We had a great Strolling Science Seminar (SSS) series this season (say that 5 times fast). The SSS series started in 2011-2012 to provide adults with scientific knowledge from local experts. The experts engaged the participants in outdoor scientific study and enabled them to conduct citizen science as part of local, national, and global projects. Each event is filled with laughter, science, and new knowledge.
This year we were lucky to have:
Mad Batters of CREW- Kathleen Smith, FWC Biologist
Mosquitoes of the Marsh: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- Neil Wilkinson, FGCU
Fire & Water: Primal Forces Shaping CREW Wildlife Habitats- Jim Schortemeyer & Joe Bozzo, SFWMD
The Gopher Tortoise: How Protecting One Species Actually Protects Hundreds- Dr. John Herman, FGCU
Birding with the Master- Dr. Bernie Master & Tiffany Thornhill, FWC
We will start planning the 2015-2016 series of strolling science seminars this summer. If you have any ideas, comments, or contacts that you would like to share for a SSS event please email Jessi Drummond at education@crewtrus.mystagingwebsite.com, or call 239-657-2253. All ideas are welcomed!
Donors of $150will be entered into a drawing for a variety of nature-related books
All donors of $25 or more will receive a link to a special set of CREW Wildlife photos taken by some of the best photographers in the area.
Your gift is an investment in the future of southwest Florida – helping us to provide more high quality environmental education experiences for people of all ages! With over 42,000 annual visitors to the CREW trails, there is much more to be done.
Help us make a difference. Give big. Give small. But give today.
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. – Rachel Carson
English: Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring. Official photo as FWS employee. c. 1940. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Silent Spring author and biologist Rachel Carson understood the importance of every child having a caring adult take him/her by the hand and share the wonder of nature. For the first time in history, we have the majority of an entire generation of young adults who have NOT grown up outdoors playing in the woods and streams, catching fireflies in a jar, fishing and hunting, and watching the stars. This disconnect from nature is wreaking havoc in the form of obesity, disease, attention deficit disorders, and mental illness, not to mention growing a generation of citizens who do not appreciate or understand how nature provides resources and services that help humans exist on the planet and therefore do not know to vote and organize to protect it.
To help remedy this disconnect and get more children outdoors, the NC Museum of Natural Science and cooperating partners declared September 24 – 30 as National “Take a Child Outside Week”. The CREW Trust challenges its members and the public to take up the challenge and take a child outside this week – or anytime! You can pledge and record your activity on their website. And we encourage you to tell us about it here or post it to the CREW Facebook page.
Go on! Find your favorite kid. Take her outside. Play, walk, find bugs, go fish. Enjoy the moments. Build a sense of wonder. And create a better world.
This month’s Q & A post by CREW volunteer naturalist Dick Brewer
Q: How can snakes climb up trees?
A: Snakes use “concertina locomotion” to climb trees – the act of gripping with some parts of the body while pulling or pushing with other parts of the body in the general direction of movement. Ripples of muscle travel along the snake’s length while the spaces in between
inch forward.
Concertina locomotion is very irregular and appears to be quite strenuous. So, it takes snakes much longer to climb a tree than they could move on the ground or in the water.
This push/pull motion is made possible by scales that are keeled, or ridged. Think of the keel on the bottom of a boat. Unlike smooth scales, keeled scales have raised ridges on the center of each scale which enables the snake to get a grip on rough surfaces, much like a tire with a good tread grips the road better than a bald tire.
Snakes cannot stick to smooth walls the way insects and lizards often do; the snake must have something for the keel to rest on in order to push up. So working in concert with the body muscles, the keeled scales lodged in bark crevices help the snake push against the bark on the tree and inch upward. And yes, sometimes snakes do lose their grip and fall out of a tree.
All snakes either have smooth or keeled scales, and one way to distinguish is that smooth scales typically reflect light, making the color pattern of these snakes shiny, glossy, or iridescent, whereas keeled scales tend to make snakes appear dull and non-reflective because of the raised ridge. Because snakes climb with their bellies to the tree trunk, the scales on their undersides of some snakes may be keeled while the scales on the topside may not be.
The Yellow Rat Snake is the best tree climbing snake in Florida. (Photo by Dick Brewer)
Fall is right around the corner and that means cooler weather (we hope) and more trail activity, including visitors and school groups coming to CREW to learn and play. We’ve got some fabulous programs planned for you this year. Here’s a sneak peek at our fall schedule. For full details and/or to register for CREW programs, check out our list of events on Eventbrite (or use the calendar on the CREW homepage to scroll through the months and see what’s coming).
We’re wrapping up the third year of the CREW Strolling Science Seminars – our scholarly walks for adults – and we want to publicly thank our seminar leaders who planned and led these fun, hands-on walks at CREW. Much thanks to Kathleen Smith, FWC’s CREW biologist for her session on Florida Black Bears; to FGCU student, Ben Dion, and Dr. William Sanders for their session on The Lives of Fungi at CREW; to Dr. billY Gunnels for his all-day scientific method session called Science in A Day; to Mike Duever for showing us how plant communities respond to Hydrology; to Jack Berninger for a fun seminar about Ferns; and to Ian Bartoszek for his lively session on the American Alligator.
We also want to thank the 113 folks who registered and attended these seminars. Their participation makes it all work!
98% of participants rated the Strolling Science Seminars as Excellent or Very Good
93% would recommend these seminars to a friend
98% rated our seminar leaders as Excellent or Very good
65% said they would share what they learned with others
So, what did they like and learn? As we scanned the participant surveys, we were delighted to discover these insights:
“This was my first attendance at a CREW event (and very definitely not the last). I appreciated the warm welcome and the introduction to other attendees. Three hours packed with information, enthusiasm and laughter. Thoroughly enjoyed it.”
From the Bear seminar: “Kathleen Smith, FWC biologist was well prepared, knowledgeable and pleasant. She answered all questions even if they were off topic. Very informative. I learned a lot about black bears that I didn’t know before.”
From the Fern seminar: “I had never heard of the Azolla event. Learned this is a very important and helpful fern. We saw 15+ different ferns. We learned how ferns reproduce. He also gave us hints on how to tell them apart. We saw that the spores are in different places depending on the type of fern.”
From the Hydrology seminar: “I learned that in Florida two feet of change in elevation can take you through five different ecosystems. (Excellent visual evidence) Maintaining constant water levels is not a good idea even if possible because diversity of plant life needs periods of drought and flooding to create various species that acclimate to changing conditions.”
From the Fungi seminar: “Don’t eat the blue latex ‘shrooms, and orchids need mycelium to grow.” And… “Lichens incorporate cyanobacteria to fix nitrogen.” and “Most of the fungi is underground. What is seen is only the reproductive part. This underground part is being used to further several ecological goals such as filtering pollutants and replacing Styrofoam packing materials.”
From Science in a Day: “As a longtime hiker I finally took the time to stop and understand the spiders in the canopy..prior to this they were just something I brushed away. Then I learned about Cabbage Palm “Boots’ , Wax Myrtle, etc. I also learned I can write a rap song in 5 minutes.” And…”I would have loved to have billY [Gunnels] for a professor, and I wished I had been exposed to these kinds of experiences and these sorts of people when I was a student, as I feel my life would have been much different.” And…”The scientific process is complicated Learning is easier when you are having fun.”
“Nature attracts a diverse, curious population.”
Thanks to CHNEP for partial funding of this environmental education program and to all our participants for making this year’s Strolling Science Seminars such a great success!
On Friday, November 15, 2013, Kathleen Smith, biologist with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), will lead a CREW Strolling Science Seminar at the CREW Marsh Trails. In this strolling session, she shares the natural history of Florida’s black bears, information about human-bear interactions, and how you can help protect the species here in SWFL. You can register for this seminar here.
In addition, Kathleen has shared the following additional resources to help us all learn more about Florida’s ursine inhabitants:
Book:Living With Bears: A Practical Guide to Bear Country by Linda Masterson
Proceeds benefit the CREW Land & Water Trust, a 501(c)3 non-profit conservation organization that has helped preserve over 47,000 acres of the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed (CREW) in Lee and Collier Counties, FL. The CREW provides aquifer recharge, water filtration, wildlife habitat, and recreational and educational opportunities for the residents and visitors of southwest Florida. It’s environmental education programs benefit over 8000 people (preK – adult) every year.
The CREW Land & Water Trust will hold its Board of Trustees meeting Friday, September 20, 2013 from 9:00 AM to noon at the Estero Community Center, 9200 Corkscrew Palms Blvd., Estero, FL 33928.
CREW Trust members and other interested parties are welcome to attend. The full CREW Trust Board meets three times per year.
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