#413: Thought for the Day on the solstice

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts… There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

Rachel Carson

#412: Birdsong matters... and it's disappearing

A piece in The Guardian from a few days ago talks about the slow disappearance of birdsong from the landscape.

Biodiversity is rapidly declining, reducing the quantity and quality of human interactions with nature and constraining its contribution to human health and well-being. Natural sounds are a key component of our experience of nature, but biodiversity losses are reflected in soundscapes, which are becoming less diverse and quieter.

There are various terms here which may relate to the changing relationship we have with our surroundings. The soundscape is changing, and shifting baseline syndrome means we are not necessarily aware of what we have lost. Landscapes emanate a collection of biological, geophysical and anthropogenic sounds which together form ‘soundscapes’

Check out this academic paper which is mentioned in the piece. It's accessibly written. On the extinction of experience.

#411: Encounter app - now available to download

I've been following the progress on Melissa Harrison's nature recording app since it was first announced. I was one of the beta testers of the app when it came out a month or so ago, and was excited at the features it offers and the ease of use and the opportunity to record encounters with nature easily, sitting alongside some of the other apps I have on my phone such as MerlinID to identify birdsong.

The app is now available to download, free of charge from the various app stores. This is a soft launch for the app. There is more to come, but any use you can make of the app will help generate data.

It is called Encounter (Nature).

It is a useful companion piece to her recent book 'Homecoming'.

As Melissa said in a recent email to those involved in the testing:

It’s not perfect. We still need to build the search function (weirdly, far more complicated – and expensive – than you’d think); there are some UX (user experience) niggles I am itching to improve; we need to build relationships with nature charities and environmental NGOs so that we can feature their content; and it’ll take a while until the nature tips and information it contains can be properly targeted to users by location: we need to wait for good numbers of people to tag the things they see before we can start turning that data into useful content. But I think we’ve made a really good start, and I hope you’ll stick with us as the app grows and improves, bit by bit.

This is Encounter’s ‘soft launch’. We hope to build our user base over the winter, ahead of its formal launch in April. That’s when we’ll be trying to get press coverage: when Christmas is over, spring is happening, and people are going outdoors again. I’d be very grateful for any help with that when the time comes.

For now, please download the app, play around with it and most of all, enjoy using it: that’s what it’s for! 

I built it to help people notice nature, and to get into the habit of jotting down the things they encounter. The benefits that flow from that simple habit are hard to overestimate: both to us, as humans, and to the natural world itself.

#410: Don't make an enemy of an anemone

I liked this piece in the Guardian today on the anemone from Helen Sullivan.

A lovely quote from George Henry Lewes is included:

We must always remember the great drama which is incessantly acted out in every drop of water, on every inch of earth. Then and only then do we realise the mighty complexity, the infinite splendour of nature. Then and only then do we feel how full of life, varied, intricate, marvellous, world within world, yet nowhere without space to move is this single planet, on the crust of which we stand and look out into shoreless space peopled by myriads of other planets, larger, if not more wonderful than ours.

#409: Soil and its parents

Soil is one of the most important substances on the planet, and there will definitely be a focus on soils in some way in the final specification as the soil partly determines the climax vegetation, along with other factors.

A definition from Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Soil is the biologically active and porous medium that has developed in the uppermost layer of Earth’s crust. It serves as the reservoir of water and nutrients and a medium for the filtration and breakdown of injurious wastes. It also helps in the cycling of carbon and other elements through the global ecosystem.

The study of soil is called pedology.

Soil is also an important carbon store.

A short film on soil from the Royal Society.

Any look at Natural History will need to concern itself with the soil beneath our feet, and the rocks (parent material) that lie below that. I would imagine that the specification will refer to biomes, ecosystems and various other options which will require an understanding of the abiotic and biotic components.

Soil is made from four ingredients: weathered rock, organic material, water and air.

Soil is a nutrient store and is featured on Gersmehl diagrams of ecosystems.

#408: Experiments showing our changing oceans

 From Sylvia Knight via our Facebook page.

#407: Thought for the Day

 

#406: Important update and story in 'The Guardian'

“We need nature education at the heart of school life so everyone has access to it, not just middle-class people who go to the countryside at the weekend and have big gardens. 

It’s the kids in very urban areas who I had in mind because the whole idea of the GCSE is to make natural history on your doorstep something you are fascinated by. 

We have such a crisis in the mental health of our young people and nature is known to be a very healing thing.”

Mary Colwell

The Guardian has a piece from its Environment reporter on the continued delay.

It's a great pity if this is seen as 'political' and something that the new Government can't get behind and move to the next phase with. It has the potential to offer something distinctively different from other curriculum offerings.

As Mary says at the end of the piece:

"Nature can’t afford to be a political football. We need future generations to understand or care for the natural world.”