- Author: Chris M. Webb
Rural roads are vital to rural communities, nature recreation users, and for fire and other disaster emergency response and evacuation. These roads are often located in forested and rangeland settings and may be owned and/or managed by governmental or private parties.
The UC Forest Research and Outreach website offers many wonderful resources, including the Rural Roads Webinar Series. From their website:
“Rural roads in California are associated with several environmental impacts. They have been identified as a major source of sediment production in watersheds supporting beneficial uses. They can provide the means by which exotic plants and animals and pathogens are spread into wild lands. Roads fragment the landscape and adversely affect wildlife habitat. Vehicles traveling on rural roads are responsible for thousands of road-killed wildlife every year.”
The webinar series will provide viewers with:
- a broad overview of the environmental issues associated with rural roads in California.
- a description of the fundamental principles of rural road construction, re-construction and operations.
- a description of practices used to minimize the environmental impacts of road construction, operations and maintenance.
- review methods used for road assessment and inventory to identify problems and maintenance or re-construction or restoration needs.
Check the sitefor upcoming webinars. Previous versions have been archived on the website.
- Author: Chris M. Webb
The California Fire Science Consortium is sponsoring an upcoming webinar on January 26 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm.
The title of the webinar is, Planning to Live with Fire: Designing and Retrofitting Communities with Fire in Mind. A description of points to be covered is shown below.
“This webinar will focus on community planning issues that relate to fire’s inevitable visit. Existing and new communities will be addressed, along with individual lot-by-lot development. Best practices will be recommended, fallback positions offered, and tradeoffs described. Issues of sustainability will be included. Case studies will be used to illustrate the process of planning to live with fire.”
There is no cost to participate in the webinar, but you must register in advance to participate. Recordings of previous webinars and a wealth of wildfire resources can be viewed at the California Fire Science Consortium website.
- Author: Chris M. Webb
Fotonovellas are a style of comic book.
Michael Marzolla and his Fighting for Our Environment Team have designed fotonovellas to help spread environmental awareness. The fotonovellas highlight easy ways that youth can help improve the quality of their immediate environment and how good stewardship of our local environment benefits us all.
It is easy to see that much fun was had during the development of the Fighting for Our Environment fotonovellas. They can be viewed and downloaded on this page of our website. Some are available in Spanish.
This group also won a Green Shorts Award for their Fighting for Our Environment video. It can be viewed here.
- Author: Chris M. Webb
Designed to introduce new U.S. residents and other English as a Second Language (ESL) students to the natural environment in central Los Angeles and to foster environmental stewardship, UC’s Water: An English as a Second Language Curriculum for Adults is a wonderful resource to meet these goals.
The curriculum focuses on issues that are relevant to many recent immigrants living in arid, urban situations. It can be used in conjunction with the Teacher’s Edition.
From the author, UC Cooperative Extension Natural Resource Advisor Sabrina Drill:
In 2004, University of California Cooperative Extension, with support from the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and in collaboration with the English as a Second Language faculty and students at East Los Angeles College, began to develop a curriculum for English language acquisition based on local environmental issues. The driving principle behind this was that awareness, understanding, and stewardship of one’s environment was an important element of membership in a community, and that this understanding would improve both our environment and our communities. Immigrants to the United States should be aware that they have the right to a clean, healthy environment, that there are avenues they can take individually to influence the quality of their environment, and that the decisions made by communities and governments affect that environment…
…When first embarking on this project, we choose to follow the mainstream ESL education community in embracing the concept of English immersion. Hence, all materials are provided in English and can be used in a classroom where a wide diversity of national origins are represented…
- Author: Chris M. Webb
Ventura and Santa Barbara Youth Development Advisor, A. Michael Marzolla has been working with youth through environmental education throughout his career. Recently, one of his youth groups submitted a short video to the Green Shorts Film Festival. Submissions to this environmentally conscious film festival are open to residents of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties.
Mr. Marzolla is excited to announce the group has won a Green Shorts Award for the video "Fighting for Our Environment/Luciando por nuestro ambiente". The cast and crew walked the Green Carpet to collect their award at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara on Thursday, April 14. Click here to view the winning video!
More information about the Agua Pura program and resources available to support environmental education activities can be found here. The Lunchiando Fotonovela can be viewed here.