We had a turn out of 30,000 people come to the TREE Foundation Booth and the Out on a Limb Exhibit on Sunday Jan 14th. 

It was a beautiful day of drawing rain forest creatures, walking the bridge, observing the diorama and just having fun.

The Rain Forest Drawing Contest was a success having many participants of all ages come out and draw.Â

Who: Anyone who likes art

What: Arts Festival Hands On Activites

Where: Downtown Sarasota

When: January 14, 2007

Time: 10am - 5pm Rain or Shine

Anders S. Age: ? Title: Tree & Flowers

Ben Age: 5 Title: Rain Forest Scene

Ansel S. Age: 4 Title: Trees & Grass

Jia J. Age: 4 Title: Dragonfly

Will Age: 2 Title: Abstract Tree

Jemma A. Age: 4 Title: Butterfly & Tree

Cassidy K. Age: ? Title: Butterflies

Daniella A. Age: ? Title: Trees & Butterfly

Enzo A. Age: ? Title: Wolf & Armadillo

Sydney Age: ? Title: Tree

Madisyn Age: ? Title: Rainbow and Butterfly

Kosta Age: 5 Title: Spider Starting a Web

Eleni Age: ? Title: Jaguar & Tree

Nicole S. Age: ? Title: Jellyfish

Jacob M. Age: 9 Title: Bird in Tree

Rocket Age: 5 Title: Palm Tree

Olsin M. Age: ? Title: Rainbow Palms

Liv B. Age: ? Title: Monkies in a Tree

Jordan G. Age: 14 Title: Snake in Tree

Sophie Age: 7 Title: Amazon River

Halle G. Age: ? Title: Snake around Palm Tree

Isabel P. Age: ? Title: Happy Tree

Alison Age: ? Title: Rain Forest Menagerie

Jenna G. Age: ? Title: Birds in Trees

Summer Age: ? Title: Swinging Monkey

Maia Z. Age: ? Title: Central Tree

Brenson Age: ? Title: The Pursuit of the Blue Butterfly

Jack M. Age: 5 Title: Rain on a Termite Mound

Sophie M. Age: 7 Title: Jaguar & Ants

Sydney M. Age: 9 Title: Smelly Flower near a Palm Tree

Nicholas E. Age: 8 Title: Leopard

Khaleelah E. Age: 10 Title: Toucan

Paul Age: 8 Title: Bird Eating Spider

Saeed E. Age: 6 Title: Anacondas & Birds

  

Bmone Age: ? Title: Monkey

Ian M. Age: ? Title: Trees

Alana Age: 3 Title: Pink Lichen

Miles P. Age: ? Title: Butterfly & Ladybeetle on a Rainy Day

Caitlyn Age: 8 Title: Flight of the Insects

Malcolm P. Age: ? Title: Fungus

Eli Age: 6 Title: Beautiful Day

Caitlin B. Age: 5 Title: Butterfly & Rainbow

Lexi Age: 6 Title: Mushroom

Mitchell H. Age: ? Title: Zebra Longwing

Robby P. Age: ? Title: Quetzal Egg

Mark P. Age: ? Title: Mutant Rain Forest Elephant

Elie Age: ? Title: Snakes

Kelly Age: 10 Title: Snake

Kaan K. Age: 5 Title: Spiders

Dr. Meg Lowman will speak at Venice High School on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007 at 7 PM. The talk is open to the public. $5 for adults and $2 for students. Proceeds will go to the Venice High School Zoology Club Conservation Project.

More Info

Article in Herald-Tribune

Meg Lowman will be speaking on “It’s a Jungle Up There: More Tales From the Treetops” at Evening Tide Talks at The Florida Aquarium on Jan. 31, 2007.

Complimentary Reception 5:45 PM and Featured Presentation Begins 6:15 PM. Entry is through The Florida Aquarium’s Business entrance.

For more information and to R.S.V.P call: 813-273-4568

Click here to view printable flyer

An interview with canopy expert Dr. Meg Lowman:
Canopy research is key to understanding rainforests

Interview

On Saturday November 4, 2006 the TREE Foundation participated in the Sarasota Reading Festival and premiered the Out On A Limb Rainforest Exhibit.
The booth featured the 1-100 scale diorama of life and research in a rainforest, a section of canopy walkway, tardigrades, bug candy, rainforest adventure books, and a TREE Foundation/Tardigrade bookmark.
We interacted with over 300 people at the festival and children and adults had great fun walking on the walkway and pretending they were on a rainforest expedition.
Students from New College (Kelsey, Bethany, and Bryson) explained the intrigue of eating bugs, forest adventure, and climbing trees. The Research Consultant (Colleen) had fun helping people discover tardigrades.  The creator and engineer (Dr. Phil) of the diorama and walkway explained every inch and answered questions about it non stop.
The Sarasota Reading Festival was a success and the TREE Foundation was able to reach the Sarasota community (all ages) through books.

Tree Training in Smith Woods 

Another great fall day in the hometown Smith Woods. Huge trees. I swear the trunks are actually ancient pre-internet-age monsters that ate up the early settlers, as they are FAT, perhaps housing hundreds of bodies..
We taught a two day tree-climbing training this weekend for future tree-instructors at COE. The first day we went over access and rope climbing. The second day: high-angle exploration…at it’s best! It was quite cool. Fall weather, 100 off the deck

Louv was in Florida to talk at the Sarasota Reading Festival about his book, Last Child in the Woods (Algonquin Press). Richard also participated in a panel with the authors of Its a Jungle Up There (Meg Lowman, Eddie Burgess, and James Burgess) and renowned children’s author Lynne Cherry. The fivesome discussed linking kids to nature, and advocated for a new project for TREE Foundation: building a treehouse for kids in southwest Florida. Watch for this development!

You can read Richard Louv’s column describing his visit here.

Click thumbnails to enlarge photos.

Photo Descriptions:
1. Eddie and James Burgess and Richard Louv on the Myakka tower
2. Richard and Kathy Louv on walkway bridge
3. Meg Lowman and Richard Louv on the treetop bridge

101 Urban Tree Climbs

From Ginkgo to Elm, from street-side to urban forest style, from 3 to 80′ tall, Eric Tartter and Dave Katz achieved their first urban tree climbing expedition: free climb more than 100 trees in one day!

Starting around 10am and climbing continuously until around 5PM, we challenged our climbing techniques, strength and endurance. We climbed with no ropes, or harnesses, and mostly stayed less than 20 feet of the ground. There were some falls, but mainly just sore muscles and shredded skin.

In an attempt to inspire a connection with trees and urban-type-natural areas, Eric and I set out to climb 100 different trees in Manhattan.  We figured that since there approximately 1 billion people in the city this time of year, we could share the love and respect for trees with a lot of people, just by climbing up and hanging out in the branches. We started out climbing up some street-side Lindens, but by the time we got to central park, Eric decided to kick it up a notch on a Chestnut Oak. While previously we climbed trees with lots of branches, Eric started employing rock climbing techniques and scaling up the trunks of numerous trees: bouldering style. For a few of the trees, I stood at the base pondering his amazing strength and abilities…unable to repeat his moves with my huge boots!!

Around tree # 35 (English Elm) Eric wanted a harder challenge. He found hard “problems” on some London Plane trees and worked the sequences of the moves until he sat high in the crown of the trees. Unfortunately for me, I had to follow suit in huge winter boots! It wasn’t until tree #73 (Red Oak) that the police tried to stop us by attempting to guilt-trip us “This Isn’t wilderness, this is A man-made Park” and “Only Children Climb Trees…” For the following three trees we were a little discouraged, but by #80 the spirit was revived. # 80-88 was all trees that hung over the frozen pond near the Brambles in central park, key word “Don’t fall!” 90-95 were tall white pines with a billion of ladder-rung-type branches that were easily climbed to 35 feet. By tree 100 I was sufficiently tired but Eric pulled off a hard sequence of moves on an Elm tree. I almost feel out of the tree, completely exhausted, but managed to hang on. 

The trees we could identify: Red Oak, Chestnut Oak, English Elm, Ginkgo, White Pine, Red Pine, Hawthorne, White Ash, Crabapple, American Beech, Red Maple, Sweet Gum, London Plane tree, Black Locust, Little Leaf Linden, Black Cherry, and Sweet Birch.

Although we’ve climbed almost all of the species before, the individuals in central park had unique characteristics and some interesting blundering opportunities. I think a handbook to tree climbing in central park is on the horizon…