Posted by Penny Hartwell's Invitation / jr on September 04, 2000 at 17:05:11:
Hello VHS folks! I would like to invite you to come participate in the second annual Teaching Wild Institute sponsored this year in partnership with the University of Texas at Brownsville, and organized, once again,by the Southern Texas / Northern Mexico Border Alliance for Environmental Education (BAEE).
This year we are pleased to have Ann Miller from Texas Parks and
Wildlife back again, along with a TPWD biologist, Lee Ann Linam to present as part of our program, a workshop just for you real Herp Types,"Amphibian Watch" is a statewide program sponsored as part of the Nature Trackers series that educates and enlists citizen volunteers to monitor the amphibian populations around the state. I don't need to tell you all how important this is, or how useful amphibians are as ecological barometers, in general. The amphibian workshop, which will be mainly on
Saturday, September 16th from 1:00 PM - 4:oo PM with an evening call count at 8:30 PM out at Sabal Palm Sanctuary will demonstrate ways to identify local amphibians by sight and by sound. Bring your friends, potential VHS new members, your kid's teachers, etc. and come join us!
I recommend coming early and joining the Nature Trackers general
workshop in the morning if you would like to know about the other types of critters (for instance, the Texas Horned Lizard) also being monitored state-wide, join us for lunch (for $7.00 we'll provide a good box lunch, or pack your own and join us for some international networking, but we HOPE that you will want to actualy begin yur adventure by attending the General Session which starts on Friday night at 6:00 PM.
The Teaching Wild Institute actually begins on Friday night at 6:00 PM (table exhibits up at 5:00 PM) with a special guest speaker,I am bringing Carlos Yruretagoyena from Mexicali, MX, who will talk about cross-border initiatives from that region that we may be able to use as a model for here. Working internationally is an exciting challenge for us all here on the Frontera! Next will be a "Who's Who" of the presenters and their programs they represent, followed by our very own Water Master, Carlos Rubinstein, to talk about Water Conservation -crucial for amphibians and all life.
On Saturday, we have eight other workshops scheduled as well as the Amphibian Watch! I know that your group's interest is with the "Amphibian Watch," BUT if you have colleagues, aquaintances, your child's teachers, etc. PLEASE help me spread the word and recruit participants from around the Valley, Reynosa and Matamoros so that the workshops will "all make" and this can be a great opportunity to network with those of us from around here who CARE about wildlife, habitat, and the environment.
Even if YOUR only interest is with the herps...."THEY" (the critters) need all of us and what better way to begin than through education!
The other workshops are Cross Border Intitiatives (Bilingual), Proyecto WILD (Spanish), Adopt-A-Wetland, Non-Point Pollution and Water Quality Monitoring, Excellence in EE: Guidelines for Learning K-12, Nature Trackers/Wildscapes and Butterflies; Master Composting (bilingual), and Project Learning Tree. There are also field trips: come early to the Call Count and tour the Grove at Sabal Palm ($3.00 Admission which is about half price; tour begins at 7:00 pm )or come also on Sunday afternoon to join us either at the Coastal Studies Lab on South Padre or go on a tour of Butterfly Gardens leaving form Sunnyside Day School at
2:00 PM ( Admission is $6.00). There is a $10.00 cost for the materials for the Amphibian Watch (some of the others also have a cost of about $15.00 for materials. I am requesting a plus or minus $5.00 donation to Earth Care Organization for BAEE.
I REALLY expected to be turning people down by now instead of being at the place I am at right now. I have beat the bushes, shaken the limbs and now I am turning over rocks, SO..... COME ON SOUTH TEXAS & NORTHERN MEXICO! Let's build partnerships and support educational efforts to bring in quality workshops to our Valley and applaud the generousity of U.T.B. for providing us with such nice facilities at no charge. This would, otherwise, be an expensive endeavor to us all.
PLEASE turn over some rocks and look in some crannies (you Herps are used to that!) and help me get some more folks to register for the Teaching Wild Institute. I can fax this info to someone's office or school if you email me the telephone numbers.
My contacts are as follows: Penny Hartwell, ECO-ED Center, 14 Casa Linda, Brownsville, Texas, 78521; Telephones: (956) 544-3148 h, 544-7808 m/fax, 831-1023 w, or email at the address posted with this message, If you look, you can find the online registration form on the vhs/forum below. Just copy it, paste it in your new email, edit it, delete anything you are not interested in, and then send it to me ASAP. Thanks
Penny