This bioregional (2 page min.) project is due March 29th via email to justin@oursanctuary.org.
Step One: Your first step is to choose one of the following areas to pursue research into. Below are some possibilities. Choose some topic that interests you. Write down a question you have. Do some research and record what you find. Write a 2 page (min) report on your findings.
water
soil
precipitation
subsistence techniques of indigenous peoples in CT
edible plants
invasive plants
wild life
grasses
birds
land use history
geology
extinct species
weather patterns
Step Two: Find a place of nature in or near where you live where you can experience first-hand the phenomenon you are interested in exploring. Plan a visit during spring break. Spend sometime there. Record your experiences.
Ways you can approach this project
1. Your Town’s Plan of Conservation & Development - Go to the town website or town hall and get yourself a copy of your town’s (or city’s) Plan of Conservation and Development. Read it to understand the natural resources of your town and to understand the development strategies that are being pursued by your town government. If possible go to a meeting of the Planning & Zoning Committee or Conservation Commission in your town and ask them what the current issues are. Write about what you understand are the key issues the town or area faces, in terms of decisions the populace will face in the upcoming years.
2. Interview someone who knows how your place used to be - Find someone from an older generation to interview, who has first hand knowledge of how your place used to be.
3. Meet a farmer - Find a local farm or farmer near you to interview about the past and future of agriculture in your place/town.
4. Nested systems perspective - What are the natural and social systems that make up your place? From the microscopic, to the personal to communal, to bioregional, what are the nested systems work together to support life in your place? Describe some ways in which internal and external systems interact in the course of your daily life that affects you. Identify systems in your life which have the quality of coherence or which lack coherence.
5. Mapping our watershed - What is a watershed and how does it define our bioregion? Research the CT River watershed, find or create a map of it and figure out how to explain its significance for us.
6. Local biotic community - Identify and describe some species each of plants, trees, mammals and birds which live in your area. Describe these creatures ecologically, i.e. what their relationships are to other animals, natural resources, places. Describe your relationship to them. Go out and find these beings, describe and/or take pictures of them, experience them.
Questions you can use to focus your attention
8 ) Is the soil under your feet, more clay, sand, rock or silt? Learn about how we classify different types of soil and the significance of this to us.
9) Before your tribe lived here, what did the previous inhabitants eat and how did they sustain themselves? Research these peoples, try to understand how they related to the land.
10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available. Go out and find them, figure out how to prepare them if necessary.
11) From what direction do storms generally come? Learn about the weather patterns distinctive to our area and how they shape and will shape life in the future (climate change projections for CT and the Northeast would be an interesting way to pursue this).
12) Where does your garbage go? See what you can find out about how your garbage is processed in CT.
13) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move? More generally, what is interesting or significant about the geology of CT.
17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water? More generally, what can you figure out about water resources in CT?
18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past?
20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put? Do some research, try to spot these birds, learn about their ecology.
21) Where does the pollution in your air come from?
22) What primary geological processes or events shaped the land here?
25) Name three wild species that were not found here 500 years ago. Name one exotic species that has appeared in the last 5 years.
26) What minerals are found in the ground here that are (or were) economically valuable?
27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated?
28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go?
29) Where is the nearest wilderness? When was the last time a fire burned through it?
30) What other cities or landscape features on the planet share your latitude?
31) What was the dominant land cover plant here 10,000 years ago?
