Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. What better way to learn about ecology than to study trees? That’s what the founders of Project Learning Tree thought more than two decades ago, when they began one of the most successful environmental education programs in the nation. Today, more than 25 million […]
Communities
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Science teachers go local
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Though every second-grader knows the word “environment,” many will never get any training in environmental studies until they go to college. But they would be assured of it if they got into Jeff Mitchell’s high school biology class in the logging town of Philomath, […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
A quick resource guide for teachers of the wild
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If teachers take the initiative, they can search the Internet and find instant access to a host of environmental education materials from a wide variety of pro-environment and government sources. Here is a partial list: Teachers new to the field might want to visit […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Heard around the West
Boing, boing, boing … Ridgway, Colo., sculptor Clifton Barr looked up from work in his metal and wood studio and saw a large, antlered deer “jumping like a bucking horse” in the neighbor’s yard, reports the Ouray County Plaindealer. Barr did a double take and took off his glasses just to make sure, but when […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
The other Mexico
Certainly the press, other governments and tourists are most aware of the official, elite, corrupt Mexico; the Mexico that won’t allow a poor man a chance; the Mexico behind the sunglasses. I’ve even been told by people, including Mexicans, that this is Mexican culture. But I know that’s not true. There is another Mexico. — […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Last stand for a roadside attraction
Proposed development near Cody’s Old Trail Town sparks outrage
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Hung out to dry
When their jobs went south, El Paso’s working people were hung out to dry
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Heard around the West
As far as anyone knows, the dead explorer William Clark did not use a ouija board, or e-mail, or teleport a petition to the White House in the final flurry of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Still, after a couple of centuries, Clark found the president receptive, as did guide Sacajawea and slave York, the first black […]
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
Land trust becomes green developer
WASHINGTON For 30 years, a ferocious land-use battle between conservationists and would-be ski and golf resort developers has been waged on 1,020 acres on the banks of Washington’s Methow River (HCN, 11/28/94: Beauty eludes the beast: Washington’s Methow Valley may avoid industrial tourism). Now, an end appears to be in sight. In January, the Trust […]
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
How to draw a duck
Start with basic shapes: an oval for the body, a circle for the head, triangles for the bill and tail, a pole for the neck and a checkmark for the wing. Be sure to fill up most of your paper. Now, let’s round out the lines and add color. Then, draw in the duck’s habitat. […]
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
Heard around the West
When the mighty stumble, satirists have a field day. California, the sixth-largest economy in the world, became an easy target once its halfway deregulation of electricity triggered billion-dollar deficits.A commentator on the Web site F–kedCom- pany.Com chortled, “All this whining and complaining that there’s no juice to run the Jacuzzis and there’s no way to […]
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
The mythic West and the billionaire
Only after looking over my shoulder as I left the Denver Art Museum did I realize the irony of the exhibit “Painters of the American West.” As usual, the blue neon Qwest signs flooded the Denver skyline. Behind both the art exhibit and Qwest, publicity-shy but firmly in charge, is Philip Anschutz, at last count […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Easement saves artifacts
Conservation easements usually protect open space on private land (HCN, 2/28/00: Acre by acre: Can land trusts save the West’s disappearing open space?), but a new easement in southwestern Colorado also protects what’s underneath the land. In December, an agreement between landowner Don Dove and the Montezuma Land Conservancy preserved 110 acres of ancestral Puebloan […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Men without women
“How sad life is, but the saddest thing is to sleep alone even though one has a wife, Luis.”– A tree carving, translated from Spanish in Speaking Through the Aspens You’re walking through an aspen forest and suddenly you see it on a tree trunk – a carving of a woman’s body or a bird, […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Assessing Sunbelt sprawl
A recent poll found that nearly half of Phoenix’s residents would pack up and leave tomorrow, if given the chance. Two-thirds think the region is doing a “poor” or “fair” job of preserving the desert or open space. With this harsh assessment of the city’s quality of life in mind, a team of university researchers, […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Heard around the West
California’s rolling blackouts have marooned people in elevators and left hundreds of cows bellowing for their milking machines. Yet high prices and scarce supply won’t affect everyone in the state: not, for instance, residents of the 1970s-era “Eco-House” in Arcata, north of San Francisco. For 21 years, three students at a time from Humboldt State […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
X-rated on the rocks
“I am glad I have seen yournakedness;it is beautiful;it will rain from now on.” — Talashimtiwa Hopi Indian from Oraibi, 1920from The Serpent and the Sacred Fire: Fertility Images in Southwest Rock Art The record on rock left by the Southwest’s early people is mostly mystifying. What do those galaxy-like clusters really represent? What are […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Heard around the West
“One of the reasons environmental protection is so hard is that it is so embarrassing,” says Oliver Houck, a law professor at Tulane Law School in Louisiana. It’s one thing to say you got ticketed for speeding, but another to confess “that you are using the Boise River as a sewer,” which explains why the […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Heard around the West
Perhaps the Washington Post Magazine’s editors chuckled in anticipation as they assigned reporter Gene Weingarten the important task of finding a town that measured down as the “armpit of America.” Of course, it would not be the District of Columbia, home base of the daily, where more people are murdered in a year than anywhere […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Get artsy in the parks
Over the years, the work of numerous artists has focused the eye of the public on national parks. Thomas Moran’s paintings helped swing the debate for protecting Yellowstone National Park. Ansel Adams’ photographs continue to introduce new generations of Americans to the beauty of Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. And Ann Zwinger’s writings and sketches […]