How do spring peepers know when to start singing? They don’t have weather reports, or the ability to see the buds forming on trees, the snow melting, or teens walking around in shorts and T’s when it’s 40 degrees and climbing.How do spring peepers know when to start singing? Certainly, there are scientific reasons that...Continue Reading

Biocitizen is pleased to welcome Brigid Ryan onto the staff as our Westfield River Fishways public education assistant! Brigid is a recent graduate of UMass School of Natural Sciences (congratulations!) and a Now Voyager who surfed the waves at Punta de Lobos, explored the green canyons of the midlands and then climbed the Andes in Chile...Continue Reading

Biocitizen has substantial roots in Chile that began growing in 1999 with the collaboration of biocultural conservationists Ricardo Rozzi and (advisory board member!) Francisca Massardo with Kurt Heidinger and others to create the Omora Ethnobotanical Park. The Omora Park was the impetus for the creation of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve and a whole slew of...Continue Reading

A path makes decisions for us. Walking off path forces us to us make decisions (strengthening our decision-making powers). Freewalk: to walk off path, without (feeling anxiety about) getting lost or hurt, or being disrupted. Freewalkers use whole terrains as paths, creating the path most interesting and delightful, without being destructive (by crushing delicate lives)...Continue Reading

Now Voyager Four Corners is a field environmental philosophy expedition that prepares students to be environmental protection action leaders. Early announcements did not make this clear, so Biocitizen is adding a subtitle to the course: Now Voyager Four Corners: Escalante- and Bears Ears- National Monuments Campaign of Witness DETAILED INFO Sometimes bad things happen that...Continue Reading

Hard to believe but Biocitizen is 10 years old now! One of the deepest joys I (Kurt the director) have experienced is derived from witnessing our students develop from little kids, into adolescents and then into young adults. The school’s CIT program and our junior staff is made of Wings who became Sharpshins and then...Continue Reading

After weeks of freezing, our river ice is melting—and it’s time to witness the tumult and power of FLOOD! 1000’s of tons of car-sized bergs are beginning to dislodge and tumble down watercourses, hitting boulders like bowling pins, slamming into trees, shuddering the earth, and re-arranging entire valleys. Imagine a runaway freight train crashing down...Continue Reading

After several weeks of unusually cold weather our biome has become unusually beautiful—especially in the Westfield River watershed. The river has frozen over, allowing us to go places we are normally prevented from going. Our non-hibernating mammal neighbors are crossing rivers and brooks, moreover, giving us a chance to gauge the vitality of the biome,...Continue Reading

Now Voyager Four Corners Sun.-Sun. March 11-18 and Sun.-Sun. March 18-25   Expeditions to Utah’s Grand Staircase and Bears Ears National Monuments Explore a wilderness that might vanish— More information.  Continue Reading

1) The problem: what invasives are, botanically and culturally Weeds are plants that grow where we don’t want them to, and invasives are weeds we spread without control, altering ecosystems to such an extent that, sometimes, native species are crowded out and go extinct. Invasives are expressions of our colonial culture; we bring them—and cats,...Continue Reading