February’s Lunar Eclipse – Not To Be Missed!

by Allison Pease, Executive Director

Last August, a few of my friends hauled themselves out of bed at the frightful hour of 3:00 a.m. Their excuse? To see a lunar eclipse! While aghast at their willingness to crawl from slumber at such a contrary time, I grudgingly wondered if I’d missed something wonderful, especially after glowing reports of colors that engulfed both moon and soul.

As I lamented missing the wondrous nocturnal wonder, our program director, Becky Gillette, announced, “February’s full moon is a total lunar eclipse visible around sunset. Our full moon hike will be under a lunar eclipse!” As Becky gleefully went back to planning the hike, I realized that the first total lunar eclipse of 2008 was perfect for those of us not predisposed to wee morning hours. Its timing was also a thing to be celebrated.

Each month, a full moon occurs when the Earth passes between the Moon and Sun. Peering through night’s darkness with the Sun behind us, what we see is reflected sunlight off the face of the Moon. Lining up in a near plane, light from the Sun illuminates the face of the moon forming an almost perfect circle of light.

Lunar eclipses don’t happen every month because the orbits of the Moon, Earth, and Sun don’t regularly form a perfect linear plane. Instead, the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is tipped about five degrees to Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Thus, the Moon spends most of its orbital path above or below the Earth/Sun orbital plane. Even during a full moon, the Moon usually passes just outside that plane missing the shadow the Earth. A few times each year however, the Moon aligns with the Sun/Earth orbital plane and passes through the Earth’s shadow. The result is a lunar eclipse in which the Moon takes on a deep, rich red color.

Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is completely safe to watch. What is so dramatic during a lunar eclipse is the vibrant red color of the Moon. That color results from sunlight first passing through Earth’s atmosphere, which filters out most of the blue-colored light, then bending (refracting) through the atmosphere. The resulting sunlight reaches the Moon dimmer and redder than normal. Without Earth’s atmosphere, the Moon would be completely black during a total eclipse.

On February 20, a total lunar eclipse will be visible across the Four Corners just after sunset. We invite you to join us at the Durango Nature Center at 6:30 pm for an evening of lunar exploration. Take a hike, learn cool Moon facts, or sit back to enjoy the show. For details, visit www.durangonaturestudies.org.

Creative Sparks and Artistic Inspiration

by Sally Shuffield, Community Coordinator

Thoreau wrote, “Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.” These words describe the special relationship between nature and those who create. At Durango Nature Studies, we believe in the importance of getting people outdoors so they can connect with the natural world.

But, why do we do this?

According to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, and others studying the phenomenon, “Nature Deficit Disorder,” it is imperative that children spend time outdoors, especially now when the world is overrun by technology more and more every day.

Children and adults learn by sensory exposure to a subject, and as many scientists, activists, and naturalists understand, the way people learn to care about the future of the natural world is to first love it. Positive, early experiences outdoors help to create this lifelong connection.

However, I believe there is another, equally important reason to expose children and adults to the magnificence of the natural world - to create inspiration for art, music, and literature. In addition to my work with DNS, I am a touring singer/songwriter and was an artist in residence with the San Juan National Forest. I am often asked where the inspiration for my songs comes from. I reply that words come to me most often when I am sitting alone in nature.

As an artist, I truly believe that listening and connecting to the energy of the natural world generates a creative spark in each of us. This spark is one of the greatest gifts we can give to children. It is also something we can reintroduce adults to through events, venues, and support.

To honor nature’s role in creativity and inspire youth and adults to tap into their own creative potential, DNS is reinventing Wild Words as a celebration of nature and the arts. The ongoing series will include music, authors, film, and lectures – each focused on enhancing opportunities for the community to be exposed to and inspired by those who create through nature’s inspiration.

Our first Wild Words event this year will be a celebration of songwriters. Held at the Abbey Theater on February 9, I will be joining songwriters Danny Schmidt and Carrie Elkin from Austin, TX, as we share stories and experiences that have influenced our songwriting. Danny is also the winner of the Kerrville Folk Festival’s Songwriting Contest.

Our relationship with the natural world can guide us on an amazing journey of exploration into our own creativity. It is a relationship worth nurturing – now and throughout our lives.

(Visit www.durangonaturestudies.org to learn more, hear song clips from the songwriters, or see a calendar of upcoming Wild Words events.)

Kids At One With Nature: It's More Than Mere Play

by Allison Pease, Executive Director

For many of us, childhood memories are rich with images of playing in nature - exploring woodlands, climbing trees, building snow forts or watching stars late at night.

As it turns out, those experiences were more than just play. They gave us lifelong foundations of imagination and wonder.

Building boats with sticks, we became engineers. Exploring alleyways and window wells, we became adventurers. Catching salamanders and grasshoppers, we became biologists. Trying to keep them alive, we become doctors and nurses.

Our childhood experiences have filled the world with technological marvels spanning everything from medicine to communications, cell phones to hybrid cars. By playing outside in nature, we learned to explore and create.

But what if the next generation never plays outside, builds a snowman, or catches fireflies? What if the next generation is more concerned with video games, television and virtual sports? What if the next generation is the generation growing up now?

Emerging research suggests that the way children play has changed from outdoors to indoors in a single generation. One study reports that children 8 to 10 spend an average of six hours a day watching television and using computers, while another says that on any given day a child is six times more likely to play a video game than ride a bicycle.

Research is measuring everything from escalating childhood obesity to decreases in a child's ability to self-organize. While these studies cite too much time with computers and television, they highlight time spent outdoors as a critical factor in increased physical health, emotional well-being and attention spans among children.

And that's not all. Time spent outside may also have direct implications for nature.

Our children may be overly informed about big ecological events like hurricanes, tsunamis and fires. While these events offer opportunities to teach children about ecology, biology and even philanthropy, without joyful experiences that connect them to nature, kids are associating nature with disaster. They are becoming afraid of the outdoors, disconnecting from nature in a cycle that pushes them even further into the realm of video games.

Yet all too soon, our children will have to solve nature-based problems like local water rights and forest management or global warming and petroleum declines. What's increasingly clear is that children need early, direct and joyful connections to nature, connections that will inspire them to solve problems as adults.

The good news is that connecting children to nature is easy. All you need is patience and a picnic.

Take children outside. Let them bring a favorite doll or figurine. Collect rocks for a fort or sticks for a boat. Let them play, just play.

It's in the wonder and joy of nature that children become great adventurers or discover magic under a rock.