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Chesapeake Education, Arts, and Research Society
Promoting the health of all life in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed through action projects organized by volunteers.
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Greetings!
I am very excited to announce that CHEARS recently received a two year grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to plan, design, and implement the first Greenbelt Food Forest at Springhill Lake Recreation Center. We are thrilled to be partnering with Campfire USA, City of Greenbelt Public Works, TapRoots, and Three Sisters Demonstration Gardens. For more info or to get involved please contact me directly at kim@chears.org.
Join us in a new project called "Home Salons" which combines film showings and potlucks at people's homes followed by lively discussion. See below for the next showing. Sincerely, Kim Walsh ~ Executive Director |
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NEW: Home Salons~ Film, Discussion & Potluck
Saturday March 10, 2012 (6:00 PM to 10:00 PM)
HOW TO START A REVOLUTION, a new documentary film revealing how one man's work has helped millions of people achieve freedom in the face of oppression and tyranny. Gene Sharp is a shy, modest and little-known man. But his work has inspired a generation of people to challenge dictators through non-violent action in a tidal wave of revolutionary spirit and reform that has swept from Eastern Europe, though Asia and to the Middle East and North Africa.
For more info, click HERE!
RSVP is required and limited to 20 participants
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MONTHLY MEETING:March 14 ~ showing of Carbon Nation is a perfect follow up to Juanita Constible's talk in January, "The Complete Truth of the Climate Crisis" This film will highlight already existing projects, around the world, that are "to-scale" solutions to our climate and energy crisis.
GCAN "ACTIVISTS NETWORK" Advocacy Projects:
Write your Maryland legislator, in support of MD Community Renewables bill - HB864/SB595, which would create solar farms or gardens where anyone could buy 1 or more solar panels and ask to have the electricity produced credited against their home utility bill.
DISCUSSION CIRCLES* World on the Edge at Paint Branch UU Church
* Common Security Club at Paint Branch UU Church * Same topics available in Greenbelt, need 8 people to form a group * The summer and fall circles are finishing up and discussing forming a Barter Network and Reskilling Workshop Committee.
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Center for the Chesapeake Story Collection~
The Chestory Archive Website: Teachers Resource
The Calvert Marine Museum, CHEARS, and the Chesapeake Bay Trust have partnered to bring you an educational resource featuring the work of Tom Wisner, Maryland's first environmental educator, artist, and musician. The Center for the Chesapeake Story: Chesapeake Environmental Literacy and Chestory Virtual Archive provides cross-curricular educational lesson activities along with other complimentary teachers guides and educational materials FREE of charge for educators, students, or anyone looking to reconnect with our home and develop a sense of environmental literacy.
One of the main aspects of the Center for the Chesapeake Story: Chesapeake Environmental Literacy is offering workshops to new and experienced educators to provide information and support regarding the current state-wide push for incorporating Environmental Literacy in teaching, including some information about the implication of county Environmental Literacy Plans. Concetta Lasky, CCC Volunteer, has also created workshops specifically for students utilizing interdisciplinary strategies to help them make fun, personal connections with their watershed and the whole environment so that they are inspired to make environmentally friendly choices and actions in the future. We would like to develop this source as a cooperative and open effort with a variety of contributing educators, so any opportunities to work with you or your organization and receive feedback for continued and cooperative development are welcomed.
Feel free to email us at chestory@chesapeake-envliteracy.org with questions regarding this project, or education@chesapeake-envliteracy.org for more information about our workshops or the available materials. Also look for information on the educational songbook due to be released in the coming months.
Happy teaching!
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 8th Annual Green Man Festival ~May 12-13, 2012~
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The Green Man Festival Planning Meetings will be held early on all Friday evenings in March at the New Deal Cafe. The meetings will start at 6:30 PM. Contact Richard at stonesoupchef@live.com or call 202-664-7572. We need all of you to join and be a part of the 8th Annual Greenbelt Green Man Festival!
Call for Entries for the Green Man Festival T-shirt!
Visual Artists and Poets of all ages
Each year the Green Man Festival has selected an image of the Green Man and a Poem about our relationship with Nature to create the posters, ads and T-shirts for the event. This year's festival theme is "Finding Common Ground" and we invite all of you to tap into the memories of gardens and wild places you have known to create your own image of the Green Man as a portrait or as a poem, or both. All T-shirt entries will be considered for the Green Man exhibit at the New Deal Café during the month of May and June. Submit digital files to greenbeltgreen_man@live.com or by mail to:
CHEARS
Attn: Green Man Festival
PO Box 1841
Greenbelt, MD 20768-1841
All art and poetry must be submitted by April 5th, to be considered for use this year. All submissions will be displayed at the festival and will be considered for the Green Man exhibit at the New Deal Café. If your work is selected for the T-shirt you will receive 2 FREE shirts!
Art Show Call for Entries: Visual Artists, Poets and Writers
All ages are invited to submit art entries for a two month long Green Man Festival exhibit at the New Deal Cafe during May and June, 2012. This year's theme of "Celebrating Our Common Ground, the Garden From Where Life Springs!" asks you to connect your senses and imagination to the natural world that is all around us. It asks you to share what you see, feel, hear, taste, smell and simply connect with in the undeveloped spaces around the back yard, at the edge of forests, along creeks and riverbanks or beside a lake --wherever the Green Man may be. For the exhibit you may submit paintings, drawings, collages, photos, constructions, sculpture, fabric, glass, pottery and any handmade art or craft item that expresses the love of nature.
Instructions for submitting art: All wall art must be ready to hang (framed and secured by wire). Include title, price if being offered for sale, and contact information for the buyer. A display case is available for 3 dimensional pieces no larger than 10"x 10". Please help us plan. Contact us and tell us what you plan to bring. The exhibit schedule is; Drop off ~ Monday May 7, 6:00-8:00 pm Reception ~ June 3, 7:00-9:00 pm Pick up ~ July 2, 6:00-8:00 pm
To be held at: The New Deal Cafe 113 Centerway Greenbelt, MD 20770 Performers Needed for the Festival Stage!
If you are or know someone who is a musician, storyteller or poet and could bring their own love of nature to the event, the Green Man Festival committee would like to hear from you. The application for performer slots can be downloaded here! For vendors and non-profit organizations, please save paper and apply on-line at the event registration page! |
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Gather 'Round Chesapeake: Tom Wisner's Vision
When Tom Wisner, the Chesapeake Bay 'Bard' died in April 2010, he'd already given us living treasures: dozens of recorded Chesapeake songs, stories and radio shows. Now, Sara Ebenreck Leeland, co-founder and partner with Tom in Chestory (Center for the Chesapeake Story) project, has published a book that collects Tom's written reflections on the powerful insights that guided his work. Gather 'Round Chesapeake: Tom Wisner's Vision is a collection of Wisner's writing, from short celebratory poems to analysis of how our cultural ways of thinking about 'nature' results in the destruction of our waters and what an alternative 'Come Full Circle' way of living might be like.
"Thanks to water for its grace, For singing on the roof when it rains". "Spiritual learning comes backwards."
"You begin mostly in the dark, choosing paths from impulse by following your heart. Then, much later, truths begin to emerge, ...and you learn why you did those things."
The book is available from the following websites.
www.chestory.com
www.amazon.com
www.saraleelandbooks.net
and other Chesapeake bookstores and in Greenbelt you can purchase from
www.pottershousebooks.org
In the works are:
- A songbook of Tom Wisner's songs for children.
- A songbook of additional Tom Wisner songs.
- A digital-archive of Wisner's regional stories & songs.
For more information, contact Joan Clement at Chestory@gmail.com |
VIDEO of the MONTH
Smithsonian Folkways ~ Tom Wisner ~
When one hears the phrase "think globally, act locally", there was no better embodiment of that thought than the late Tom Wisner. Wisner (1930-2010) was a musician, songwriter, poet, artist and educator whose every act was in service of his beloved Chesapeake Bay watershed.
To view video, click HERE! |
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TapRoots: Greenbelt Middle School
TapRoots is an agricultural educational program committed to introducing topics of environmental sustainability, agroecology, food safety and nutrition. Through rigorous hands-on learning activities, students relate to the environment on a more personal level while simultaneously broadening their ecological understandings.
TapRoots has been busy day-in and day-out all through the month of February to align the stars for a successful year. In March, all of the hard work will begin to pay off as a new volunteer coordinator works to improve volunteer relations, enrich Greenbelt Middle School's Green Team, and provide more environmental education to Prince Georges County.
Planting of the middle school garden will begin during the week of March 20th. If you are interested in planting and construction project. Contact
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Nature Journaling Spring Course Registration Open!
Re-discover the beauty and intricacies of nature while creating your own, illustrated journal. This program includes discussion and basic drawing instruction at the Community Center, combined with outdoor group walks at various locations around Greenbelt. The class is led by a certified arborist with an emphasis on close observation and enhanced understanding of our natural environment.
Participants in the full series, ages 16+, are eligible to receive a 50% discount on spring session. A materials list will be provided to registered students. Co-sponsored by CHEARS & Dept. of Recreation, City of Greenbelt. Register HERE!
Sa 10:00am-11:30am/CC-116
Ages 13+ Min/Max Enrollment: 5/20
Section 1: First meeting only. Hear an introduction to the practice of nature journaling and see examples. At this meeting, you will have the option to register for the remaining sessions.
R/NR: $5
Section 2: Full, bi-weekly series. 5 mtgs: 3/17, 3/31, 4/14, 4/28,5/12
R: $30, NR: $40
Instructor: Lesley Riddle, Assistant Director, Greenbelt Public Works
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CHEARS
Chesapeake Education, Arts, and Research SocietyPO Box 1841 ˇ Greenbelt, MD ˇ 20768 www.chears.org
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