What's New at EwA?

Another 3 months just flew by, and again so much happened! Now, something you might not know: when you're a young Environmental nonprofit in America, there's really no other choice than working extremely hard, getting out there and 'making things happen'. Since we started EwA, we developed an enormous appreciation for the little nature & conservation nonprofits, who are committed to making 'it' happen. None of us have it easy, and this will be worth an EwA article later this year just to explain the reality and struggles of organizations like ours. 

Back to our EwA news: what great things happened this past season? 

One big accomplishment was to establish partnerships with a few great local organizations (the Friends of the Fells, and the Somerville Community Growing Center). The result of which is a very cool set of local outreach programs. These programs also serve as pilots for providing our freely accessible online EwA Nature Circles activities. For those unfamiliar with our Circles program, it provides our members with both a framework for creating their own nature club, as well as experiential learning activity outlines, which mix biodiversity, ecology, citizen science, ethics and art. 

The big concepts behind our local live circles are:
- involving several generations in our communities (from 14+, adults to seniors),
- learning about species and habitats, exposing to and doing citizen science,
- facilitating nature connections rooted in empathy, humility and knowledge,
- helping to move towards a way of thinking about the environment as a whole interdependent system, where we are part of it and not apart from it,
- enjoying ourselves, being in the moment together.

Earlier in Spring, we also participated in the international City Nature Challenge–a 4 days global event facilitated by iNaturalist citizen to raise awareness about biodiversity and citizen science. Nearly 70 cities from 18 countries participated. We did run 2 events, one at Crane beach, and another one a couple of days later at the Fells, where a few dedicated participants braved the rain to observe nature and record their sightings. We accumulated a couple of hundreds of observations, that counted for the Boston area. Boston itself had a good run and came 3rd after San Francisco and San Diego in terms of the number of people who participated in their city challenge. 

This month, we are giving a series of seminars at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.  

We keep working with our regular authors (Sam, Carolina, Nathan) who share with us their work, experience and thoughts as conservationists, biologists and environmental educators. Check our articles, and stay tuned for the ones to come soon!

On the EwA Guides content front, we supplemented our set of nature & wildlife etiquettes and released a new habitat-focused etiquette: The Wetland Rules, thanks to Shilpa–EwA's talented wetland ecologist. We are now working on a new cool herpetology-focused etiquette to complement those wetland rules. Both etiquettes will be perfect companions to a vernal pool activity outline that we will soon add to our EwA Nature Circles. Then, of course, we'll start running vernal pool events in our Fells series. Exciting, right?  

Remember that we also run what we call spontaneous Nature Circles, that are not Fells or Growing Center specific. Basically, if some nature events take place somewhere close, then we just go and invite you to join us on a whim. Subscribe to our events calendar for the ones to come. If you're around, join us: They're a lot of fun! One good way to hear about our Nature Circles (local to Massachusetts) is to follow our Facebook page where we announce them a week or so before they happen. 

What's Next? More (of course)! 

Summer is here, so we're about to add new Summer-focused Nature Circle activities (including nature journaling and sketching) for you to try anywhere you are. We're planning a few local nature circles as well. If you're around, how about you join one of these circles and enjoy with us the delights of Summer (follow us on  Facebook to get notified of our events).

We also have a few different and exciting habitats & wildlife guides in the making, to help us manage ourselves better in various habitats and with particular species. A next big one is about amphibians and reptiles. Stay tuned!

Thanks!