Lost & Found Nature: A Hopeful Approach to Education
Will optimistic stories get people to care about nature?
Emerging research is demonstrating more and more the importance of hope in tackling long-term, large-scale issues like climate change. We have learned that feeling fearful and helpless does not effectively move us to action, and it is important that we approach climate change education from angles that motivate and empower rather than threaten and defeat. If you enjoyed Dr. Elin Kelsey's April webinar on "Wild Contagious Hope" in the environmental movement, check out this article in The Conversation that highlights another wonderful initiative to share environmental success stories called "Lost and Found Nature."
Excerpt from the article
"Nature doesn’t make the news often these days. When it does, the story usually revolves around wildlife on the brink, record-setting climate extremes or ruined landscapes. However, that is not the whole story. There is also good news, but it often receives little attention.
It is easy to see how bleak accounts of the state of the planet can overwhelm people and make them feel hopeless. What is the point of even trying if the world is going down the drain anyway?
To muster public and political support on a scale that matches our environmental challenges, research shows that negative messaging is not the most effective way forward. As a conservation scientist and social marketer, I believe that to make the environment a mainstream concern, conservation discussions should focus less on difficulties. Instead we should highlight the growing list of examples where conservation efforts have benefited species, ecosystems and people living alongside them."
Excerpt from Lost & Found
"Talking about nature has frequently become talking about extinction, decline and loss. But it does not have to be. The “Lost and Found” project works to bring to life the inspirational stories of those that never stopped believing and whose passion led them to rewrite the history of the species they so deeply cared about.
Our goal is to use the universal language of storytelling to showcase in narrative and visual format the most formidable rediscoveries of both vertebrates and invertebrates animals as well as plants from five continents. All content will be freely accessible online and available in five languages English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Portuguese."
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Enterprise in Space supports Remember the Rainforest
Enterprise in Space expands the frontiers of science and education throughout our communities and in space! EIS is an international program of the non-profit National Space Society.
https://www.enterpriseinspace.org
Scientists exploring Earth from Space have taught us the intimate relationship between Earth and Sky, and the inter-relatedness of the Earth, Wind, Fire and Water cycles. Based on the Martius-Spix expedition 1817, Remember the Rainforest is a window in time, a glimpse of the Earth’s potential at its fullest, 1817-20. RTR creates, promotes and supports Ecology education K12.
http://www.remembertherainforest.com/shop2/pages/rtr1.html http://www.remembertherainforest.com/shop2/pages/rtr2.html
*Robert Fox, education director Da Vinci Science Center : “ Fantastic !”*
RTR is a free K-12 supplemental for Library lessons, Computer lab, Earth Day lessons, Eco readings, End of school projects, extensive research index, explorers’ journals, Expedition Maps, Eco IQ building, Environmental literacy, Art class, 10,000 downloadable images from the old rainforest…
Excerpts from Etching # 9 commentary, Flora Brasiliensis, Karl von Martius 1840
{All of the Latin plant/animal names and place names below are linked to their images !}
http://remembertherainforest.com/shop2/rtr1/ebook/etchcoms/co9a.html
“…I am impelled by some inner urge to tell you, gentle reader, these thoughts of my mind, since I am presenting to your eyes a picture of those most ancient trees which I once saw beside the Amazon River. Even today, after many years have gone by, I feel myself struck by the appearance of those giants of great age, in the same way as by the face of some giant human being. Even today those trees speak to me and fill my spirit with a certain pious fear, even today they excite in my breast that silent wonder with which my spirit was held at that time. This wonder is like a broad and deep river; the thoughts of the human mind are its waves; not all feelings of the heart are to be expressed with words….
…On the fourth day of October 1819, I set out with Spix, the companion of my journey, and several accompanying Indians from Vila Nova de Rainha, which is situated along the Amazon River and which they popularly call "Topinambarana". We set out towards the south, so that wandering in primeval forests, we might collect plants. At first, as we traveled in a small boat through deep channels which were covered over with the vegetation characteristic of the "Ygapo" [the flooded forest], our way had to be made through a labyrinth of the humble shrubs and trees connected by leafless vines that make up these little woods.
At the outset, various shrubs of Licania, Wallenia laxiflora, Cybianthus
penduliflora and Eugenia egensis presented themselves, as well as other small-leafed species of the same genus, those of Nectandra canescens, Anona tenuiflora and Anona foetida, Duguetia Spixiana, Godoya gemmiflora, Phellocarpus Amazonum, Drepanocarpus floridus and Crista castrensis, Hecastaphyllus Monetaria, various species of Inga, Ilex Macucu, Blakea quinquenervis, Gustavia augusta, Sagonea palustris, etc. In many places we found brush armed with the strong pricks of that Smilax, the roots of which it is known are sold under the name of Salsaparilha lisbonensis; among this brush the Cacao tree (Theobroma Cacao) spread its branches with their straightened leaves. This tree the Bombax Munguba overtopped, from the branches of which at that very time large, oblong capsules were hanging down…”