Crossing Boundaries

"Rather than look at protected areas as preserves cut off from our human activity except as tourist destinations, we need to recognize their broader role in our economies. "

ESRI videos on GIS careers such as forester, conservationist, and helicopter pilot

Live streaming conversation site.

"Google has long offered anyone with an Internet connection a street-level view of cities and landmarks around the world, from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Roman Coliseum. Now, it's teaming up with a Brazilian environmental group to offer a 3-D, on-the-ground view of one of the planet's most remote areas: the hamlet of Tumbira in the center of the Brazilian Amazon. The goal is to show how people in the Amazon live - and educate the public about their effort to protect the forest."

"an innovative online career exploration and planning system designed to make career exploration and planning fun and easy... students can choose an occupation & read the job description, interests it utilizes, skills required, education needed, average wages for entry level and senior level, and job outlook.

"A Moment of Science is a daily audio podcast, public radio program and video series providing the scientific story behind some of life's most perplexing mysteries. "

"Uses satellite images to look at changes in glaciers over time. "

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an activity-based lesson book that contains 40 inspiring lessons. These lesson plans are designed to help students understand complex global issues and sustainable solutions. Each lesson offers creative tools for students to take action in their local and global communities."

*This may be old news to most of you - thought it was interesting! A parasitic fungus is turning ants in Thailand into "zombies," and now scientists have a better idea how and when the infection does its gruesome work. The fungus, a species of Ophiocordyceps, targets carpenter ants living high in Thailand's rain forest canopy.

A new study by Kenyan and University of California at Davis researchers shows that grazing by wild animals doesn't always harm, and may sometimes benefit, cattle. The results are published in this week's issue of the journal Science.""Our findings provide further evidence that biodiversity conservation and economic development can be simultaneously achieved in human-occupied savanna landscapes.""

"I'll bet the service saved me a couple hours" -PCWorld "Ninite.com frees up your day" -The Christian Science Monitor "This post can be fairly short because Ninite works exactly as advertised." -Lifehacker The easiest way to keep apps up-to-date. It's different than other updaters. We only add popular user-requested apps to Ninite.

Downloadable world map using Wildfinder data to portray # bird species by terrestrial ecoregion

"The Hog Wild curriculum is an interdisciplinary unit designed to engage students in a simulation focused on the establishment of a hog farm in their local watershed. Students prepare for and engage in a simulated town council hearing on the establishment of a particular hog farm in the area. Participating groups of students will take on the role of different stakeholders, conduct research from the perspective of that group, create GIS maps to support their positions, and then present and defend their positions during the two day hearing. One goal of Hog Wild is to help students see the political, social and economic dimensions of environmental issues. This website contains a growing set of resources designed to support this curriculum. "

"Using GIS software applications can assist you in observing patterns in data as well as potential risks. Scientists use several indicators to monitor the quality and vulnerability of a watershed, which are recorded into a database. However, without the use of a GIS it would be difficult to assess the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. "

"Merlin will be a new kind of bird identification tool-one that combines artificial intelligence with input from real-life bird watchers to produce an online "wizard" that helps people ID birds quickly and connects them to more information. To build Merlin, we need to know how thousands of people remember and describe birds. You can help us by playing games that gather the information to help Merlin understand what bird watchers see. The more you play, the more you'll help Merlin become a true bird ID wizard."

Watch these short videos to spur classroom discussion about science and evolution.

Arranged in the traditional 7.5-minute quadrangle format, digital US Topo maps look and feel like traditional paper topo maps but users can turn geographic data layers on and off, zoom in and out to highlight specific features or see a broader context; and print the maps...

"In this exercise, undergraduate students use Google Earth and information from several web sites to investigate some of the consequences of climate change in polar regions, including the shrinking of the ice cap at the North Pole, disintegration of ice shelves, opening of shipping routes, effects on polar bears, and possible secondary effects on climate in other regions due to changes in ocean currents. "

Summary of a peer-reviewed article on the response of tropical birds to climate change. Contains link to full article.