Tag Archives: nature

Five Questions for Cambridge’s Monarch Nannies

Why are Monarch butterflies so special? We recently asked five questions of Martine Wong, Fresh Pond Reservation (FPR) Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator, and her Cambridge Mayor’s  Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP) intern, Shewit.  On August 6th and 7th, amidst some fanfare—kids and puppets—Martine, Shewit and other staff and volunteers released most of the butterflies that they had helped raise,Continue reading “Five Questions for Cambridge’s Monarch Nannies”

A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation

There is sometimes too much, or too little, simplification that goes on when “environmental education” takes hold. Starting with a single species, as Fresh Pond Reservation staff in Cambridge, Mass., will do on January 31st with “The Secret Life of White Oaks,” can make a path for kids, families, anyone, to start small and grow curious from there.Continue reading “A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation”

Airport Owls, Hooting Toddlers: A Feathered Friend in Cambridge

Owls visited our fair city last weekend and kids were there in droves to see them. Licensed wildlife rehab maven and Massachusetts resident Patricia Bade (given the punchy name “Owl Woman” by her Penobscot elders before she could say “boo”) brought her un-releasable saw-whet owl and screech owl to Maynard Ecology Center for a familyContinue reading “Airport Owls, Hooting Toddlers: A Feathered Friend in Cambridge”

Off Trail in the Peppermint Forest

It’s time for me to leave the sidelines. It’s time for slow this-and-that. Slow Food. Slow Families. Slow Medicine, even. Unplug. Be in the moment. Pay attention. But to what? The “movement” to simplify has, in a way, come full circle. I like those nice two-word concepts, above. Actually, two-word concepts is about all I canContinue reading “Off Trail in the Peppermint Forest”

The Host-Parasite Thing, with Many Digressions

Ideas and facts aren’t bad just because we acquire them via social media. As a parent and self-teaching nature club guide* I’ll take what I can get from the Internet. Here’s an example. So am I a host or a parasite in the digital food chain? *I’ve been calling myself a “leader” of the clubContinue reading “The Host-Parasite Thing, with Many Digressions”

Mother Nature’s Child to Play in Somerville

Somerville Climate Action, Rep. Denise Provost and The Growing Center present a free film: MOTHER NATURE’S CHILD Mother Nature’s Child explores nature’s powerful role in children’s health and development through the experience of children of all ages. The film marks a moment in time when a living generation can still recall a childhood of freeContinue reading “Mother Nature’s Child to Play in Somerville”