Roots and Shoots June 2002 Meeting
June was be Friday, June 7th at an interesting location north of Battle Creek, look at its website, http://www.cedarcreekinstitute.org/. Everyone who was able to attend loved the location and was fascinated by the range of talks and classes that are offered there. The Environmental Education coordinator, Casey Harris, gave a tour and talked about building a team of teens for a national emvironmental competition.
Clouds and climate study with NASA
: From NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, "Students' Cloud Observations On-Line", an interactive project in which kids help NASA scientist study the effects of clouds on the Earth's
climate. The program has been operational since 1997 and has 1100+ participants in 60 countries. The project is free, international and will run about 15 years. Look at the project website, http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/.
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Frog (and Toad) Songs: Frog and Toad survey has been fun. You can contact the DNR through the internet and request information on doing a frog and toad survey in your area. They will even send you an audiotape of the different calls of the frogs and toads to help you identify them. Many of us have used to information to identify frog and toad songs that we have been wondering about for years!
A note about frogwatching--
I found the coolest web site! Take a look- you can hear each frog/toad really clearly- tape it and go out to the wetlands with your tape recorder!
www.zoo.utoronto.ca/natalie/frogpage.html
First I did a search on wood frogs; from there I went to the page on Toronto area frogging- and from there I clicked the section on MI frogs and toads. After that- so much information.
Check it out!
And by the way- those were definitely wood frogs we saw- and they were in full swing- they were right next to us. Their eyes (or something!) bulged out every time they called out. It sounded just like ducks! --Jan
And a sad note from Janice, who recently read an article about a common weed killer, heavily used on lawns, causing many frogs to be unable to reproduce.
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Did you know... That a TV set contains four to eight pounds of lead? Going to garage sales the last few weeks, I have noticed how many people are trying to get rid of old TV sets. Where do they all go? I see some thrown into ditches out here in the country. This means that the lead will slowly leach into the water supply... and lead poisoning can lead to all sorts of health problems, especially for children.
We are a homeschool chapter of Roots and Shoots for all interested homeschoolers.
Roots and Shoots is a program started by Jane Goodall that involves children in stewardship of the earth and of all of its creatures, by educating, and by encouraging community projects. Visit her website at http://www.janegoodall.org.
Our mission is to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for animals, the environment, and the human community. For more information, email Cindy at [email protected].
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