L.A.N.D.S. workshops are back for the summer
More than 25 Valley teachers and a couple of Texas Master Naturalists attended the first interactive workshop this week at Resaca de la Palma State Park, in Brownsville.
I arrived early enough to snag a few photos to upload onto iNaturalist. What greeted me was a row of ebony trees all in bloom.
How glorious was that?! And you know what blooming ebonies means, right? Rain, of course! By the second break, we weren’t disappointed — a lovely rain was drenching the park!
The workshops are part of the Texas Wildlife Association’s Conservation Legacy in conjunction with the East Foundation. The L.A.N.D.S. acronym stands for Learning Across New Dimensions in Science.
The L.A.N.D.S educators travel throughout Texas and teach school teachers — and volunteers, such as Master Naturalists — unique, hands-on ideas for teaching children about Texas’ ecosystems, natural resources, native wildlife, water conservation and the importance of private land stewardship.
The Valley’s educator is Elisa Velador, who is Brownsville born and educated. A former high school science teacher, she’s been a L.A.N.D.S. educator since 2013.
The workshops detail resources and products available via the TWA website, such as their Discovery Trunks that schools and volunteer organizations can borrow, free. Trunks contain hands-on materials like skulls, feathers, skins, videos, books, puzzles and other items necessary for special classroom lessons, or for volunteer organization booth and or fair activities.
If you’ve not yet taken advantage of this fun learning experience, it’s not too late to attend one of the remaining sessions. Check out the site
For Master Naturalists, instead of school name, district and other school-related fill-ins, type in: Texas Master Naturalist.
Elisa also gives an overview of the East Foundation and how that organization supports wildlife conservation and other public benefits of ranching and private land stewardship as well. She briefly discusses what’s available at their locations in San Antonio and Hebronville. https://www.eastfoundation.net/
The summer L.A.N.D.S. workshops are designed to rotate subject matter every two years. The third year covers much of the same information as the first year with and introduces a couple of different lessons. This year was similar to the 2017 workshop with new lessons about bird beaks and recognizing camouflage.
Beak Frenzy, without spoiling it for anyone, included marshmallows, spaghetti, marbles and raisins — and appropriate “utensils.” — Don’t try to imagine it — take a workshop.
An added benefit from attending these workshops is getting insight into how children are being taught when you listen to the teachers talk about their class lessons with each other, and observing them while they enthusiastically pretend to be young students for a day.
Another plus is that there are a lot of people who ask, “What’s a Texas Master Naturalist?” It’s a great opportunity to tell people about our organization and how to join
A little-known aspect of Texas Wildlife Association is its youth leadership camps, which are always in need of chaperones — you don’t have to be a teacher to be a chaperone!
In other news . . . .
Global Big Day report from Team eBird
“On 4 May, 34,000 people ventured outside in 173 countries, finding 6,816 species: 2/3rds of the world’s bird species in a single day — a new world record for the number of people birding on a single day,” announced Team eBird from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology — about this year’s Global Big Day. Read the rest of the stats: