivoted to be a collaboration rather than a competition. Instead, they wanted to embrace the healing power of nature and encourage the celebratory aspect of the CNC. This allowed people to safely document biodiversity in whatever way they could, even from the safety of their own homes. They urged all participants to carefully follow public health guidelines provided by their local governments, as they are changed in real-time. Individual safety and public health were and will be their utmost priority. The decision as to whether CNC 2021 will be a competition or collaboration will be announced in 2021.
The observation period for the City Nature Challenge will take place April 30th through May 3rd. Then during May 4-9, observations can still be uploaded to iNaturalist and identified. The global results will be announced on Monday, May 10. Please join the project on iNaturalist which will automatically collect all of the relevant observations during those 4 days.
For the DC metropolitan area (including DC and parts of MD, VA, and WV), we’ll have monthly meetings to coordinate our activities and foster new collaborations. Any organizations or individuals who want to play a role in encouraging and supporting participation anywhere in the metro area are invited to join these calls. January 29 will specifically be a call for anyone new to the City Nature Challenge, so please invite others who may be interested to join.
This year, all calls will take place on Fridays from 11 am to noon.
Call dates for organizers:
Jan 22: meeting for returning organizers
Jan 29: first time organizers (if you haven’t participated in the City Nature Challenge before, this will orient you)
Feb 19: monthly meeting for all CNC organizers
Mar 19: monthly meeting for all CNC organizers
Apr 16: monthly meeting for all CNC organizers
May 21: post-CNC debrief call for all CNC organizers
The January 29th meeting will be recorded, so it won’t be too late to get involved! For more information join https://groups.google.com/g/dc-area-citynaturechallenge.
Want to connect with other environmental educators? The Virginia Association for Environmental Education (VAEE) is offering a virtual mini conference series! Each day will highlight one of Virginia’s different regions, seasonal changes, and the educators that work within that area.
February 20 – Winter in the West
July 17 – Summer on the Shore
October 23 – Fall in the Piedmont
Registration is currently open only for the full conference (all three dates together as a package) and the February event.
VAEE is now also accepting proposals for presentations, so if you would like to lead a session or workshop, submit your proposal. Many volunteers have had great presentations at past conferences.
Please see the VAEE website for all the details you need on both registration and submitting a proposal.
Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
6:30 -7:30 pm
Hosted by the Great Falls Group of the Sierra Club
Learn more and register.
Richmond-based journalist Stephen Nash has been looking into proposals to reintroduce red wolves, Canis lupus rufus, to Virginia. In the 1970s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service caught the last 17 known representatives of this critically endangered species. The agency has worked to enlarge the captive population, and reintroduce these animals to the wild. Today, only a handful of red wolves remain in the wild in coastal North Carolina, and 200 or so are in captive breeding facilities, including nine at Roanoke’s Mill Mountain Zoo.
A well-reasoned, thoughtful conversation on climate, with data, stories, and counsel.
Dr. Jonathan Foley is the Executive Director of Project Drawdown and the California Academy of Sciences (which brings us iNaturalist).
Yup, the video is an hour, and absolutely worth the investment of time. Learn the science behind bending the curve, viable drawdown scenarios, environmental justice, potential technical interventions, and steps we ourselves can easily take.
Look here for curated Creative Commons classroom materials.
Your turn: Which videos and resources are your own go-to’s? Share them in Comments and we’ll add them here with pleasure and great interest.
