Crossing Boundaries

Each Target store will award three Field Trip Grants of up to $700 to K-12 schools, enabling one in 25 schools throughout the US to send a classroom on a field trip. Applications are due by Sept 30.

"Don't despair: that's the message of a new paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, which argues that decades of conservation actions at multiple scales have had a positive impact for many of the world's endangered species. "

30+ pictures and maps from the Congo rainforest

A web-based guide to arthropod identification

Our conservation scientist, Taza Schaming, is profiled on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Round Robin blog.

Beautiful satellite images from around the world

Political ecologist Susanna Hecht has incurred the wrath of some conservationists by arguing that the notion of the primeval forest is largely a myth and that disturbed forests play a vital ecological function. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, she makes the case for a "new rurality" that places less emphasis on protected forests and more on the areas where people live.

A lot of free resources from federal agencies for all subjects. The science section is particularly rich.

The Topographic and Bathymetric Data Inventory displays the best-available topographic and bathymetric data for the United States.

"BioCarbon Tracker uses satellite data and advanced methods to map the ecosystems where biocarbon is stored, identify vegetation at risk from land use change and monitor where high biocarbon stock land such as forest is converted to agriculture."

"Many researchers have believed that pristine forests might provide amphibians a refuge against their two main killers: habitat loss and fungal infections."

Visit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Program's multimedia gallery to hear podcasts about featured species, such as the whooping crane, Gila trout, piping plover, desert tortoise, Florida panther, and Jesup's milk-vetch. Most appropriate for use with middle and high school students, each 5- to 10-minute episode describes the species and reports on its status, updating listeners on the progress of any programs working to aid it protection. Teachers can download a written transcript of each podcast.

Examine a tropical montane cloud forest via this immersive video experience. Click on numbered links to access video clips and facts describing each different forest environment. The site includes background information for teachers and standards-aligned lessons for students in grades 6-8 on such topics as water, weather, soils, ecology, and the science processes.

"SlashGeo posts on the June 2nd announcement by National Academies Press that all their PDF book titles are now freely available for download, or for online reading. National Academies Press is the publishing arm of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council. A search using geography-related terms (e.g. GIS, GPS, geography, maps, cartography, etc.) will bring up long lists of titles. They're a bit of a mixed bag, though - most of them are more along the lines of committee reports, executive summaries, available resources and project planning than they are of more practical applications. Still, worth a look, especially at the price ;-). For many of them, you can also buy hard copies, and even embed a widget for them onto your website to allow people direct access to the book. "

A great evolution video..

"The power of geographic and spatial information design is often an untapped resource. Much work done by advocacy organisations has some "spatial" element to it and includes data that can, when approached creatively, be easier to explore and understand when mapped or displayed visually. However, until recently, using computer mapping technologies proved to be incredibly challenging, expensive and time consuming and therefore often inappropriate for small and medium-sized organisations."

"Trained as a musician, acoustic biologist Katy Payne was first to discover that humpback whales compose ever-changing song to communicate, and first to understand that elephants communicate with one another across long distances by infrasound. We hear what she has learned about life in this world from two of its largest and most mysterious creatures."

Lesson plan to calculate a Biodiversity Index using names in the phone book

consumerism

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

An ActionBioscience.org original interview with E.O. Wilson.