Crossing Boundaries

"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. "

In this 7-minute excerpt from the documentary Roots of Change: The Vision of Wangari Maathai see how she became the first African woman, and first environmentalist, to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. The Green Belt Movement that she founded has profoundly changed the physical and social landscape of Kenya...and it all began with planting trees.

Grazing by zebras, other African wildlife can actually help cattle -- student-friendly summary of the Science article

Simple and cost effective investments in predator proof stockades, known as bomas, eliminates much human-predator conflict... The economic well-being of the country depends ultimately, not on the bricks and mortar of runaway development activity, but on the natural environment that-alone-will define the limits of what we can, or cannot, do. Only by embracing conservation can we create a sustainable basis for our continued economic and social development.

*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.

A concise and nicely illustrated publication about native bees in North America.

Using mobile devices, citizen scientists collaborate to document species around the world. Imagine a field guide for every organism!

Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.

One stop page for links to fun tools you or your students can use

I've used Animoto, Quizlet, Xtranormal and Dropbox. Love Quizlet and Dropbox....don't use Animoto or Xtranormal all that much although they are fun and your students might enjoy "playing".

Drop box is awesome - external storage site! Allows you to access files from any computer and up to 2G free storage. More with pay upgrade. I think I will link the Web Tools Index in my wiki for students to use at their convenience.

Texting service that does not require you to ever see the student or parent cell number - FREE - to send notifications as you like.

This website explains the high-tech systems used by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to hear, monitor, and protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, and you can see live info about where these whales have been detected within the past 24 hours.

A blog by the New England Aquarium about the massive collaborative effort to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales from ship strikes, gear entanglements and other threats.

"A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) examines how the Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) program has succeeded in stabilizing wildlife while improving agriculture in the Luangwa Valley."

"Google is adding addresses along sections of the Amazon River and Rio Negro in Brazil to its Street View service."

GIS Links for state clearinghouses and federal data

GIS Files of data for the world

Creative Commons free share images