Reaching Out to the Redwoods

One of my favorite books (which I've written about before) is Operation Redwood, by S. Terrell French. Since first discovering it in 2010, I've read this as a class read-aloud every year I've taught a homeroom (versus my role as Tech Integrator now).

When you are a teacher, & you have a summer trip to California planned, you do things like reread favorite books like this & "Last Child In the Woods" by Richard Louv & watch movies like The Internship, set at Google as part of your prep or trip experience.

Operation Redwoods is set both in San Francisco and a redwood grove outside of Willits, Callifornia--which is in Mendocino County. At this writing, the Mendocino Complex Fire was blazing over 350,000 acres (the first California wildfire ever of this size) and is approximately 64% contained. Willits is about 20 minutes from Redwood Valley, where much of the River & the Ranch Fires are taking place. (Both fires together make up the Mendocino Complex Fire, the latter of which is the bigger one.)

Putting it all (and me) in geographical proximity to all that's going on definitely helps gain perspective.

Being in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco areas, I knew one of our adventures needed to be to see the Redwoods. Both due to my love of the book and also out of my own environmental need. This ranked as high as all my needed tech-sightings of Silicon Valley. Our game plan had been to do that in Muir Woods on the way out of San Francisco and on the way to Napa--especially given it is only 12 miles from SF. Shortly after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge we saw a sign which started a prick of concern regarding parking arrangements for Muir Woods. Thank goodness for the magic of the internet and smart phones. A quick search indicated that yes, in today's world, you do indeed need reservations to go into the woods. At least "these" woods. And, as luck would have it, there was no room in the proverbial inn for us that day.

The internet also was instrumental in Plan B: where could we find Redwoods lose to us. (By this point, a Safeway parking lot off the side of the freeway was our research base.) That search led us to this article: "8 Places to See Redwoods Near San Francisco That Aren't Muir Woods" by Kristen Hanes. Kristen saved our day, leading us to Samuel P. Taylor State Park within an hour's drive of where we were. We had plenty of parking, no crowds, a picnic lunch, the gorgeous South Creek, and groves of redwoods. It was the perfect location for us!

What more could we want? We did a little bit of hiking, a little bit of tree hugging, a little bit of jaw-dropping at the size of the trees, and a whole lot of looking up. They really are remarkable trees. I can only imagine the size of old growth redwoods!

For more information, check out the following (or click any of the links above):

• Save The Redwoods League's website
• 10 Amazing Facts About Redwoods
• Treehugger's 11 Facts About Coastal Redwoods
• "Operation Redwoods" book website & teacher resources

Image from https://www.amazon.com/dp/0810997207?tag=your02b-20; map screenshot from https://sf.curbed.com/maps/california-fire-wildfire-fire-map-northern-2018 on 8/15/2018, Pictures from my camera.

Seeing Seesaw

One of the highlights of my recent trip to California was a visit to Seesaw Learning Journal's home base in San Francisco. Knowing I was going to be there early August, I reached out to Seesaw through my connection as a Seesaw Ambassador. They delighted me by welcoming me in with open arms! Extra bonus: they had just moved to a bigger office to house their 44 employees the week before, so I got to see their new, expanded space. 

Their open office design had definite zones for different types of work activities, and spaces named with school-centric names. "The Playground" defined their lunch area, for instance. I got to meet several employees, and enjoyed lunch with Emily & Natalie who gave me a warm welcome indeed. We got the opportunity to talk in depth about Seesaw, and they also were able to ask me questions about what is or isn't working from my side. I also had a lengthy conversation with Co-Founder Carl Sjogreen--about Seesaw, San Francisco, and two people we both happen two know (in that "it's a small world," "6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon" sort of way. It's not everyday I get to just sit and chat with a leader in edtech! Additionally, before I left, I got to take part in one of their favorite brain break activities: a very competitive game of Codenames!

Visiting Seesaw and getting a feel of both the climate and culture of this company really was one of my favorite parts of my trip--seriously, right up there with wine in Napa & biking across the Golden Gate Bridge! 😉

The rock star feel I got from this visit also stems from the fact that I am a big proponent of Seesaw. I piloted it two years ago with 2nd and 3rd grade. Last year I was able to have my school using it in 5 different grade levels. Fingers are crossed we'll get our whole Lower School on board this year. I was proud of the 74% parent connection we had last year, but want more so I can bring it closer to 100%. I've got some definite ideas in the works on how exactly to build that greater connection this year. Both parents and teachers gave rave reviews last year about the use and ease of Seesaw as a learning engagement tool and a way to showcase in class learning at home. I love that it's easy enough for Kindergartners to master the app, taking charge of creating and saving their digital work here (with only a little guidance at the beginning).

To learn more about Seesaw, start here or check out their Help Center.

To find the Seesaw Activity Library (with 1500+ activities written and created by Seesaw Ambassadors): Teachers, find it within your login of Seesaw, or check out this video from Richard Byrne at FreeTech4Teachers.

Start here if you are interested in becoming a Seesaw Ambassador.

Seesaw Logo from https://help.seesaw.me/hc/en-us/articles/203816959-Seesaw-icon-and-logo; Activities' Library Screenshot from https://web.seesaw.me/seesaw-plus/; pictures from my visit Aug. 8th to Seesaw's HQ in San Francisco, compiled using the LiPix app.

A Golden Experience, Biking the Bridge

We've just returned from a whirlwind trip to California. We packed about as much into a week as we possibly could in the Silicon Valley area, including San Francisco area & a hop over to Napa. When your days are numbered, your days are full! During our week (because this summer I am counting), we spent at least 52 hours outdoors. Odds are high, we spent at least that same amount of time engaged in techie activities as well. Given all of that, you can imagine the number of blog posts waiting to be written!

One of our highlights of the trip was our day of greatest outdoor adventure: we rented bikes and pedaled 14.6 miles in San Francisco. Not bad for a girl with bad knees who hasn't been on a bike in over 2 years. Remarkably, the bike was far kinder to the knees than all our walking had been! (Many a day we cranked out over 15,000 steps...one day totaling over 20,000 with the hills of San Francisco!)

Our sights that we saw: Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, Angel Island (the West Coast Immigration entry point from 1910–1940), Crissy Field, The Presidio, and Fort Point (at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge). We then biked across the Golden Gate Bridge (despite the huge number of bikers and pedestrians that were often in the way)! I'm still a little in awe as I write it again here. It was a pretty amazing adventure indeed.

Not only was it so good to be outside all day (oh my, the weather was perfect!)... but the wealth of sights that we saw and the ground that we covered in the city. It was remarkable watching the fog roll in—especially while we were on the bridge. It would go from clear to foggy and back again. At one point it was almost like a white curtain wall came down next to the fence, blocking our sight of the water of San Francisco Bay! The same fog made the towers ahead of us on the bridge completely disappear for 7 minutes or so.

After crossing the bridge, we then trekked down to Sausalito for lunch, ducked into a shop or two, and took the ferry back across the Bay--with Alcatraz on one side of us and Angel Island on the other. (After the bit of a bike ride back to the bike rental shop--which of course was just over that one last hill-- an Über ride back to the hotel and a nap were both well-placed!)

Prone to being a thinker anyway, I spent a lot of time in mental meanderings during the ride and given the view. A large goal of my trip (which is why it started in Silicon Valley) was to be in the innovation center. The bridge was known as an engineering feat when it was created--the longest bridge span at the time. Likewise, I was struck by the innovative history of the cable cars, historic streetcars, and electric trolleys. Fast forward to their Muni metro system, their electric buses, and even our Über. The dichotomy of all was something I found fascinating. Naturally, San Francisco is a city ripe with history as well as known for its forward thinking. All of it adding richness to my whole experience!

To learn more on the history of each of these, check out the following links:

• History of the Design & Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge
• 5 Minute "Explore Engineering" Video: Golden Gate Bridge - Engineering Marvel
• Golden Gate Teacher & Student Resources:
• Kindergarten to 5th Grade
• 6th Through 8th Grades
• High School & College
• Golden Gate National Recreation Area (Via National Park Foundation)
• Golden Gate Going Green (environmentally speaking)
• Muni History
• Cable Cars
• Historic Streetcars
• Electric Trolley Buses
• Muni Metro & Light Rail

Images: from my camera, compiled in the LiPix app. Map from Map My Run app.

Thinkport: Online #Edtech Resources

I don't just like Thinkport because of its affiliation with Maryland Public Television. Yes, I live in Maryland, but that tie-in isn't enough to make it a fabulous resource. Thinkport can certainly stand alone, and holds a lot of learning opportunities for teachers of all grade levels.

My first experience with Thinkport was doing their online interactive "Pathways to Freedom: Maryland & the Underground Railroad." It was an amazing resource to use while teaching slavery and the Civil War. I used it both when I taught 3rd grade and a few years later at another school when I taught 5th graders and it fit once again in the curriculum.

But this is just a fraction of what is available over at Thinkport. If you have never investigated this resource, put it on your list for the year ahead. Learning resources abound! Be sure to browse by the grade level bands. Within each category you will find an assortment of activities under these topics:
literacy, math, science, social studies, and STEM. You might also find some additional topics such as social & emotional skills, digital tools, digital literacy, or resources for teachers, depending on the age level.

• Early Childhood
• Elementary School
• Middle School
• High School
• Out-of-School Time

Additionally, Thinkport has some Special Collections including Primary Sources Inquiry Kits for Middle and Upper School for US History and World History. There are also some other great primary resources to other websites along Thinkport's right hand sidebar.

I always love it when we can hit up on a plethora of resources. May these serve you well this school year ahead!

Logo and image from https://www.thinkport.org/

Meatless Mondays, Part Deux

Continuing our conversation....

Whether you call it Meatless Mondays, Weekday Vegetarianism, or Flexitarianism, switching up how you eat in order to try to reduce your meat intake is a trend these days. In some circles, it's seen a trend among millennial for 2018--especially when it comes to "plant-based meat alternatives."

It's not a new concept, and in fact, there are resources galore on the subject on the web.  Some fingers (like Peggy Neu, in the TEDxManhattan video below) point back to the rationing Americans (and Europeans) did during World War II. Items like meat, cheese, butter, cooking oil, processed food, and more were rationed, making it necessary to get a little more creative in the kitchen.


Here's a multitude of resources to "make Monday the day all health breaks loose:"

• Meatless Mondays, from the non-profit Monday Campaigns and the Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Here you will find resources for a variety of perspectives: restaurants, K-12 schools, hospitals, food service, campus, community, and corporate dining. Included here are implementation guides, free resources, and recipes.

• The Greenpeace Less Is More Movement. FoodTank details the specifics of Greenpeace's report here, including a recommendation for a 50% reduction in meat dairy by 2050. The Less Is More website does a nice job of detailing the planetary effects of eating less meat to climate change, forests, water, health, animal welfare, and fair food... as well as ways to take action.

• The Humane Society has toolkits for K-12 schools, parents, universities/colleges, and hospitals on ways to implement meatless game plans into each of these locations. (This is also where the "What Is Meatless Monday" video came from that I posted in "Flexitarians, Unite.")

• Earth Day Network made Meatless Mondays one of their 2018 "Taking Action" points for Earth Day 2018. There, you can get some key points as well as a pledge to help you deepen your commitment.

For anyone looking to lighten your meat intake, here's a list of places to find all sorts of recipes:

• Cooking Light: Our Best Meatless Monday Recipes For Fall

• Eating Well:  Meatless Monday: Healthy Vegetarian Recipes You Must Try

• Meatless Monday's Website's Recipe Portal

• Bon Appétit: 35 Weeknight Vegetarian Recipes to Embrace Meatless Mondays 

• Damn Delicious: 15 Quick & Easy Meatless Monday Recipes

• Kitchn.com: 23 Vegetarian Dinners To Make Meatless Mondays Even Easier

• It's even an entire Pinterest category--just search there for "Meatless Mondays"

At the very least, it gets us in the mode of thinking about eating a little lighter, in healthy ways, in ways that help our our planet.

Images from https://www.geneseo.edu/cas/meatless-mondays, http://www.familycounselling.com/wanting-eat-healthier-try-meatless-mondays; Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPkV1bDZDl4

Flexitarians, Unite!

I am an unapologetic carnivore... which I know, goes against my environmentalistic ideals. But I can't help it. I do like a good steak. Also, I tend to just feel better when I focus on protein versus carbs. Granted, I know their are some vegetable-based proteins out there, but eggs, bone broth, and/or cheese best satisfy my breakfast needs to maintain my energy levels for the day... not to mention having animal protein during my other meals of the day.

Despite all of that, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the concept of "Meatless Mondays" or "Weekday Vegetarianism." Sometimes, this can be referred to as being a "Flexitarian." In fact, I was quite surprised at the number of resources on the subject I had stockpiled! It was a lot of "food for thought!" 😋

In case you are still wondering "What are Meatless Mondays?"--it's just what it sounds like. Here's a brief video from The Humane Society to explain it in more depth.


As this video shows (and the website does too), there are a lot of environmental impacts that could be had if all of us reduced our meat consumption by just one... or a few... days. Therefore, it's a worthy venture from an environmental standpoint to pursue.

Graham Hill has some good points here in his 2010 TEDTalk below, many of which mirror my still-carnivorous self. Graham poses the solution need not be a one-sided, binary, either-or situation of being meat-eater or not. He poses a 3rd option: "weekday vegetarian." Going "meatless on Mondays" poses a 4th. I don't think I'm at all ready to go full-on meatless 4 or 5 days a week, but maybe I could be a bit of a flexitarian. Could I do Mondays, or any one day a week?  Maybe. Or even: could I go 1 meal less a week?  Definitely! By looking at it fractionally on an individual level, we could potentially go make exponential growth on a societal level. It's worth thinking about.

Stay tuned for Part 2 (coming soon) for some more resources and recipes to try out to see if you are inspired to go meatless a meal or two (or even a day or two) a week.

Images from: https://steemkr.com/vegetarian/@donniechong/why-becoming-a-vegetarian, https://cindytherd.com/2017/11/10/flexitarian-diet-and-the-research-behind-it/
Videos from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpziz8cJMaI and https://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian#t-225071

Spending the Day Outdoors at the 'Annapolis Rising' Benefit

This past Saturday, it was a great day to be outside & in Annapolis, Maryland.

"Annapolis Rising" was an all day benefit for the Capital Gazette victims and honoring the First Responders of the June 28th shooting, which hit the community hard. In between different bands, a multitude of people (most journalists) spoke on the 1st Amendment and the tragedy at the Capital Gazette.

The overriding theme du jour in everyone's was that journalists go into their careers to help inform citizens and maintain the transparency needed to maintain democracy. It's the 1st Amendment for an important reason... and sadly they are now on the front lines, often facing hurt and danger due to swirling hatred against the free press.

Impassioned speakers we saw and heard while we were there included Marty Baron (Washington Post Executive Editor), Elisabeth Bumiller (DC Bureau Chief of NY Times), Lucy Dalglish (Dean of the University of Maryland's Merrill School of Journalism), Tom LoBianco (Assoc Press, CNN), Carl Snowden (Annapolis Civil Rights activist & politician), and Annapolis' Mayor Gavin Buckley.

I was there with my two kids, who are now old enough to get the meaning of the speeches, but also young enough that hanging out listening to speeches isn't necessarily their thing. That's when we were given a gift that made the whole experience so much more palatable to my kids. Right near the playground were several checkerboard tables, which were perfectly placed to hear the bands and the speakers. The best table (aka, the one closest to the stage) was open, so we sat down. We were delighted to have the table, but one thing was missing==the checkers!

This, however, was a very easy problem to solve. Maybe it's the fact that I'm a teacher and pretty much live in teacher-mode... or maybe it's due to the fact that I'm re-reading Richard Louv's "Last Child In the Woods"... or maybe it just simply because I write an environmental education blog. Whatever the reason, nature and garden space surrounded us in this urban environment, so we just had to be a little creative. Mulch and dropped cherry-berries (I have no idea what kind they were, dropped from the trees) served as our checkers. A few passer-bys marveled at our innovation. We played multiple games against each other, landing ourselves in the perfect location to enjoy the day, the music, and the speeches. It was a great way to soak up our civics lessons.

(I think it also served as inspiration to others. When we finally decided to change up our vantage point and leave the table, we left the board set up, ready to play. Later we saw people following in our footsteps, playing their own game of Mulch & Cherry Checkers. Felt kind of good to be trendsetters!)

Our checker table also served as an excellent place to watch the making of a mural. The canvas: 3 adjoined sailboat sails--perfectly symbolic for Annapolis and its sailing culture. They were being spray painted with the skyline of Annapolis & the message "Press On," painted by two artists from atop a cherry picker machine lift. Fitting for the day indeed!

The freedom to be in at a public street benefit, to feel safe there, to enjoy the beautiful day, to listen to wise journalists concerned about their lost colleagues [taken violently at their place of work] during an era of the frequent anti-news rhetoric... it all really caused me to take pause. I'm grateful for our American freedoms. I was struck how easily we can take them and democracy as a whole for granted. I was thrilled to be able to pick up the paperwork with my daughter at the table set up to register voters. We will be filling that out this week and mailing it in. I don't want to delve down the deep and dangerous road of politics, so I will end with this:

"When the public's right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered." —Former US Senator, Christopher Dodd

Images of the day: from either my camera or my friend Heather's! Collage compiled in the Li-Pix Pro app.

Bar Shampoo: A Plastic-Free Variety

 Most of us probably spend more time singing in the shower rather than thinking about our carbon footprint or plastic footprint. "We're too busy washing that man right out of our hair" or just taking care of the business of being clean.

But our bathrooms have plenty of plastic that we use on a daily basis.
It's the 2nd most plastic-wasteful room in our house.

What if we could change all of that?

Shampoo bars might be the key. Much like a bar of soap, a shampoo bar is a molded bar of ... you guessed it: shampoo. But the environmental (and economic) impact can be huge.

Companies that have jumped on the Shampoo Bar bandwagon include Lush, One Earth Body Care, Aquarian Bath, Stirling Soap Co., Chagrin Valley, Apple Valley and probably a gazillion more on Amazon.com. Plus, there's a slew of recipes online for the DIY variety. I've not used bar shampoo yet, but this video alone got me certainly thinking about trying some out!



Plastic Footprint image from http://www.taza.co/plastic-footprint-and-carbon-footprint/ and http://www.aquarianbath.com/shampoo-bars-solid-shampoo-hair-soap/shampoo-bars-solid.html?p=2&limit=15&start=1&savestate=1, video from https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/214240399077833/

Bounty of Food Related Books

This summer I've been eating up books. Of course, not literally, but one of the best parts of summer
time for teachers.

When I was writing about Food Tank, I happened on their wealth of resources, including reading lists. If you are looking for a little literal "food for thought," here's a bounty of food related books: 100+ books from these 6 lists alone. Click the + hot spot icon to go to the webpages.


After looking at all of these lists, I think these are the ones that are initially "whetting my appetite," making me eager "take a bite out of" them!

• Food Is the Solution: What to Eat to Save the World, Matthew Prescott
• Devoured: How What We Eat Defines Who We Are by Sophie Egan
• Reducetarian by Brian Kateman
• A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet, Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore
• How to Feed the World, Jessica Eise (editor) and Ken Foster (editor)
• Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change by Lisa Palmer
• Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

Additionally, I'm going to check out the monthly podcast "Real Food Reads" hosted by Anna Lappé as a virtual book club, discussing many of the books listed in the links above!

We already knew it, but clearly there's too many books, too little time!


Interactive infographic created at canva.com and https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1072538160245768194
Book list links if the graphic doesn't work:
https://foodtank.com/news/2017/05/food-tank-summer-reading-list-2017/
https://foodtank.com/news/2017/08/fall-reading-list/
http://realfoodmedia.org/programs/real-food-reads/
https://foodtank.com/news/2017/12/childrens-books-growing-minds/
https://foodtank.com/news/2018/01/food-tank-2018-winter-reading-list/
https://foodtank.com/news/2018/04/2018-food-tank-spring-reading-list/

Making the Most of Compost: Garbage to Garden

Anyone who's been hanging around for a while knows I was an avid composter back in the day, when I was teaching at Eagle Cove School. There, we had the Fort Knox of Compost... a 3-part system where we composted our school lunches, creating soil along the way. Doing so, along with our regular recycling, created virtually no classroom trash. (School-wide, we had a little more, but still, a very low-trash work environment.) Later, this compost turned to soil which was used for our greenhouse and our flower beds.

I was one of the handful of teachers who also used the school compost for my home food waste--which of course brought in a slightly different composition and quantity to the school compost bin. Being at a small school, I was widely known for my Infamous Compost Bucket, joke-worthy and legendary!

When the school closed, one of the many losses was my reliance on ECS's compost. We tried the backyard variety, but critters outsmarted us by digging under, and now it has been relegated to yard waste alone.

Given all of this, I'm in love with the Garbage to Garden program in Portland, Maine. Every community should be embracing this level of innovation.



Garbage to Garden has been a curbside compost service in Portland since 2012. The buckets are reminiscent of my own 5 gallon camo bucket! Creator Tyler Frank started it as a grassroots movement, sprung up from conversations with his roommates and put into action on a very small scale with a sign up at a local art festival. From there, it has grown to service 5,000 households, schools, and businesses from Maine to Massachusetts. Maryland! Come to Maryland! You can request cities as they are expanding, but I think I might be a bit far from their farm.

My favorite part too is that once you are on board with them, you can also request soil deliveries, created from compost. A sustainable, closed loop!

To learn more, check out Garbage to Garden's website!



 Videos from https://www.facebook.com/RobGreenfield/videos/1993363020905375/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVNzAmir4a0; All photos from https://garbagetogarden.org/

Recycling Mistakes We All Make

In the category of "This bums me out a bit," I ran across this video posted by "We Can Save The World." It details 5 recycling mistakes we all make. Sad but true, this eco warrior has at one time or another made all of these. Additionally, I learned a thing or two here in watching it this morning.



Luckily, they offer a few suggestions that serve as helpful hints.

Here are a few other things you can do to be proactive with your recycling efforts and help minimize waste, helping to swing the pendulum the other way (if you, like me, is a tad bummed out after watching):

• Keep bringing your reusable bags with you to the store--or refuse them if you are only purchasing one or two items.

• Drop your wire hangers back off at the dry cleaner so they can reuse them.

• Go plogging or plalking while you are out in the world, getting some fresh air and exercise.

• Use your own coffee mug or leftover containers... or ask for foil instead of Styrofoam to-go boxes.

• Get some stainless steel or paper straws--or just say "no thanks" when you are offered them.  I think I might look into portable, collapsible ones like the Final Straw!

• Cancel that junk mail.

• Save those gift bags and reuse them when giving gifts, or get creative with material and other reusable covering.

Video from https://youtu.be/R-Shxr7xHBw?si=5M-5BNgsrUegQK2J image from http://www.theurbanecolife.com/recycling-mistakes/

2 Minutes on Oceans With Jim Toomey

Shoes & socks.
Peanut butter & jelly.
Hugs & kisses.
Paper & pencil.
Salt & pepper.

There's a new dynamic duo in town of things that go together:

Cartoonist Jim Toomey & the United Nations Environment Programme! 

Together they are partnering up to raise awareness on oceanic issues involving coastal environments and how we can impact the ocean (both negatively and positively).

Jim Toomey is a favorite of mine, and I've written about his oceanic cartoon "Sherman's Lagoon" before. He's got a new series of 9 video shorts out with his "2 Minutes on Oceans With Jim Toomey" video series. They include:

The Land-Ocean Connection




Blue Carbon




Marine Litter



The Climate Change Connection



The True Value of Our Oceans



Nutrient Runoff



Adaption to Sea Level Rise



Waste Water: A Widespread Threat & Missed Resource



Green Fins for a Blue Planet




Images from: Batman & Robin from  https://www.flickr.com/photos/loopsoup/3231239304/; Jim Toomey picture from UNEP Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pg/UNEPOceanVideos/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1050232535092077; Cartoon from https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/two-minutes-oceans-jim-toomey

Videos from Jim Toomey's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvcRM8OdiziJ2qkoPL04ABw

Food Think With Food Tank

As a teacher, life is pretty hectic 3/4 of the year. But summer rolls around and opens up time a little bit, which also means it opens up life to a little more down time, thought time, and relaxation time.

For years now, summer is also my time to focus a little more on my health, my food intake, my level of exercise and movement, my time outdoors, and my brain space. I read more books, listen to a few more podcasts, lose a few pounds, up the steps on my pedometer, and have more time to do all those things I never had a chance to get to during the school year.

Recently I was listening to the Chalene Show Podcast (her June 4th episode with my favorite Shawn Stevenson from the Model Health Show, which focused on "6 Morning Habtis for Weight Loss"). Chalene Johnson was talking about her dad feeling under the weather and headed to the doctor. She summed it up to an insulin crash where he had a very carb-heavy traditional breakfast of cereal, toast, orange juice (after the last thing he ate the nnight before was ice cream). She was convinced it was low blood sugar due to his food--his doctor didn't even ask about his nutritional intake. She was discussing how food is medicine, and unfortunately many in our doctors in our culture don't even look at this important element.

Insert Food Tank here. This is a good portal (both online and on Facebook) where food-related health topics are addressed. It's especially important as we look at the statistics of diabetes, heart disease, obesity and more that are on the rise and causing major risks to people. From their Facebook page:

"Food Tank is a non-profit organization focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. We spotlight environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty and create networks of people, organizations, and content to push for food system change." 

Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank in 2013 and current president of Food Tank, is impassioned about fixing our broken food system, feeding the hungry, and helping our environment... especially since we are all eaters. Here is her TEDx Talk from March 2015.



On Food Tank's website, you can find news on the following topics, each with articles pertaining to the health and food issues. It's a vast learning library and way to start thinking like food activists, advocates, and innovators

• Sustainable Agriculture
• Climate Change
• Food Waste
• Food Heroes (including a lovely tribute to Anthony Bourdain)
• Urban Agriculture
• Policy and Organizing
• Food Tank Lists (A place you will find wonderful resources such as organizations, book lists, documentaries, and more)

Video from https://youtu.be/zqSrobaD5sA; All images from Food Tank's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheFoodTank/

Spending Another Morning With Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Before I start this post, I need to digress about the weather. Here in the greater DC-Baltimore area we've been inundated with a July blast of intense heat & humidity. Temperatures all week were mid-upper 90° with the heat index much higher. Steamy, sweaty, grimy & gross are the only words for it--especially for the 4th of July. All difficult for this teacher who has been trying to maximize her summer by getting outdoors as much as possible, especially when I write. Thank heavens for the back yard pool! Well, this morning, I walked outside to a delightful, lovely, low humidity, breezy, sunny, glorious day. Pure & utter bliss!!   (written 7/7/18)

OK.... Now that I've got that out of my system... back to your regularly scheduled post!

Any teacher knows that summers are made not only for restoration & relaxation, but also catching catch up or getting ahead of things the normal school year schedule doesn't always allow for. Reading a slew of books. Binge-watching shows. Attending doctor appointments. Planning the new curricular unit for fall.

In our house, it also includes getting a jump on the service hours necessary for the year ahead for my high schooler.

At the end of June, we got in a few of those hours, shaking shells with Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF). Well we were back at it last Friday, this time in a seemingly unlikely CBF location, with no Bay in sight. We headed to Clagett Farm to get a few more hours under our belt, doing some more volunteering with CBF. This time, the kids took their cousin with them.

As the four of us traveled to various parts of the farm, we learned that the 285 acre farm was acquired by CBF in 1982. There, they raise organic crops sustainably, along with grass-fed cattle for both CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and the Capital Area Food Bank to help lower income families nutrient rich foods at a lower cost. Lots of program details are available on the Clagett Farm webpage.



Our tasks for the day: harvest cucumbers and squash as well as straw-mulch tomato plants.  We discovered early on, there were no Future Farmers of America in our group!

Additionally, we discovered...

• Muscles we didn't even know we had. Different ones, of course, than those that were achy last week. 

• 3 hours of farming leaves you pretty darn dirty, especially on a hot, sticky day.

• That water and hydration are a beautiful, wonderful thing!

• That cucumber plants (and the surrounding plants around them) could be a little prickly. Pants would have been a good idea for this kid, whose legs were a tad torn up and itchy all over the place. But they cleaned up well and serve as a good badge of doing something outside myself--and outdoors!

• That hay can also be a tad itchy, and you come home with it everywhere!

• That hard work and a bit of dirt and sweat can feel really productive. (Okay, that might have been more me than the kids, but I still stand by it.) The showers and the pool felt really good as a follow up.

• Perspective is a really good thing. These experiences both with shell shaking and being in the fields not only have given us a broader picture to what is around us, but it also what it feels like to literally walk in someone else's shoes. Not only might that make our own environment look a little bit more inviting, but it also opens our eyes to a rich diversity that surrounds us out in the world!

Thank you Carrie, CBF Vegetable Production Manager, for spending the morning with us showing us the ropes and enduring our city-slickerness! For locals, check out the CBF volunteering page if you are inspired to go out, get a little dirty, and do something for others! You can also check out Clagett Farm's blog for updates on their CSA and more.

All pictures from my camera from our day at Clagett Farm.

Nature Deficit Disorder

From the official trailer of the film NaturePlay, there's a statement that blinks across the screen:

"The most endangered species in the wild today: Our Children."

Those are startling words. Especially for those of us who remember BigWheels, bike riding until dusk (with no helmet), stream walking, traipsing through the woods, creating back yard forts, running in the sprinkler, living in our oversized-tire sandbox and more. It was summer, and it was outdoors, with the occasional AC break, a glass of lemonade, and a freezer stocked with popsicle as our main way to stay cool. We were outdoors all day.

Not so much these days. Case and point: On the back of Thomas Kersting's book "Disconnected: How to Reconnect Our Digitally Distracted Teens," the latest book I've been reading, there's this stat...which parallels the endangered species quote above:

"According to the latest research, the average 13 year old spends 8 hours per day, seven days a week, glued to a screen."

Yikes.

This summer our professional read book for school is not one but 4, on a variety of subjects related to our PS-12 grade levels. One of the chosen books is Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder." I was already planning on rereading it before knowing that, and it's a book I've written about and referenced several times before. It's now officially 10 years old, and it's message is only louder, stronger, and more necessary than before. We need to be getting our kids outdoors. And it's hard. It's summer, and somedays I'm literally kicking kids off screens and out the door. It shouldn't be this difficult. But it's important, so we keep doing it, as we owe it to our children to do so!

Exposure to nature via virtual reality and video games just isn't enough. It's not a 5-senses experience! Additionally, you come to want to protect something that you know. Watch this NaturePlay Teaser, with Richard Louv & his sentiments as the narration to see how nature speaks to us on so many levels. It might even serve as some inspiration to get out there and do something outdoors.



To learn more about the NaturePlay film and how to get a copy for screening, go to their website.

To feel more, go outside.


Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2rp4Leikpk, images from http://www.businessinsider.com/11-reasons-you-should-go-outside-2014-4 and https://malaysianpsychology.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/gesprekvandedag_kinderenmeerbewegen470.jpg

Happy 4th of July

Cheers to all of you celebrating Independence Day this year.

Check out this checklist and see what you can mark off for your celebration!

Checklist created at https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/a5dd5b3d606c448ea303cb6d71ea78b5, image from https://4thofjulyproducts.com/4th-of-july-quotes-and-sayings/