Week 6 - Env. & Health Day

Jon and Mia took over for Environment and Health Day and we started out on campus for a talk on biophilia. 

Biophilia is the human attraction to all that is alive and vital (nature). Our modern society is becoming more biophobic than biophilic (Simaika & Samways, 2009)

We found that the little program of Enviro Sci was chosen by all class members due to outdoor experiences as children. 

Working with children I see the changes first hand. Richard Louv presented an idea in his 2005 book "Last Child in the Woods" called "nature deficit disorder". This disorder may be linked to the increase of  attention deficit disorder in children (Louv, 2005). 

We then visited Ottawa River Keeper where we covered topics such as ecoli, the new Fisheries Act amendments and what they are doing as a non-profit organization. 

As I previously mentioned, the River Keeper has adopted the same mentality as Gatineau Park, they say, "it's your river, it should be swimmable, drinkable and fishable". I think that the ownership of the river does not help it's protection because because of the "tragedy of the commons". ("Everyone else is keeping the river clean, so I can dump a little garbage and it won't matter", yet everyone is thinking the same thing and the river becomes polluted.)

Our next stop was on Bank street to talk about the struggling ferret population in Grasslands National Park. 

Her dog Rebel.

Night vision cameras were set up to monitor the ferret holes and they captured this gem.  Maybe my favourite picture ever.

It was love. I brushed my teeth.

We stopped at the flour shoppe for a treat :) Thanks Connor!

Our last stop of the day was the arboretum where Jon talked about lichen. Lichen is used as a ecological indicator to monitor disturbances in polluted areas (Pinho et al., 2004). We set off in search of lichen.

We found some but I instead took a picture of a tree. 

It was 24 C and gorgeous.

Hide and seek champion! 

Pinho, P., Augusto, S., Branquinho, C., Bio, A., Pereira, M. J., Soares, A., & Catarino, F. (2004). Mapping lichen diversity as a first step for air quality assessment. Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry, 49(1), 377–389.

Simaika, J. P., & Samways, M. J. (2010). Biophilia as a Universal Ethic for Conserving Biodiversity. Conservation Biology, 24(3), 903–906