Researchers need funding, so when large contributors call, it’s hard to resist their interests.
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Local Medicine: Preserving Medicinal Herbs
“Herbal medicine provides relief while also assisting our immune systems do their jobs.” Herbs offer us many gifts: culinary seasonings, teas, and nutritive medicine. Even though we are nearing the end of the growing season, there is still time to harvest and preserve herbs for use throughout the winter months. Be sure to dry herbs for culinary use and for teas, store them in glass jars to protect their aromatic oils. In this article, I describe a favorite way to preserve medicinal herbs for winter use. Upper respiratory viruses are the most common ailments during the colder months, and we are most vulnerable during the seasonal transitions of fall to…
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Planting the Seeds:
One of the gifts of childhood is an eager and natural curiosity of the young learner’s mind. The study of plants is one of the most interesting and accessible activities to engage learners of all ages.
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Place-based Education: Connecting Classroom and Community
Something’s Happening Here As you stroll down the halls of your neighborhood school at nine o’clock on a Wednesday morning, you notice that something is different. Many of the classrooms are empty; the students are not in their places with bright, shiny faces. Where are they? In the town woodlot, a forester teaches tenth graders to determine which trees should be marked for an upcoming thinning project. Downtown, a group of middle school students are collecting water samples in an urban stream to determine if there’s enough dissolved oxygen to support reintroduced trout. Out through the windows, you can see children sitting on benches writing poems. Down the way, a…
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Vancouver Water Resources Education Center
If you haven’t been to this hidden jewel at 4600 SE Columbia Way in Vancouver, put it on your list and visit. It opened its doors in February 1996, in concert with a new, innovative and advanced Marine Park Water Reclamation Facility, but many people have yet to discover it. Their mission: Teach people of all ages how to better care for and make wise decisions about water. They do this with interactive exhibits, aquaria swimming with fish, classroom laboratory, toddler-friendly Puddles Place, inspiring White Sturgeon gallery, natural gardens, wildlife-friendly wetlands and more! Inside and outside, the Water Center is brimming with things for visitors of all ages to do…
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10 Things I Learned While Living Without Running Water
It is much easier than I thought to conserve resources. My wife and I recently endured fifteen days of living without running water while a new well was being drilled on our property. If I was a more conscientious blogger, I suppose I would have chronicled the experience daily, as it unfolded. But the truth is, I couldn’t spend much time at the keyboard during that period. Every time I stopped moving, I felt like Pig-Pen in the Peanuts cartoon, READ MORE
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Artistic Sculpture in Unfired Earth – Earthen Hand Class
Artistic Sculpture in Unfired Earth – Sept 14th, 10am – 5pm – Portland, Oregon – $75 / day, classes (paid at least 1 week in advance). $30 or less materials/tools. This class explores the infinite artistic possibilities of unfired clay/sand/fiber mixtures. We will use pigments, and a wide variety of techniques to create vastly different effects. Learn how to make earthen plasters, paints, pigments, and construct skeletons to support the sculpture. Class size is limited to 6 people.
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An Ecology Based Education
Interview with David W. Orr What is the purpose of education? What exactly are we trying to achieve by sending kids to school for twelve years? Dr. David Orr, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, sees a direct connection between how we teach children and the disastrous impacts of our dependence on fossil fuels. A pioneer in the ecological literacy movement, he believes that all education should be ecologically based, from the design of the campus to the curriculum itself. “All education is environmental education,” says Orr. “Students either learn that they are a part of or apart from the natural world.” He points out that some of…
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Farm to School
The ABCs of Fresh Food An innovative effort to bring locally-grown foods to Oregon’s school children and to help them understand where their food comes from received a big thumbs-up when the Oregon State Legislature unanimously passed House Bill 2800 in July. HB 2800, aslo known as the “Farm to School and School Gardens” bill provides $200,000 to a pilot program to rev up the provision of Oregon-grown foods and hands-on, garden-based education to public school students. The funds will allow school districts an extra 15-cents per school meal to buy Oregon foods and produce. This is good news for small farmers whose livelihoods depend upon locavore consumption and for…
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Sustainable Schools-Sustainable Solutions
The Zero Waste Alliance’s Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative, SOSI (pronounced “so see”) has taken a systemic approach to fostering healthy school environments by engaging, educating and inspiring individual schools, districts, and the organizations that support them. Oregon’s schools comprise an infrastructure large enough to house one-fifth of Oregon’s population and that means they have a large carbon footprint. Reducing that footprint will result in a cleaner environment, but will also save money by eliminating waste and increasing resource efficiency. But creating a healthy, sustainable environment is only part of the sustainability solution. Through education for sustainability, SOSI helps to develop school curriculums infused with learning that prepares students to live…
