Who's Who | Wilderness Awareness School

In a tiny strip of city park somewhere in Beacon hill, pairs of adults (and one kid) huddle around Sword ferns. First they feel the fuzzy stem coming out of the dirt, then they work their way up, noticing the angle of the leaves, the patterns of colors, and finally they scrape the spores from the back of an upper leaf and taste them. This is the type of thing students are asked to do when they come to the Wilderness Awareness School to connect with nature in the Northwest. The school brings out the natural hunter-gatherer within us all by teaching "The Six Shields of Awareness". One set of knowledge, nature observation, is described as learning to "develop the awareness of a wild animal". One of the six "shields" teaches the use of edible and medicinal plants, and another, wilderness survival, has you "practice skills that can save your life"; what could be more useful?

Why it's not just for campers:

The core values of the Wilderness Awareness School are Peacemaking, Vitality, Nature Mentoring, and Community. The fourth, Community, illustrates why their system of education is so valuable and important:

"We nurture an ever-deepening awareness of the vital interdependence of nature, community, and self. With this awareness, we learn to honor and appreciate the richness that a diversity of life experiences, ideas, backgrounds, and gifts bring to the whole community. We encourage genuine relationships, work-life balance, service to community, and living in rhythm with nature."

The school, headquartered in Duvall, teaches children and adults in classes as long as a summer or as short as a day. They also have a preschool program, a homeschool program, and a home study training course. Class descriptions and more information about the school can be found on their website.

Who's Who | EOS Alliance

Green jobs are becoming more abundant, and working people such as myself would love to have them. The problem is that most of us have the wrong kind of experience or education to actually get hired. The Environmental Outreach and Stewardship Alliance (EOS Alliance), founded by Erick McWayne, solves this problem by providing the technical training for everything environmental, from chemical contamination cleanup to policy issues to home weatherization. Their environmental training course calendar can be found here.

If you're not interested in advanced technical training, EOS hosts many programs for the average citizen, like how to raise chickens in your backyard. The public events calendar is here.

Meanwhile, The EOS Alliance is doing green work now. They provide residential energy audits and weatherization (see the Green Blocks Pilot Project), and organize volunteer work parties to restore the local ecology by replacing invasive species with native ones. Go here to find out more about volunteering.

Entry by Alyssa Ballinger Johnson

Who's Who | The Pacific Science Center

Science education enables communities to make informed decisions about everything, including decisions that affect the environment. That is why the Pacific Science Center does such a great service to our society. The Science Center has interactive displays that hook people on science for life. The Science Center also has a host of education programs that extend beyond the familiar white arches. The Mercer Slough Environmental Education Program lets kids experience natural systems and biodiversity first hand. The Science Center also hosts Camp-Ins, where kids stay overnight and learn in-depth on a topic that varies throughout the year. For those that can’t make it to Seattle Center, the Science on Wheels program brings the Center’s entertaining science education to schools and events all across the state. The Science Center constantly keeps its science displays up to date with currently relevant issues. To see what they’re teaching right now, visit their website here.

Entry by Alyssa Ballinger Johnson

Who's Who | Sustainable Path

The Sustainable Path Foundation: Scientifically Informed Giving. It's as awesome as it sounds. Sustainable Path is a charity for smart ideas that will change the world. The Foundation is always both optimistic and realistic, looking for solutions to the world's most complex problems, while never settling for a short cut solution that would sacrifice something we care about.

Formerly Seattle Biotech Legacy Foundation, Sustainable Path's board is full of scientists, and the causes they choose to fund range from promoting science awareness, especially in young people, to enabling "think-tanks" of qualified people to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.

The Foundation's ability to give is based on donations, and they strive to make the highest impact from every dollar they receive. The board puts grant applicants through rigorous scientific scrutiny and only supports evidence-based solutions. In addition to grants, the Foundation uses the connections it has made to promote collaborations between some of the world's most qualified, innovative people.

It is clear why the Foundation chose to change their name to Sustainable Path. By applying scientific thinking to charitable giving, they are systematically creating a path to "a healthy, sustainable future".

Posted by Alyssa Ballinger Johnson

What's What | ORCA Card

Changes are a-coming to the Northwest public transit systems. The change goes by the name of ORCA, or One Regional Card for All. Will this revolution affect you? It will if you use any of these transportation systems: Sound Transit buses and trains, Community Transit, Everett Transit, King County Metro Transit, Kitsap Transit, Pierce Transit and Washington State Ferries. Picture an old man, grumbling, “Back in my day, we used walk to school barefoot, for four miles, in the snow!” Someday, you will be that old man or woman, talking about the old days when it was so complicated to ride the bus in the Northwest. Pay as you leave or pay as you enter? If you’re crossing a county line, you better have an extra dollar. Do not ever, ever, forget to grab a transfer. These hardships will soon make people sigh with remembrance of times long past. For now, we are still at the beginning. The ORCA card was being distributed as early as April, and is available now, but the big campaign starts in June.

What you should know about ORCA:

• It’s your pass…: ORCA can be loaded with your preferred regular pass, thus serving in lieu of your pass
• …and your fare: Instead of a regular pass, you can load it with a cash value. If you do have a paid pass on your card, you can still add cash value, and it will kick in any time your pass doesn’t cover your fare (if you have a one-zone pass, but are crossing a second zone, for example).
• It’s simple: Load it and tap it. There is a little reader on the buses that reads your card and subtracts value or acknowledges your loaded pass. I don’t take the train or ferry, but I can only assume it’s just as easy. Everyone is still getting used to it, but if there are kinks, they will be well worth it. So far it has worked great for me.
• It’s a transfer: If you ride multiple buses, trains, or ferries, it remembers your last fare and acts as a “transfer” automatically. I’ve seen this beautiful process in action on the bus. When you scan your card on the second bus, “XSFER” appears on the ORCA reader screen, and the bus driver will nod at you in a friendly manner, allowing you to board.
• It’s protected: Your card has a computer chip in it that can be registered in your name, so if you lose it, you can recover the money. Just report it right away to transfer the money to a new card.
• It’s free… for a limited time only: For now, you can acquire a card for free. Go here to see how. Eventually they will charge $5 to get a card. They’re designed to last for a lifetime, so get yours soon and you’re home free.
  

Everything there is to know about the ORCA card, is on their website: www.orcacard.com


Posted by Alyssa Ballinger Johnson

Alyssa Ballinger Johnson

Alyssa is excited to be providing content for Sustainable Seattle's blog. She currently works for an environmental consulting company, where she is involved in a committee dedicated to improving the company's environmental sustainability. As a firm believer in keeping one's life balanced, Alyssa chose to shorten her work week to 32 hours, creating space to volunteer for programs such as Sustainable Seattle. Alyssa has a strong academic background in science, with bachelor's degrees in Earth and Space Sciences, Physics, and Astronomy from the University of Washington. She is dedicated to the cause of popularizing science and sustainable everything.