"Becoming an Effective Environmental Educator: A Commitment to Competence." This article discusses the process of becoming a competent environmental educator, showcases three successful individual journeys, and offers advice and resources for creating the best professional development plan.

"A Boost to Education and an Antidote to Teacher Burnout?"  Words of encouragement from Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle, and co-founder of the Children & Nature Network.

"Educator's Guide to New Hampshire Forests." Fact-sheets providing basic information about New Hampshire's forests. Designed specifically for educators, complimentary to Project Learning Tree activities, and certainly of interest even outside the granite state.

We've become accustomed to constant improvements in the high-tech world. Computing power doubles every 18 month, new software upgrades become available by the week, and no sooner have you learned version 1.0 of something than version 2.0 is released. It's enough to make a sane person want to take a long walk amidst the peace and quiet of the natural world...

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Yes, we know it's a woman. The plant. What's the plant she's holding? 

Every other week we run a photo of something unusual found in the woods. Guess what it is and you'll be eligible to win a copy of The Outside Story, a paperback collection of our Outside Story newspaper columns. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner's name, will appear in next week's column. 

Our friend Elinor Osborn took this surreal picture. What is it?

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres   to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor

  hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my

  soul.

-Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass

Thanks, Elinor, for sharing this picture. Check out more of Elinor's beautiful photography here.