The NATURE RESEARCH CENTER in Raleigh, North Carolina, has the capability to connect to all 1.5 million K-12 students in the state, as well as to students around the world. For its Opening, the NRC conducted 2 global town halls, courtesy of Time Warner Cable. During these town halls, CanopyMeg Lowman hosted conversations with scientists around the world — India, UK, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Philippines, Costa Rica, North Carolina, and Amazon. Here are a few letters written by students in rural India, who experienced the thrill of connecting to millions of global students who were watching the broadcast! These students are studying elephants in their schools, as part of a conservation program for their region called the Western Ghats.
Below Bhaskar writes about the incredible opportunity extended to the students both from the US and from India in connecting to the Global Town Hall Program:
We had chosen the subject of Trees and Elephants and how important it is to conserve the woodland forests for the conservation of elephants and the supporting environment. We engaged in direct conversation with the Mahout community to build a dialogue of understanding how elephants can play a role culturally and through natural history.
In the first phase, 17 students from the US as part of the ClicaAbroad workshop were taken to two elephant camps in Karnataka State and they spent time documenting the fascinating life of the Mahouts surrounding the National park. Due to the conflict with school holidays, they couldn’t be present for the opening of the global town hall event.
Later I took a group of 35 school children from Sri Vani School in Bangalore to the surroundings of Nagarhole Tiger Reserve to a local school COPS in Gonikoppa to interact with them and also experience the forest, elephants and surrounding biodiversity. I am enclosing some of the write ups from the students on their experiences and the images.
High-tech tables bring museum exhibits to life (WRAL.com)
Two tables with responsive surfaces display deeper detail about specimens in the Museum of Natural Sciences new Nature Research Center.
Nature Research Center is dream come true for museum director (WRAL.com)
Betsy Bennett, director of the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, has been working for years to open a new wing focused on scientific research and interactive exhibits to bring people closer to science and nature.
Workers prep for Nature Research Center opening (WRAL.com)
Almost 200 people worked feverishly Thursday to prepare the new wing at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for its grand opening Friday evening.
A New World (YouTube.com)
The Daily Planet, a new spherical theater at the Nature Research Center of the North Carolina Museum of Science in Raleigh, receives its globe markings.
Below is a message from Gary Braasch and photo gallery from the grand opening of the Nature Research Center and The Daily Planet at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, April 20-21, 2012, Raleigh NC:
I want to bring in this great example of informal science and climate education — the new Nature Research Center wing of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Director Betsy Bennett and Center director Meg Lowman (of “Canopy Meg” tropical forest fame) have magnificently brought active science, art, photography, the skills of museum architects & designers, sounds, and even food and drink together into an immersive and engaging learning experience. My portfolio of images from the opening of the Center last week is now up at http://www.braaschphotography.com/NCmuseum/index.htm The museum website is http://naturalsciences.org/
Also my app Painting With Time: Climate Change is now available for iPhones as well as the iPad. We added a slight charge so we could do more with the app and give half the proceeds to Union of Concerned Scientists. Link to the app on Apple Store is http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/painting-time-climate-change/id519699889?mt=8 We are very interested in making this platform more useful to educators and welcome ideas and examples of how it is being used.
Dr. “CanopyMeg” Lowman and Dr. Alemayehu Wassie Eshete guide us on a walk around the wall built at Zhara Church Rainforest in Ethiopia. The Zhara wall was possible thanks to efforts from scientists, donors, and the TREE Foundation.
This video contains excerpts from the documentary film “Church Forest” by Peter Eliot Buntaine & Greg Vander Veer. Find out more here: http://www.churchforest.com
A look at the new wall and latrines that have been build at Zhara Church Rainforest in Ethiopia. Thanks to efforts from scientists, donors, and the TREE Foundation.
This video of Pygmy Sloths of Escudo Island was provided by Julia Heckathorn, author of the Search for the Hidden Clover children’s books. To find out more visit the Search for the Hidden Clover website: http://www.searchforthehiddenclover.com
TREE Foundation has generated countrywide inspiration by priests to conserve their church forests. Our team presented information in ecosystem services at this meeting of 700+ religious leaders in Ethiopia. A WIN for the trees!
A portion of all money raised for this film will be used for stone walls around the forests, local labor, hygiene installations to insure that the church biodiversity has appropriate stewardship, gates, and a truly sustainable approach.
DESCRIPTION:
The Ethiopia of ancient times was verdant, flourishing country, frequented by the Egyptians and Romans for its natural resources and for the knowledge of its inhabitants. Ethiopia was also one of the earliest countries to adopt Christianity as its national religion, and in 500 AD Coptic churches sprouted up among the woodland.
Modern-day Ethiopia has been largely deforested for agricultural needs and to harvest building materials. When looking at Ethiopia from an aerial vantage point, however, one can make out thousands of tiny, wooded sanctuaries amidst the sprawling, arid farmlands – vestiges of the ancient Ethiopian forest. In the center of each one of these green oases lies a church.
These Ethiopian Othodox Christian churches take it as one of their fundamental tenets to preserve these ‘church forests,’ and the parishioners consider them to be reconstructions of the Garden of Eden. Some of these churches, and likewise the sacred forests that surround them, are 1500 years old. These sites are of enormous cultural and historical significance and also play a key role in the ecology of Ethiopia – as food sources, water cycling sources, seed banks, and sole habitats for the majority of the entire region’s biodiversity. However, these church forests are rapidly disappearing, with some estimates predicting that they will vanish entirely within 5 years.
Enter Meg Lowman, affectionately called the mother of canopy research as one of the first scientists to explore this “eighth continent.” For 30 years, she has designed hot-air balloons and walkways for treetop exploration to solve the mysteries of the world’s forests. She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and her first book, “Life in the Treetops,” received a cover review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review.
This January, Meg will lead a team of researchers and conservationists to Ethiopia on a mission to work hand in hand with the local priests and parishioners to create and enact simple sustainable measures to forever preserve these sacred cultural and environmental havens. We will document the places, the people who live there, and the visitors who have come to help. This film will raise awareness about the church forests, the plight they are in, as well as highlight an unlikely story of collaboration between scientific and religious communities.
DC Randle explores the Amazon Rainforest canopy and talks about what made him want to become a biologist, what he tells his students and what he likes best about the rainforest canopy.
