Women in the Woods

Purple Fungus!

Local versus Organic

There are many factors to consider when you have the choice between buying locally- or foreign- grown fruits and vegetables, dairy products and meats. Often enough, the choice is between a conventionally or "naturally" grown local product and organic imported from New Zealand, Africa, Thailand, or even California. I would say that buying from California is better than another country. The health benefits to life in general of buying organic greatly outweighs those of eating conventionally grown foods. But what happens when those organic foods are shipped between 2,000 and 4,000 miles just to get to your home? How many hands did that box pass through? And is the fruit's nutritional value as good as picking a conventionally grown fruit fresh off the vine?

You must also question what kinds of seeds are being used. Genetically modified seeds have unknown long-term effects, just like DDT when it first came out on the market. Although big corporations claimed it was perfectly safe then and showed videos of families being sprayed while having a picnic outdoors, the stuff has been BANNED from U.S. because of its high toxicity. What will we find about these "superfoods"? They are already invading genes of heirloom seeds and Jane Goodall's example in her book, Harvest for Hope, of pesticides being placed within every cell of a seed and then contaminating the food supply is absolutely harrowing. Despite what the five main companies who own most of the world's seeds through patents tell us, GM seeds have been proven, in standardized research (on animals-ugh!) to create lasting and biologically threatening damage. (Check out research by Dr. Arpad Pusztai.)

Then, we return to the question of local. What are the implications of giving our money to a corporate middle man who gets our food from a foreign place and then puts it in our grocery stores? First, the middle man and the grocery stores get most of the money; leaving the farmer with pennies per pound. Whether or not it is organic, buying locally ensures that your money stays local. Buying from a farmer within an hour radius allows you to connect on a personal level with the food you eat. By giving your money to a local farmer, you aid that farmer in achieving more sustainable farming practices because she or he is not trying to cut corners to make ends meet. Talk to farmers, give your opinions; but also listen. Help pull weeds. Pick some peas. You think you don't have time; but you do.

Going local

There are a lot of great berries around here-at pick your own farms and in the "wild". Although strawberry season is at its end, blueberries, raspberries, and black raspberries are ripening across the south of New Hampshire. Support local by going to pick-your-own berry farms. I'm more familiar with SW NH-New Ipswich, Greenfield, Milton, and many others boast their own berry farms. These farmers often offer other goods, as well, because no one wants to put all their eggs in one basket.

Strawberry/Raspberry Jam
4 cups mashed berries
2 t pectin
2 t calcium water
3/4 c honey or raw sugar


Start heating your big canning pot 1/2 to 2/3 full of water (depending if you want to use 1/2 or whole pint jars for 'ze jam). Place jars, lids, and rings in heating water, place on lid. Mix sweetener with pectin. Heat berries and calcium water on medium, stirring frequently. When it boils, add sweetener/pectin mix and stir for next 1-2 minutes, then take off heat. When canning water begins to boil, remove jars (with tongs) and fill with jam, leaving 1/4 inch at the top empty. Remove rims and lids from boiling water (magnetic pointer is awesome, but tongs work, too) and place on jars. Put jammed and tightly sealed jars into boiling water for five minutes. Remove and let cool.

What do you do with leftovers? Stick it in the fridge and eat it in the next week (although I doubt it will last that long.) Or mix and match with a new batch of jam. Have fun! Don't worry. It's hard to mess up jam...even if you do things in the wrong order, you'll still have a tasty, jam(-like) substance. :)

Ending our third week

The Summer Institute has created fast friends. The intense, yet open-minded learning environment has allowed most of us to come out of our shells (some sooner, some later) and speak more freely about our beliefs, to share a more intimate self. I believe a tight-knit group is valuable to exploring environmental education because we feel comfortable asking questions, getting ideas from one another, learning from the wide variety of people here.
Personally, because I have primarily worked one-on-one with students, I found it incredibly helpful to see the different ways teachers can present information in the facilitations. The variation in tools used was great-puzzles, discussion, power point, thoughtful questions, defining terms, art, quotations, ecofoot.org, and helping us to become more familiar with the local community. This knowledge was also taught from different perspectives-ecological, historical, social, and cultural, as well as in terms of a broader, global community and smaller, local communities.
In addition, I love that the readings in the packet were in many different writing styles and that additional poetry, short stories, and spiritual writings were woven into the assigned readings. These allowed me to pause and reflect in a different way from the critical "I have a paper to write" assessment I made of the other readings. They allowed my mind to wander.

What I learned this weekend...

Treat others as they ought to be; not as they are; and this world will be a much more hopeful place.

Leaf mold and poop hold many secrets

Although we are studying plant composition and abundance, we have the chance to observe some of the coolest creatures, including many little orange newts, frogs, toads, and garter snakes tucked away under the detritus and leaf mold. We also came upon many piles of moose poo from last fall (at least) along the human made trail between the development and the Barrington Headwaters land. So, they are using this as a corridor.

I also have a theory about orange animals, including orange cats and newts . They are a lot shy, but a little sassy, fairly resilient mixed with some good old stubborness. "My" cat, Bernard, and these orange newts slink off in the same way-not scurrying, but in a determined direction that they don't quite want you to know about. They are slow enough in their slinking to let you know with their orangeness that, "Hey, you disturbed me." I love the 'tude.

"Please, exit the building."

This morning, all the Babcock Hall residents woke at 5:40 am to flashing lights, screeching alarms, and a woman's voice, kindly telling us that a fire alarm had gone off and could we, please, exit the building. Thinking to grab a key, I left and went outside where people had begun congregating in various stages of attire. Sitting for a while on a cold curb, I began to think about how this was the one day I had planned to sleep until 7 instead of 5:30, and that my limbs were feeling numb from the cold. This was a key moment in my day-I could have become sour over the situation; but instead I got up, walked to a grassy area with beams of sunlight and centered myself with a yoga practice.

I feel it is the same with environmental education. We have choices in how we react to situations. Plans do not go "as planned" the vast majority of the time; and trying to stick to those plans can actually make the situation much worse than it actually is. This ties in well with Vicki's excellent facilitation today about beliefs. What do we value? What are our driving beliefs? How do we enact those values in our daily lives?

I believe that all life has intrinsic value. Diversity promotes stability in this world. Every moment can be utilized positively...if we have the time and ability to notice. (I don't always succeed.) 

A Discerning Day

I have found being indoors, particularly under bright lights, to be significantly more draining than working, learning, and teaching out-of-doors. However, it is important to recognize that, logistically, it will sometimes just make more sense to be indoors. Today was one of those days...we were designing and planning our group inquiry-based research projects. The process was a few hours, longer than I had thought it would be; but that is because I almost always underestimate the amount of time it will take to accomplish a specific task. I learned today that for a group of 15, it really will take a couple hours to generate and x general project questions; then, a couple more to divide into groups and really narrow our scopes of research.

I do not have a concept of how long it might take with, an elementary or middle school group of students; but it was definitely beneficial to see the whole process of wheetling down topics.

Ideas on board
Scratchy Scratch
Questions in hoards
Oochy Aach
Brain function
Wants to look outside
See the questions coming
from every side
Write it down
Plots abound
Talk it through
...and away we go!

Allowing students to take full responsibility for their projects is pertinent to helping them (us) develop a sense of self-confidence in inquiry based science as well an "ownership" and care for the project at hand...even though it can be difficult for a teacher to step back and let her or his students go through the frustration, brain-blocks, and long process of group decision making. So, thank you teachers for letting us do that today!

Learn, Learn, Learn, Pause

Composing a great piece of music is just as much about the pauses between the lines as the notes on the page. These four days have provided intense, fabulous, and insightful experiences for me. The wisdom of our own professors, as well as the specialities of our guest teachers have introduced and re-introduced ideas, concepts, and practical knowledge in such a short period of time. It is great to be completely immersed in such variety-good "ice-breakers", setting plots in the woods, GPS, vegetation identification, animal tracking, human history and use of land...the list continues. All the while, our instructors are pointing out to us how each of these aspects of our course can be applied in the act of teaching environmental education. So much to do in so little time. The readings, for me, create a time and space to pause and reflect, allowing me to maintain an energetic excitement for the days (a go, go, go sort of thing) because I know that I can have my own space later for reflection. This weekend, I plan to do exactly that; and to really analyze and go over this vast and sundry array of information. This course, to me, is just as exciting as hearing a new composition-the arrangement of topics allows us to see interconnectedness in this land and its people; and right now, is the pause.

Just as Eleanor said today, thank you all (y'all) for your amazing attitudes!

Have a great weekend.

This day went by quickly

Wildlife encounters of the tame kind! Tracker Dan Gardoqui took us on an adventure in the Barrington woods. In looking for actual tracks, scat, homes, and feeding signs, we wound through the bushes, being careful not to step on the nestling and to return all creatures we found to the place where we encountered them. Details about the ecosystem that I had not even previously imagined were divulged. Rodents had been gnawing on a deer skull in lieu of our calcium supplements. Snails and slugs leave almost decorative trails on tree trunks as the eat their way around. Tree frogs can change colour a little bit to match their surroundings. Who knew? Dan and some other students did. We have so much to offer one another. I loved hearing Dawn talk about the parasite on the oak leaves and Chelsea sharing her experiences from Georgia.

Randy Warren is a font of information regarding the Barrington area. He had perspectives completely new to me about the area's ecological, political, and social history. (The man knows everyone around here!) As one who has worked as an organic farmer with a background in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) I think it is incredibly valuable to hear the perspective of a conventional farmer. Although I thought it was funny when he described how he lived in the '40s (minimal electricity and running water, the walk out to the road, wood stoves, etc) because that is how I live now in Jaffrey with my partner's family and I find it truly fulfilling. But as educators we all know that everyone learns, teaches, and does in different ways.

The dynamic individuals leading this group-from our three co-teachers to the specialists-have provided a continuous, but not too rushed, stream of knowledge...which is why I think I'm feeling a little brain dead. ;)

Also, thank you Meg for an awesome reading facilitation today! Nicely done.

~

"Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven." by Rabindranath Tagore

~

Heaven is on Earth.
God is in relating.
Put your forehead to a tree.

Just go out there...

For quite a long time, I had this somewhat inexplicable hesitancy to learn tree and plant species' names. I felt that if I scientifically categorized each specie then I would be less apt to readily appreciate each individual tree for its unique bark, canopy, branches, leaf growth, etc. Since I began farming a little over a year ago and have subsequently moved to the woods of Jaffrey, I realized that knowing the characteristics of species and what they indicate biologically about an area can be really helpful in determining soil health.

Moreover, knowing how to identify tree leaves, bark, and buds helps me to feel more involved with the tree communities. After just one day spent in College Woods, becoming more familiar with the forest composition and structure in this area, I felt so much more intimately connected with and excited about the woods we observed today. I absolutely loved being "thrown out" into the woods in small groups to do short and varied observations of different kinds of disturbances to the land. From pre-k through undergrad I really only recall one other educational experience that did this, a semester program with the School for Field Studies in Costa Rica. SFS was developed specifically to accomplish teaching through hands-on learning and directed research; but SFS is not the norm in terms of public schooling. There seem to be more "special" or alternative schools becoming established in the past decade or so; but how can inquiry-based and hands-on learning and teaching be more of the "norm" in public schools, rather than relying entirely on the initiative of particularly motivated teachers?