With: Bill Young When: May 20, 21, 27, 28; June 3, 4, 10, 11, 7:00 to 8:00 PM Fee: $40 for all sessions Register here
Join Audubon Society of Northern Virginia for 8 one-hour sessions examining a variety of bird behaviors, including avian feeding, reproduction, migration, visual and auditory displays and more. Each session will feature video, audio and photographs to help people learn about the many aspects of bird behavior. Classes will draw on the knowledge Bill has gained from birding locally and on all seven continents.
Instructor: Bill Young is a writer who lives in Arlington. He is the author of The Fascination of Birds: From the Albatross to the Yellowthroat (Dover, 2014). He is the co-creator of the MPNature.com website, which contains information about birds, plants and other aspects of the natural history at Monticello Park in Alexandria. Bill also makes nature videos, and his YouTube channel has had over half a million views.
Where: Either via videoconference or St. Peter’s in the Woods, Fairfax Station, VA
Join Plant NoVa Natives as they discuss how and why faith communities are using their places of worship to demonstrate stewardship of the Earth. Learn more.
https://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/storm-garden.jpg404539vmnfairfaxhttps://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VMN-Fairfax-cmyk_w223h156.jpgvmnfairfax2020-05-08 14:49:072020-05-08 14:49:08Sustainable Landscaping Solutions for Faith Communities, June 14
All of our nearly 500 species of native bees are dependent on pollen to feed their young. No flowers, no bees. Like flowers, each bee species has its season. During a bee’s flight time they are often dependent on the pollen from only a small group of plants, ignoring the rest.
What you plant has consequences for the bees you support on your property. Travel through a year in the region, tracking the flowers and their bees, or…the bees and their flowers (depending on your point of view!)
Continuing education credit available for master naturalists.
https://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Augochloropsis-metallica-bee-Photo-by-USGS-Bee-Inventory-e1588792978356.jpg208300Janet Quinnhttps://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VMN-Fairfax-cmyk_w223h156.jpgJanet Quinn2020-05-06 19:28:252020-05-23 01:16:05Native Bee Species Ebb and Flow with Native Plants Bloom: A Year’s Calendar with Sam Droege, watch webinar
Looking for a reason to get out into nature? How about making your property more wildlife-friendly by adding plants native to Virginia? Find out why this is important during this webinar hosted by Audubon Society of Northern Virginia’s Audubon at Home program. The webinar was recorded on Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22, 2020, and is also is in celebration of our partnership with Green Muslims during National Arab-American Heritage Month.
Watch the webinar! Master naturalists earn one hour of continuing education credit.
Learning Lab: A free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources and creating content with online tools. The Learning Lab has an immense amount of content, and the Getting Started guide is a helpful resource. In addition, the weekly Smithsonian Activities Choice Boards features weekly highlights for various subject areas. Issue One and Issue Two are available now. New issues are released each Monday.
Smithsonian Open Access: Allows students to download, share and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images without asking permission because they have been released into the public domain.
Smithsonian Digital Volunteers Program: Allows the general public to make things like historical documents and biodiversity data more accessible. Students can join fellow volunteers to add more field notes, diaries, ledgers, logbooks, manuscripts, biodiversity specimen labels and more to the collection.
Sidedoor: A podcast for students that enlists the help of biologists, archaeologists, zookeepers and astrophysicists to tell engaging and educational stories. (Check out this one in particular, on Alexander von Humboldt: His might not be a name you know, but you can bet you know his ideas. Back when the United States were a wee collection of colonies huddled on the eastern seaboard, colonists found the wilderness surrounding them scary. It took a zealous Prussian explorer with a thing for barometers to show the colonists what they couldn’t see: a global ecosystem, and their own place in nature. In this episode, we learn how Humboldt—through science and art—inspired a key part of America’s national identity.)
Resources for PK-5: SI has also created a large google sheet with online self-directed activities for parents and caregivers that allows them to assign to children in PK-5 grades. Most of these resources are interactive games and activities.
SI Office Hours: SI is also offering office hours to better support teachers who are using these SI resources. Teachers are able to connect with a Smithsonian educator and ask further questions on how to best use the SI tools and features being offered.
Student Discovery Sets: Puts primary sources in student’s hands by bringing together historical artifacts and documents on a wide range of topics. The Student Discovery Sets are free on iBooks.
Digital Collections: Over 400 digital collections are available online, featuring content from U.S. Presidents, musicians, inventors, historic newspapers and more.
By the People: A crowdsourcing initiative that allows anyone to volunteer to improve access to history by transcribing, reviewing and tagging Library of Congress documents.
Ask a Librarian: The tool remains available to the public, with Librarians available to answer questions and provide research assistance.
The Library’s National Screening Room: Showcase the Library’s vast moving image collection. It is designed to make otherwise unavailable movies, both copyrighted and in the public domain, freely accessible to viewers worldwide.
Presentations and Activities: Presentations look across the Library’s online collections to explore events and issues from U.S. history and beyond.
Teach From Home: A central hub of information, tips, training and tools from across Google for Education to help teachers keep teaching, even when they aren’t in the classroom
Training Materials: Explore distance learning through resources for schools affected by Covid-19
https://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Smithsonian-Von-Humboldt-e1587854265124.png221500vmnfairfaxhttps://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VMN-Fairfax-cmyk_w223h156.jpgvmnfairfax2020-04-25 22:38:362020-04-27 01:08:20Smithsonian Learning Resources for Families
By Ana Ka’ahanui, FMN and Director Experiential Programs at Capital Nature
Join us for the #citynaturechallenge, a friendly global effort to safely explore biodiversity April 24-27, 2020! Even with our movement limited to minimize the spread of COVID-19, there is plenty of nature to observe at our windows, gardens, and in our neighborhoods. Join the DC metro area’s fellow citizen scientists to discover and share the amazing life near you!
As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, I invite you to embrace this Nature Journaling Challenge and connect with nature on a more profound level.
Nature Journaling forces you to slow down and pay attention to what is around you. It will help you encounter beauty and wonder you would have otherwise missed.
Visit a nearby trail or explore your own backyard.
Allow yourself to relax and have fun, and worry less about drawing pretty pictures and more about creating a memory. Write notes about what you’re seeing, and let it pique your curiosity.
Do you have a favorite wild bird? Do you wonder if that bird is a resident or migrant? Look at it more closely and be amazed. Learn more about it at allaboutbirds.org (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) and audubon.org. Write in your journal about what you see and learn, and develop a deep personal relationship with your bird.
Drawing by Elaine Sevy
Find a new pretty wild plant or look closely at one of your favorites and count the petals. Do the petals have stripes similar to a landing pad leading pollinators to the nectar? What kind of bee did I just see on that flower?
Make sure to note the place, date, time, weather, sounds, temperature, and how the experience makes you feel.
Consider downloading the iNaturalist App on your cell phone to help you identify the plants and animals you find. Visit inaturalist.org to learn about and participate in the City Nature Challenge 2020: Washington DC Metro Area, April 24-27. There’s a link under announcements on the Capital Naturalist Facebook page.
Include your family and children, and make it a game to find as many insects, birds, frogs, flowers, mushrooms, etc., as possible. Quickly draw little images of each critter on the same Earth Day journal page.
Want inspiration and ideas about how to create a journal page? There’s support groups that can help. Join The NOVA Nature Journal Club at https://www.facebook.com/groups/544583139673338/. Once there, you can find a link to John Muir Laws’ The Nature Journal Club, which has an international following, free workshops and tools of all kinds. Copy ideas from other people, which will give you a new lens to look through. Let someone else’s journal page ignite your own creativity.
A good basic Nature Journaling kit includes: 6×8” or 5×7”sketchbook (at least 100 lb. weight paper to handle light watercolor washes), a mechanical pencil or 2B drawing pencil, pencil sharpener, kneaded eraser, a waterproof ink pen such as a Pigma Micron 05, set of watercolor pencils (Derwent is a good brand), a Pentel Aquash Water Brush and a paper towel. Also bring your cell phone for photo references, and binoculars. A shoulder bag makes your tools easily accessible.
Try your best to do some nature journaling on Earth Day, but there’s no pressure. Enjoy working on your journal through the end of April for this challenge.
Please submit photos of your journal pages to me (Elaine Sevy), so I can share them with others on Springfield Art Guild’s (SAG’s) Facebook Page and The NOVA Nature Journal Club Facebook Group.
https://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/thumbnail-1.jpeg456634Janet Quinnhttps://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VMN-Fairfax-cmyk_w223h156.jpgJanet Quinn2020-04-22 01:35:382020-04-25 19:00:16Earth Day 50th Anniversary Nature Journaling Challenge April 22 to 30, 2020
Get ready for spring by learning about the largest and most colorful family of birds who visit the Washington area. Warblers are some of the most challenging birds to identify – they are often small and fast moving with distinctive but easily confused calls and songs. This 4-part FREE Audubon Society of Northern Virginia webinar will help you learn warbler plumages, behaviors and vocalizations. Each webinar will start at 7 p.m. and last about an hour.
Instructor: Bill Young is a writer who lives in Arlington. He is the author of The Fascination of Birds: From the Albatross to the Yellowthroat (Dover, 2014). He is the co-creator of the MPNature.com website, which contains information about birds, plants and other aspects of the natural history at Monticello Park in Alexandria. Bill also makes nature videos, and his YouTube channel has had over half a million views.
Class 1 – Plumage (Wednesday, April 15) Learn about the appearance of the 30+ species of wood warblers who visit during the spring.
Class 2 – Behavior (Thursday, April 16) Learn about the behavior of the 30+ species of wood warblers who visit during the spring.
Class 3 – Vocalizations Part 1 (Wednesday, April 22) Most warblers are heard before they are seen. Learn how to identify their vocalizations so that you will be better able to find them in the field.
Class 4 – Vocalizations Part 2 (Thursday, April 23) Most warblers are heard before they are seen. Learn how to identify their vocalizations so that you will be better able to find them in the field.
https://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/unnamed-2.jpg6751200Janet Quinnhttps://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VMN-Fairfax-cmyk_w223h156.jpgJanet Quinn2020-04-10 14:29:002020-05-12 13:52:43Learn about Spring Warblers on line through ASNV, April 15, 16, 22 and 23
Two-day course 13 & 14 April 2020 12-2:30 pm each day NAI members $75/Nonmembers $100 Register here
The National Association for Interpretation presents a program to discuss the question, how can we be more effective interpreters with participants from cultures other than our own? Interpretation has both the opportunity and a responsibility to be more inclusive of all communities and to question dominant and privileged cultural perspectives. In this interactive virtual session, participants will examine privilege and bias as it pertains to interpretive planning and programming. Participants will reflect on individual and organizational practices and develop strategies for creating engaging and meaningful programming for diverse audiences.
*Reflect upon how personal values, biases and assumptions can impact the quality of programming that we create. *How to identify Bias in instructional materials. *Strategies for creating a culturally-responsive programming.
Parker McMullen Bushman is the VP for Community Engagement, Education and Inclusion at Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, CO. Parker’s background in the interpretation, conservation, and environmental education fields spans 22+ years. Parker has a passion for justice, accessibility, and equity issues. In addition to Parker’s role at Butterfly Pavilion she is also the founder of a DEI consulting firm called Ecoinclusive, the creator of Earth KWEEN and the founder of Summit for Action.
https://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/unnamed.jpg480343Janet Quinnhttps://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VMN-Fairfax-cmyk_w223h156.jpgJanet Quinn2020-04-08 16:45:372020-04-08 16:45:39Becoming a Culturally Responsive Interpreter, April 13 & 14
In addition to VMN’s normal monthly Continuing Education webinar series, this month they are adding a “High Five from Nature” series. Don’t we all need a little encouragement from nature in our lives right now?
In each webinar, presenters will go over five species or concepts on a theme. These will be somewhat informal webinars of varying lengths, from 20 minutes to an hour. They’ll focus on Virginia species and on seasonal observations. We will record them and provide links to the recordings from our web site.
Please visit the web page for the Zoom link and Meeting ID for each webinar.
The Current Lineup
Five Frogs to Recognize by Ear
With Michelle Prysby, Program Director, Virginia Master Naturalist Program
Five Measures of Stream Quality That Have Nothing To Do With Water
With Rikki Lucas, Biogeochemist and VMN-Central Rappahannock Chapter volunteer
Tuesday, April 28, 12:00 pm
Five Ferns
With Kit Sheffield, Fairfax Chapter volunteer
Tuesday, May 5, 7:00 pm
…and more! We will be adding additional High Five webinars in the coming weeks. If you or someone you know would like to be a High Five presenter, contact Michelle Prysby.
Each of these webinars is listed with its separate Zoom link on our website.
FMNs can get credit for attending these webinars under: A Special Webinar Series for VMNs Stuck at Home
https://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/High-five-bee-e1585919716311.jpg375500vmnfairfaxhttps://fairfaxmasternaturalists.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/VMN-Fairfax-cmyk_w223h156.jpgvmnfairfax2020-04-03 13:15:552020-04-18 01:38:23A Special Webinar Series for VMNs Stuck at Home, April 6-May 5
