[Lekooks] Erin's Urban ecology activity

[Erin Jay]

Hi

I'm in an online urban ecology class and have been asked to do an activity.
I hope you will agree to join me that I am limiting this to 20 participants
however you can still do the activity on your own if you don't get into the
first 20 it'll just take longer for me to respond to you


The activity is pretty simple...
The goal is observe/find something  new from the natural world on a path in
an urban setting that you are pretty familiar with.

After the activity if you could take time to jot down your thoughts and
send them back to me that would be great.

I've also included some questions at the end of this email that are needed
for my report.

I would need the results from you by December 4th so that I have time to do
my report before the deadline.

Activity:

1--Think of a path you take in an urban environment or  that you walk
frequently.
It could be from your car to your house or job door... It could be a stroll
in the neighborhood ...or it could be to and from the bus...
(Variations can be a walk in your neighborhood, or your backyard, or even
the parking lot behind an apartment building or at a shopping mall)
Ideally it should be a place that you are very familiar with and think you
know quite well.

2--Take about 15 minutes to walk that path with the intention finding
evidence of the natural world  that has probably been there every day but
have never noticed before. If your walk to work or to a bus is less than 15
minutes maybe do this a couple of times on different days
( A variation would be something that is new from the natural world since
you last walked by there)

2a--feel free to do this more than once for the report I only need you to
do it once but hopefully you will enjoy this activity and do it a couple of
times a week

3-- An example sent to me by a friend who lives in a large city:
One of the building entrances of her job has a cement path that she walks
on every day...a few days ago she walked by and stopped in her tracks
looking at an odd shadow and when she looked closer she saw that in the
cement there were squirrel footprints.  She had passed by this for many
times and never noticed these tracks before.

4--You might see ivy growing up the side of a building, a place where
Chipmunks leave pieces of acorns they had started on, weeds in a crack..if
you look up you might see a squirrel's nest in a tree...

5--If you don't think you can possibly see anything new,  then try to look
at something you walk by every day like a tree and really look at its bark
or look at its branches, the shapes the colors...you might be surprised by
looking at it closer you will see evidence of a woodpecker or insects or
bird feathers or animal scratches....

After the activity:

1-- please jot down any thoughts and feelings and impressions that you had
While doing it and after

 2 Please answer the following questions. ( if you prefer the questions to
come in a separate document let me know)

First anonymity:

1--Would you like to remain anonymous with your experience? I don't plan on
sharing the results with anyone at this point, but it might be fun for me
to sum up the different findings and share them with all the participants

2--If you want to remain anonymous can I share your experience without
sharing your name or City?

Logistic Questions:

3--What is the population of the city or town you did the activity in?

4--Were you on a city street or suburban street, park path, or perhaps  in
a backyard? Maybe a parking lot or shopping mall outside?



Observation questions:

5--What new thing or things did you observe?

5a--if you did not find anything new, did you try looking at something that
you see all the time but with different eyes?

6--Does learning about other animals or plants that share your neighborhood
with you help you to feel more connected to the natural world?

6a--if you did not feel more connected is it because you do not want to be
more connected? Or you would need a different approach to build that
connection?

7--Are you interested in finding out more about how the natural world
coexists with the concrete jungles we have built?

8--Was it easy or challenging for you to find something new on your walk?

9--Did what you find surprise you in anyway and why?

Please feel free to email me any questions and I thank you for taking the
time to participate and help me.

Having lived in big cities and also in the middle of nowhere I'm very
excited to discover that there is an urban environmental education movement
in this country

Again my gratitude

Erin Johnston
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lekook.org/pipermail/lekooks_lekook.org/attachments/20191125/7d89ca1e/attachment.htm>