A friend emailed me about Naturalist Jim Conrad’s site Backyard Nature, part of his push to improve environmental education by offering free nature study courses online. There’s also a public phenology database where you can record nature information you observe. It’s a great resource for learning about the world around you, as well as sharing it with kids.

I’ve seen proprietary nature study programs cost hundreds of dollars, so the fact that Jim has put all this together and offers it for free is inspiring.

Also on the site is a great article on making solar cookers out of discarded satellite dishes and other materials that people throw away. As I’m planning on having several solar cookers at our new base camp in Masardis, I especially enjoyed reading it.