1 teacher. 1 world. Eco-friendly. EdTech-friendly. Classroom-friendly.Teacher-friendly. Kid-friendly. Parent-friendly. Planet-friendly. Sustainability. Innovation. What can we do to increase the likelihood that this one li'l world will be here eons from now? Whether you are a teacher, a parent, or just someone who firmly believes that every tiny bit helps, let's all be part of the solution rather than adding to the problem, knowing that innovation along the way is the way to make that happen!
Time to test your knowledge friends? What do you know about bioplastics....and are they really better? Take the quiz from the Story of Stuff Project. Even if you are a tad test-averse, these 6 questions aren't too frightening...though you might be surprised by some of the answers. Once you get your results, you can watch a 2 minute video and learn even more about bioplastics: what they are and how they impact our world. Likewise, you can check your answers and learn from your mistakes.
All of this gears you up and gets you ready for America Recycles Day -- annually on November 15th. To learn more:
As the days warm up, I'm definitely outside more. Sitting at my patio table or lounge chair: sipping a cool beverage, reading a book, listening to the sounds of nature, or maybe even typing my latest GTG post for here.
The birds always catch both my eyes and ears, as do the flutter-by butterflies that come this way. For years, we've had a little patch of milkweed that my husband tends--some years more fruitful in their crop of hatching monarchs than others.
I ran across this video, from Atlas Obscurer, which is amazing... and probably does not do the beauty of the monarch's justice in a way a camera can never compare to real life. The video, from 2019, highlights Phil Torres at the El Rosario Butterfly Sancutuary in Mexico, one of the places where monarch's overwinter.
As the perfect follow up from my last post about the history of environmental education...
In this TED Talk from May 2023, Arvolyn Hill speaks out about her experiences as a black woman tying together environmental awareness with racial justice. She also talks about her nature programs at the New York Botanical Gardens and how these programs can help black and brown kids see themselves out in nature....because representation matters!
I first learned of Doomsday vaults a few years ago and had it in my list of things to write about one day here on GTG. At the time I first heard of it, I felt like I was living under a rock. Who knew this was "a thing." It sounded more like some subplot of the latest Zombie Apocolypse movie.
But it and seed banks came up again when I was watching Zac Efron's Netflix series Down to Earth. In Episode 5, set in Lima, Peru, Zac and Darin Olien visited the International Potato Center where they have collected the largest number of potato strains in the world. Not just because they are crazy potato-lovin' people, but in order to collect and preserve the genetic informations of potatoes for biodiversity purposes if there's ever a great potato famine that endangers or causes strains of potatoes to become extinct.
In watching the show, I learned that there actually are a lot of doomsday vaults all over the world. Not just the biggie created in 2008: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway... and the Peruvian International Potato Center (founded in 1971). About 11 minutes into this episode of Down to Earth there is a great map posted showing some of many of the different vaults and seed banks that are protecting plant life in case of an all encompassing wipe out or "super disaster. The map showed these vaults (however there are over 1,700 in the world):
Forestry in Indonesia
Fish in Malaysia
Water management in Sri Lankna
Semi-arid agriculture in India
Agro forestry in Kenya
Livestock in Ethiopia
Potato in Peru
Biodiversity in Italy
Arid agriculture in Lebanon
Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria (Africa) and Columbia (South America)
Rice in Côte d'Ivoire
Food research in USA
Corn in Mexico
It kind of leaves you wondering why on Earth we need a place on earth that has all of this. However genetic back up is essential in case something does happen where the these "back ups" are necessary. That could include a myriad of events such as war, natural disasters, fires, global temperature change. As they mentioned it in the Down to Earth episode, it's like having photos backed up in the cloud. At all of these centers, not only is the safety and security of what we do have important, it is also a place where vital research is happening now in order to get the genetic code of our existing variations. Likewise, they are also important centers to help create strains that are more resilient--especially in the event of global temperature rising a few degrees...which we do seem to be on record for doing so.
All this agro-biodiversity brainstorming comes from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations where they have an International Plant Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Again, who knew? The purpose is to save and conserve what plant resources we do have on the planet and to share the seeds to ensure food security around the world. Its one of the many ways through the United Nations that we can collaborate with the many countries of the world for the common good of our planet,
Seed Vaults are just one of the many ways we preserve plant genetics. This graphic shows all the ways in which we do:
In situ means they are conserved in their natural habitats. These tend to be those conservation places that come to mind.
The other sites (the ex situ) are for the "just in case" situations. They're the equivalent of cloud computing back up and all I've been talking about here. Botanical gardens are similar to field collections where they are designed to recreate the natural habitats. Seed banks or vaults tend to use a combination of the in vitro storage and cryopreservation, where they are frozen in time and cold temperatures. Great detail can be found about each of these terms here.
To learn more about these high security plant preservation systems, check out the following:
I've written before about my love of the Little Free Libraries before. They are darling and promote such a love or learning and reuse. Every neighborhood should have one!
Along the lines of this, I ran across a Seed Library when I was perusing Facebook. I found the following image on the FB page The Heirloom Gardener - John Forti. Can you imagine if we had these waterproof cuties out in the world, along people's path? It would promote gardening and perhaps even community gardens. What a wonderful way to spread the love of nature to young and old alike!
Washington, D.C. is a beautiful city in the spring...especially when the Cherry Blossoms pop. I've been fortunate enough over the years to live close enough to meander about the city just in search of the perfect photo op. This year I didn't make it down there, but my Facebook feed was filled with photos from friends who were able to make it there. Simply Gorgeous!
If you are like me and can't make it to DC (or don't care to wrestle with the inevitable crowds of everyone else wanting to see the scenic view too), you can find a bunch of photos on the @CherryBlossomWatch's Instagram page or follow the beauty on their Facebook page.
According to Cherry Blossom Watch's website and its work with the National Park Service, peak bloom was predicted to "spring" into floral glory this past week, March 22 to 25th. Historically, the peak occurs around April 4th. While the peak bloom only lasts a few days (depending on weather conditions--especially wind and rain), the Cherry Blossom Festival now runs for almost a month. This year, the festival is from March 20th to April 17th this year. The festival annually is predicted to fall when peak season occurs, however it's always a bit of a guessing game. Late winter warmth can make the blossoms appear earlier, whereas a cooler winter pushes the season later. So it's a science of appearance that only nature truly knows.
The cherry blossom trees were a gift of friendship to the United States from Japan in 1912. The original gift of 3,020 trees were planted around the city, and after careful cultivation through the year, cuttings from these original trees have been replanted to maintain the original genetic line of the trees. Now the iconic blossoming views are around the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial are part of our American culture; and here we are, 110 years later, still enjoying their beauty.
Given global warming temperatures, the trend of when these trees blossom has been creeping earlier and earlier in the year. National Park Service has been tracking peak bloom dates since 1921. This winter, with the second warmest December on record and mild weather in February and March, the 2022 peak dates have come about a week earlier than the averages over the last 30 years. In fact, this year marks the third year in a row of earlier arrivals than normal. The reason? Warming trends and earlier blooms are a result of a warming planet. Grist.org has an excellent article that goes even deeper into the science of climate change and its effects on the cherry blossoms. The biggest reason that this is a big deal is because of the timetable of when the pollinators mature and can visit and fertilize the flowers... which then affects the timing of the resulting food chain of critters who feed on these pollinators. Further studies on the cherry trees in Japan and their blossoms indicate the same climate trend, where trees in Kyoto, Japan had their earliest blooms ever last year on March 26th, 2021.
This is our second summer of harvest of Asclepias syriaca...that's common milkweed to you and me. My husband doubled our plot this summer. Despite the fact that we're about 3-4 weeks later in seeing any visitors than we did last year, we finally have been recognized on the monarch mapping system as a safe place to land. We are now reaping the bounty of that harvest with the whole variety of life stages of Danaus plexippus: The Monarch butterfly.
Yesterday's count showed me 35 chrysalis at various places in our back yard & 5 caterpillars on a very stripped patch of milkweed. Those little 5 are going to have a hard go of it as there are no milkweeds left! Seriously, my photo dates show fully blossomed and leafy milkweed from just two weeks ago! Amazing how much they chowed down in that two week time period!
What also has really struck me is the great distance some of them have gone to set up their chrysalis shop. A couple even scurried quite a ways to create their chrysalis on the netting of our backyard lacrosse goal. Not your safest spot, li'l guys!!
It all struck me by Barbara Kingsolver's book Flight Behavior, which I read earlier in the summer. It's the fictional tale all about monarchs and their surprisingly northern migration resting spot due to the warming result of climate change.
Along the way, I ran across this Native Pollinator lesson plan from National Wildlife Federation. It has more than just monarchs, but is a great resource.
I have a feeling, next year our Milkweed & Monarch plot will be even bigger. It's been wonderful being a part of putting beauty into the yard by way of my backyard.
Backyards and gardens are a science experiment we create daily.
Well I don't, but my husband does--he's the one in the family with the green thumb! His latest addition that's taken off this year was nurturing and adding to the milkweed he planted last year. It didn't do much last year, but this year it really took off, and we got a chance to witness the transition from milkweed to monarchs.
We were struck by the many chunky caterpillars that nibbled, and grew, then each one aligned him or herself along our fencing to create its own unique, individual chrysalis. At one time we had at least 8 chrysalis lined up on our fence--one crawling all the way to the protective corner quite a ways down. We also hoped and assumed that some of the caterpillars crawled to our neighbor's side of the fence. These are all pictures from our backyard, creating a montage of the lifecycle. My favorite is seeing the caterpillar curl into chrysalis formation.
Upon sharing it on Facebook, former Eagle Cove colleague Lindsay Moore shared her video of one of her classroom caterpillars transforming into a chrysalis and gave me permission to share it here. With the help of iMovie, I created the full video shown here. Watching that caterpillar, it's amazing what can happen in 5 minutes.
What also was neat, was while in Illinois, visiting my mom, we found these two signs during our local zoo visit.
I've written before about how my kids' quest for community service hours have led us out on environmental adventures. (Check out here and here for a trip down memory lane from last summer). Summer is certainly a great time to try to nail out those hours... and often time it becomes a family affair. We've tackled a few different types of community service this summer including sandwich making for the homeless and taking part in Operation Welcome Home for returning military.
I will say, the biggest, physically hardest, and certainly sweatiest thing we have done was at a local park where we spent the morning tackling the invasive Japanese Wisteria & Oriental Bittersweet. The information sheet below is from the park about how to spot Japanese Wisteria. Use it to see if you have this strangulating plant is in your backyard. As for the Oriental Bittersweet, think thorny vining rose branch, twisting through the plants! Ouch! Luckily we heeded the request to wear long pants and bring work gloves, despite the 90+ degree heat and all the sweat that ensued!
It was startling to learn that the park had been overrun with the Japanese Wisteria after just one plant was planted (and went to seed)--over 25 years ago! Equally startling, after the 2 and a half hours of clearing the vines & filling bags of the remnants (along with a dozen or more other volunteers), we really only attacked one small part of the trail. Remarkable to think of the man power that would be needed to cover the miles of trail throughout the park.
Despite the achy muscles the next day, it actually did feel good to get outside, work up a lot of sweat equity, and get out some aggression on these nasty space invaders. It's worth watching your local parks to see what kinds of volunteer opportunities are available in your community! I'd love to hear about it!
Info sheets from Downs Park and pictures compiled using the Pic Collage app and our family photos.
While we were in California this summer, my husband, who has a far greener thumb than I, became curious about the many plants that were in the courtyard of one of our hotels. Naturally, being on the other coast from where we live, the plants were different--built more for the dry climate of the San Francisco Bay area.
I, of course, had no information. Our conversation led to: "There's got to be an app for that." In the early days of apps, I knew there was one app that we had used it a time or two when we were doing some of our Maryland Park Quest activities--but I had never had great success with it. My husband started doing some digging, and what do you know--there was indeed something newer with high ratings of success: PlantSnap. He downloaded it, and I started hearing all about the African lily, the lavender, and the raspberry blackberries.
It made perfect sense to adopt a techie-approach while in Silicon Valley, the heart of innovation. It also was great to have a full database at our disposal while being out and about in the world. Now that we're home, I'm sure we'll put it to good use here too!
Job well done, Eric Ralls (Founder & CEO of PlantSnap and Earth.com). For those of you who want to deepen the shade of green of your thumb, PlantSnap's Blog also has some excellent information and articles! Plus, be sure to check out the videos below.
The mission of Green Team Gazette is to advocate and educate for environmental stewardship, to promote positive examples of "green" living (both in & out of the classroom), to inspire readers to pursue more sustainable choices, and to encourage teachers to embrace technology in their classrooms as a way of capturing student creativity, collaboration, & innovation. It is through engaging teaching practices and forward thinking that our future leaders will flourish.
It's not always easy being green, but I'm pretty passionate in my pursuit! A lot of times, innovation & edtech will get you there! Just don't forget to go outside!!
All posts and commentary are my own and not necessarily those of any organization I am affiliated.
