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.

Here is a writeup on the workshop in the media:

• http://expressbuzz.com/search/with-love-from-ny/380993.html
• http://expressbuzz.com/states/karnataka/studying-mahouts%E2%80%99-life-through-eyes-of-children/385301.html

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.

Write-ups and Letters (Adobe PDFs):

• Connecting Technology and Conservation
• My Days with Nature
• My experience and learning
• The day when I opened my eyes towards the elephants
• Trip to the hottest hotspot of the Western Ghats
• A report on our visit to Coorg
• A report on wildlife educational trip to Coorg

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.

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!

May 2011 – Tree climbing class from NC Museum of Natural Sciences and NC State University biology department under a giant willow oak after the first climb!

(click image to enlarge)

Popular Science Magazine is doing an article on the 10 coolest college classes in the country. One of their selections was Canopy Ecology with CanopyMeg. Canopy ecology has been taught at New College (FL) for 7 years, but will be taught at North Carolina State University (NC) in the next few years. So, hopefully canopy students can take flight to all different types of forests in USA.
Photos of our demonstration — with students — in Myakka River State Park, FL are below.

Students in pictures include: Christine McCormick, Taylor Jamrok, Meghan McAvoy, Sun, Ling

Danté Fenolio was part of the science team for the latest expedition to the canopy walkway in the Amazon with the New College students. He has two recent blog posts that contain some great images taken during the trip.  His blog posts are here:

• The ACTS Canopy Walkway
• More Bioluminescence

Photos from the Amazon Rainforest Workshop led by Meg Lowman on June 24 – July 2, 2008 are available here.

New College research interns for TREE Foundation studying herbivory and Ethnobotany in the canopies of the Peruvian Amazon. The Wings World Quest exploration society bestowed an expedition flag upon the team of students, to be hung at 125 feet in the canopy of this emergent tree, Cedralinga sp. (Fabaceae).

TREE intern, Ricardo Rengifo, visited Sarasota, Florida as part of his canopy ecology and environmental education internship. Ricardo spoke at local elementary schools, explaining the importance of rain forest conservation. He also starred at the regional Earth Day festival, giving demonstrations with his blowgun to many children of all ages (including their parents). Ricardo worked at New college, learning from Dr. Lowman and her students about canopy ecology and new advances in environmental education outreach. As part of his internship, Ricardo will also travel to Washington DC, Charlotte NC, Minneapolis MN, and Chicago IL for school talks and to meet with tropical conservation biologists.

Ricardo thanks all the TREE donors who kindly sponsored his first-ever trip out of the Amazon jungle to visit the United States.

Photos:

UPDATE (9/7/08): Video by ABC 7 News of Ricardo’s visit: