The Nature of Cities Festival Opens Coordinated by North American Team between NY and Canada opened online on Monday, February 22nd.
What kind of webinar can connect attendees from 65 countries, translate content into 20 languages, and start minimally with 1400 attendees an open world wide webinar that invites a I will show you mine if you show me yours technique to engage in relinquishing what doesn't work and repairing what needs immediate help. Whether zoom, talking stick, presentations, plenaries or open space, the world of place based learning, ecological inquiry, new designs for the future is on exhibit and streaming solutions, queries, and projects with room to participate, witness and marvel at the diverse presentations held in cyberspace about the nature and built world in a time of recognized climate change and COVID-19 disruption.
Perhaps it is because the Anthropocene age is upon us and in the wildness still within our hearts and within our curiosity, hearts and dreams, that humanity will not go down without a playful, serious, and deeply inquisitive exploration of other options. It is not trivial but thrilling that we still have the choice to renew, retrieve and revive our spirits, health, and horizons with events such as this Festival and its program offerings. Created by invention and collaboration this Festival of self-expression and hard studies is a celebration of possibilities, presented by sponsors, countries, artists, scientist, dreamers, realists, and visionaries ensemble offered as a third round of speeches, papers, practice and seed sessions. Curated and presented by its North American US and Canada team, the programs will evolve to new questions, answers, friendships and findings where Nature central and where we live round the world part of the answer.
This is the 3rdNature of Cities Festival originated in previous festivals in Paris and in Dublin now lively in session between February 22-25 online at https://www.thenatureofcities.com under the Direction of David Maddox. Although there are 470 cities that took the vision of the Climate and new options for energy use, livability, justice resiliency, and conservation sparked by the Paris Accords; still with extreme weather, melting ice caps, wildfires, pollution and COVID pandemic causing upheaval and unexpected tragedies still Houston, Boston, Paris, Los Angeles are sharing their findings, their questions, and asking for humanitarian aid and immediate response to the dangers at hand and the mettle to drive our economies and learn how to live together, work together and evolve for a healthier environment, and a renewed culture for the sake of equity, clean habitat, renewed vigor, and protection of the sacred and irreplaceable assets each city sustains and may very well hold the zest that will pull us all through to better times.
To make this more down to earth and personal, at the moment, we are waiting for our host and on chat or talking by microphone. There are some logistical problems and now Nick Sseggobe is our leader. We have just had an amazing conversation in a seed session about Education and how we can update our inherited concepts to meet the needs of the present time and move into a positive and rewarding future. It was moving, current, informative, and eye opening. This unity in diversity brought history, herstory and health and wellbeing to bear in a delightful exchange. The issues of Tanzania seemed at first so informed by history, culture, language that I might in my present location truly understand and despite the distance, the differences, and the issues the participants soon resolved my doubts. We found a common concern for the future and for a better world back and behind this conference took hold and with a Zoom window and chat box into each other's worlds we, as a group, felt incredibly lucky to be able to address the questions posed by our host.
Please find out more about this terrific conference and how you might participate, volunteer, join, host, or donate. With weather, waste, pandemic, water, air, and distribution or economic, social or political interruptions, it seems all the more important to learn to explore a culture of collaboration to retain what is good, repair the past to benefit the future and find a climate that supports life, culture, wellbeing beyond dominance in a manner that will restore Nature and include Nature and with these new-found values ourselves. The participants were in Tanzania, France, the Republic of Ireland, Los Angeles, Egypt, Uganda, Ghana, the Netherlands and more. Some of us had immigrated to jobs, schools, or cities. It was and is fascinating and buoyed by consumer electronics and IT tools uniting us this week.
Thank you to Joseph Agyei Danquah in his Decolonizing and Greening the Curriculum of Schools: Lessons from Tanzania's Education for Self-Reliance Policy Seed Session with Maria Panta, Carmen Bouyer, David Nyaluke, Carolina Castagna with a generous and eye-opening impact for all who participated.
In keeping with including Nature in cities and Nature in our experience, I will take part in co-hosting How Climate Change can empower new horizons in hybrid arts in education and stimulate resiliency, at 9:15pm EST February 25th with the mission Earth team from the University of Toledo, CommonGroundNi.org and Pauric Dolan presenting about our experiences and opening up the conversation to hear about the experiences with Citizen Science, GLOBE, and guided science and arts experiences with the Zoom community the evolves.
Closing Event about Urban Forestry in Manhattan- The Oldest Tree in New York City Eco-Project
At the Nature of Cities Festival closing event, we will visit an urban forest project at the oldest tree in Washington Square Park. Check out its legacy at one of the links below and/or find out about The Nature of Cities Festival as a passionate presentation by the U.S. and Canadian team and the creative sponsors that make it possible.
Background Information:
GLOBE:
Elementary GLOBE - Elementary GLOBE - GLOBE.gov
NASA Science Nuggets:
Climate Change Research Initiative Educator Ambassador Program https://www.facebook.com/globemissionearth/ Elizabeth Joyner partnered with the GSFC/GISS Office of STEM Engagement to present to 23 teachers participating in the NASA GISS Climate Change Research Initiative Educator Ambassador Program on Dec. 8, 2020. She featured the My NASA Data Earth System Data Explorer (visualization tool), as well as other NASA Earth data resources which support climate change instruction.
12112020_czajkowski_earth.pdf (nasa.gov)
Trees Around the GLOBE Campaign:
Trees Around the GLOBE Campaign - Join us! - Trees around the GLOBE - GLOBE.gov
Thank you to Harrison Owen and Abbott Publishing and a reminder: Welcome to Open Space! - OpenSpaceWorld.ORG (Conference in Berlin, Germany in 2021).
A partial list of TNOC sponsors:
www.fs.fed.us/nrs/contact/?str...
www.nrs.fs.fed.us/nyc/
www.utah.edu/
www.fs.usda.gov/
www.fordfoundation.org/
www.iucn.org/commissions/world...
www.bullitt.org/
wup.imiscloud.com/
www.theintertwine.org/
urbangreenspaces.org/
olemiss.edu/
Information:
Home – The Nature of Cities
The Nature of Cities - Home | Facebook
Young Environmental Journalists:
Young Reporters for the Environment (yre.global)
Young Journalists in training:
Cleveland Charter High School (clevelandhs.org)
IYMS | Home