How do spring peepers know when to start singing? They don’t have weather reports, or the ability to see the buds forming on trees, the snow melting, or teens walking around in shorts and T’s when it’s 40 degrees and climbing.How do spring peepers know when to start singing? Certainly, there are scientific reasons that...Continue Reading

Biocitizen is pleased to welcome Brigid Ryan onto the staff as our Westfield River Fishways public education assistant! Brigid is a recent graduate of UMass School of Natural Sciences (congratulations!) and a Now Voyager who surfed the waves at Punta de Lobos, explored the green canyons of the midlands and then climbed the Andes in Chile...Continue Reading

Biocitizen has substantial roots in Chile that began growing in 1999 with the collaboration of biocultural conservationists Ricardo Rozzi and (advisory board member!) Francisca Massardo with Kurt Heidinger and others to create the Omora Ethnobotanical Park. The Omora Park was the impetus for the creation of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve and a whole slew of...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

Hard to believe but Biocitizen is 10 years old now! One of the deepest joys I (Kurt the director) have experienced is derived from witnessing our students develop from little kids, into adolescents and then into young adults. The school’s CIT program and our junior staff is made of Wings who became Sharpshins and then...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

Background: Despite significant efforts to reverse historical trends, the survival of several Connecticut River species of migratory fish is imperiled. As a Leopoldian school of environmental philosophy, it is Biocitizen’s mission to educate the public about this problem, and also about the solution to it: “Promote improved flow and fish passage to ensure clean, free-flowing,...Continue Reading

Field: This word comes from ecology, and the term “field study.” It is based on the distinction between research done indoors, in the lab, and research done outdoors, in the field. Environmental: “environment” means that which encloses. Philosophy: means love (philo) of wisdom (sophy). Field Environmental Philosophy (FEP) is a pedagogy that takes students outdoors...Continue Reading

We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry. —Aldo Leopold   THE Problem: We are experiencing a paradigm shift precipitated by anthrogenic global warming. Many of the things we have been taught and teach need to be reassessed, re-understood and revised—around the pressing fact that our present way of living is out of synch with the...Continue Reading