Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists (SCVN) have five Nature Education programs for elementary school teachers from which to select, taught by SCVN members. Up too 60 elementary school children are in one of the five programs each day of the week. On March 26th a 4th grade class participated in a geology-based program, “Strike It Rich.” One of the exercises is panning for garnets in Sabino Creek.
kenne
CLICK ON ANY OF THE TILED IMAGES TO A LARGER VIEW IN SLIDESHOW FORMAT.
4th Grade Students Panning Sabino Creek in Sabino Canyon
Naturalist, Ms. Becky with 4th Grade Students
Naturalist, Mr. Ed with 4th Grade Students
Mr. Ed with 4th Grade Students
Naturalist, Ms. Debbie with 4th Grade Students
Ms. Debbie with 4th Grade Students
Ms. Debbie with 4th Grade Students
Ms, Debbie Panning
4th Grade Students
Panning for Garnets In Sabino Creek (March 26, 2015) — Images by kenne
A student hold a Two-tailed Swallowtail just after coming out of its cocoon. (March 9, 2015)
Just outside the Sabino Canyon Visitors Center, A Junior Naturalist (7th grader) showed a Two-tailed Swallowtail with wings still curved, just having emerged from her cocoon. This image represents the last stage of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, which began with a very hungry caterpillar hatching from an egg. The caterpillar will spend this phase of its life stuffing itself with leaves, growing plumper and longer through a series of molts in which it sheds its skin. Then, one day the caterpillar stops eating, suspends itself upside down from a twig or leaf and spins itself a silky cocoon where the caterpillar digests itself, eventually emerging as a butterfly. Cool!!
kenne
Images by kenne
Desert Broomrape (Orobanche cooperi),
also known as Cooper’s broomrape, spike broomrape, and burroweed strangler.
Because the Desert Broomrape lacks leaves and chlorophyll,
it gets its nutrients from a host plant and is therefore a parasite.
Images by kenne
Rock Hibiscus — Images by kenne
“It’s very difficult to look at the World
and into your heart at the same time.
In between, a life has passed.”
― Jim Harrison
Desert Mariposa Lily — Images by kenne
The Meeting of the Waters
by
Thomas Moore
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
Yet it was not that nature had shed o’er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
‘Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill,
Oh! no, — it was something more exquisite still.
‘Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who felt how the best charms of nature improve,
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.
Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.
Trailing Four O’clock Wildflower — Image by kenne
Looking East Atop Wasson Peak In The Tucson Mountains (L/R Tortolita Mountains, Santa Catalina Mountains & Rincon Mountains)
Interstate 10 going north through Marana, Oro Valley and north Tucson– Panorama by kenne
Desert Globemallow — Image by kenne
Desert wildflowers in the spring
Bring joy to the eye
Responding to the mourning sun
Cresting over the mountain
Opening to a silent knowledge and
A spirit enlightened of itself
To which I contemplate the void.
— kenne
Stansbury Cliffrose — Image by kenne
“I’m very fortunate to be working with young people.
That’s a big reason I haven’t burned out.
I keep getting recharged by these people. T
they’re somebody to pass the torch on to.
You don’t hold onto it, that’s no good.
You have to pass it on.”
— David Brower
Gneiss Rock — “Rock Stream” Painting by kenne
Gneiss is a metamorphic rock form characterized by banding caused by segregation of different types of rock, typically light and dark silicates. Rather than an indication of specific mineral composition, the term is an indication of texture.
CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES BELOW TO SEE LARGER VIEW IN A SLIDESHOW FORMAT.
Images by kenne
A solitary I am here while legions are there,
Amidst this cursed soil I stand apart.
In this gray desert, a flamboyant flame of divine light am I,
Beauty’s silent song, a miracle from the sky.
— from A Poppy Flower, by Abdul Ghani Khan
Golden Mexican Poppies — Images by kenne
Mustard Evening Primrose — Photographed in the Picacho Peak State Park by kenne
Round-tailed ground squirrel (Sabino Canyon, March 3, 2015)– Image by kenne
Computer painting by kenne
A Group of Saguaros Under Nurse Trees. — Image by kenne
The previous posting (100 Year-Old Cliff Dweller) showed a photograph of a giant saguaro cactus all alone on a steep cliff. Its location was unusual, but given that most saguaros start life under a bush, i.e., a creosote, or a tree, i.e., palo verde and mesquite, making its existence very impressive. Equally impressive is locating a group of saguaros protected by both mesquite and palo verde trees, which begged the question, “What do you call a group of saguaros?” Tribe? Legion? Family? Thicket? Grove? Clump? Gang? Clan? Bunch? Band? Coterie? Whatever, even researching the question didn’t give us an answer. So, for now, you can choose. Given the Tohono O’odham Nation, or Desert People’s cultural connection to the saguaro, I choose “tribe.”
kenne
Brittlebush Blooming Everywhere In Picacho Peak State Park — Images by kenne
Friend, Tom Markey and I spent a recent morning hiking in the Park and so much is in full bloom.
This posting focuses on brittlebush images with many more wildflowers to come.
Click here to see more brittlebush images in a slideshow format.
