Have you ever heard of the “Gangsta Gardener”? I’m guessing it’s likely, given that his 2013 TED Talk has been viewed over 4 million times. (You can increase that number by watching for yourself below.) When Ron Finley converted the strip of land between his house and the street into a vegetable garden, the city of Los Angeles put out a warrant for his arrest. Urban gardening on city-owned land was not legal. But Finley and his friends at LA ...Continue Reading →

You’re probably familiar with the Jurassic or even the Cambrian time spans, but have you heard of the Anthropocene? The geologic time scale divides earth’s history into eons (hundreds of millions to billions of years), eras (hundreds of millions of years), periods (tens of millions of years), and epochs (several million years). Each division in time is indicative of significant historical events that are evidenced through fossil records and geologic formations. Study.com simplifies this to say “scientists use fossils, rock layers, ...Continue Reading →

I listened with interest earlier this month about President Biden’s renewable energy goals. Offshore wind farms are cropping up on the US coasts, but I couldn’t help but wonder “what about the Great Lakes? America's Freshwater Coast?” Biden plans to increase funding for alternative energy programs to reach net-zero energy emissions by 2050. This includes a goal of producing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. The most completed US offshore wind project to date is the Block Island ...Continue Reading →

I once saw a fox in the backyard of my near-west Madison home. It sat along a stone retaining wall with its cozy tail wrapped around its feet. Light snowflakes swirled as it quietly gazed across the yard. We keep backyard chickens so we were certainly a little nervous. But more, we were awed. It was an amazing experience to see “real” wildlife up so close. Turns out, my “urban” fox encounter was not so rare. Foxes claim several Madison ...Continue Reading →

Sometimes, being an environmentalist can be downright depressing. A quick scroll through the news generally elicits a somber list of stories about climate change, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution, and the list goes on. But lo, hidden among the tabloid news earlier this month was some good news, a ray of hope - five of them, actually. I heard the Royals (Prince William and Kate Middleton) were visiting Boston (and that there were gossip-inducing “hiccups,” and of course front row ...Continue Reading →

After many years of trekking through the UW Arboretum, I've noticed a fairly recent increase in turkey encounters. Flocks - or rafters - of turkeys can be spotted wandering Longenecker Garden's curated edges, or ambling across Monroe Street near Spring Trail Pond (a location I grew up calling "the duck pond"). Had I walked these routes 150 years ago, there would have been no turkeys. They were extirpated from Wisconsin for nearly a hundred years starting in the late 1800s.  ...Continue Reading →

A quick survey around the office revealed that even among us environmental educators, COP 27 is a bit of a mystery. We know it is a meaningful climate action forum that’s occurring next month but what does COP even stand for and what exactly will be happening? None among us could answer for sure. A little research was required…  COP stands for Conference of the Parties, with “parties” being the 196 countries or territories that make up the supreme decision-making ...Continue Reading →

I was on a road trip earlier this summer when I caught the tail end of an interview on the Larry Meiller Show about beavers. Meiller's guest, Bob Boucher, was making a case for beavers as environmental and ecological engineers who could help solve the flooding issues Milwaukee faces on an increasingly frequent basis. Boucher, who considers himself a "Beaver Believer," explained that beavers are a "keystone species." This means their presence on the land impacts the surrounding habitat and ...Continue Reading →

Somehow the topic of bears came up in our house the other day. My daughter said offhandedly "I didn't know there were bears in Wisconsin." I guess it's not surprising given that she's lived her whole life in Madison, where bear sightings are quite rare. But I was somewhat shocked that she didn't realize the American black bear is a native Wisconsin species. The environmental educator in me couldn't help but chime in. Black bears are in fact listed by ...Continue Reading →

The most extraordinary caterpillar marched its way across my back patio the other day. With spiky hair all around, a bright red head, and four white globules on its back, it caught everyone’s attention as it traversed the blue seat cushion. I pulled up the Seek app on my phone to capture its image and found it was a White-marked tussock moth, which metamorphoses into a fully un-extraordinary adult with drab gray and brown coloration. An amazing transformation indeed. The ...Continue Reading →