A path makes decisions for us. Walking off path forces us to us make decisions (strengthening our decision-making powers). Freewalk: to walk off path, without (feeling anxiety about) getting lost or hurt, or being disrupted. Freewalkers use whole terrains as paths, creating the path most interesting and delightful, without being destructive (by crushing delicate lives)...Continue Reading
Now Voyager Four Corners is a field environmental philosophy expedition that prepares students to be environmental protection action leaders. Early announcements did not make this clear, so Biocitizen is adding a subtitle to the course: Now Voyager Four Corners: Escalante- and Bears Ears- National Monuments Campaign of Witness DETAILED INFO Sometimes bad things happen that...Continue Reading
Now Voyager Four Corners Sun.-Sun. March 11-18 and Sun.-Sun. March 18-25 Expeditions to Utah’s Grand Staircase and Bears Ears National Monuments Explore a wilderness that might vanish— More information. Continue Reading
1) The problem: what invasives are, botanically and culturally Weeds are plants that grow where we don’t want them to, and invasives are weeds we spread without control, altering ecosystems to such an extent that, sometimes, native species are crowded out and go extinct. Invasives are expressions of our colonial culture; we bring them—and cats,...Continue Reading
Now Voyager Tuition and Logistics From December 27, 2016 to January 6, 2017, Now Voyager takes college students (& 18+ year olds) on an ecstatic journey through South-Central Chile, following the path of water from the Pacific Ocean in Pichilemu across the Central Range, the agricultural Central Valley, and onto the high Andean peaks of...Continue Reading
The Life Riparian (Cross-posted from Hilltown Families) Riparian is a strange sounding word that denotes “river bank”: the meeting point of river and land. We enter the “riparian zone” when we get close to a river. It is a place we want to be, because it brims with exuberant sounds and smells, and because it...Continue Reading
Biokids at Holyoke Dam From this month’s Ripple: Stories about Western Mass Rivers, cross posted from Hilltown Families The land is an organism, wrote Aldo Leopold, the Yale-trained game management specialist, about seventy-five years ago. An organism is alive, and its life is made up of the contributions of disparate organs, each of which would...Continue Reading
This month’s Ripple cross-posted from Hilltown Families: Life Will Return to Our Rivers! The challenge we (who value these nonhuman lives) face is to turn the immense powers we have to obstruct life into powers that liberate it. Sweet as maple syrup, the thaw is coming. Sea lamprey, shad, herring, alewives, eels, sturgeon and the...Continue Reading
Aesthetic value is a keystone of environmental philosophy. We love, and take care of, things we find beautiful. Biocitizen and HCC professor John Calhoun have made a commitment to work together for a year, walking together, learning, and creating art that is beautiful, that expresses important moments in, and facets of, Holyoke’s biocultural history. You...Continue Reading
If you know what bugs live in a river, you can gauge its health. So, every year just as Summer slips into Fall, the Biocitizen Corps ventures out and catches some, following EPA protocols, in a national citizen science initiative called “Rapid Bioassessments of Benthic Invertebrates.” Certain bugs need lots of oxygen. The cleanest coldest...Continue Reading
