Thank you for posting this article. It just gave me a great idea for my natural history course for non-majors. Each student will have to become very "connected" with one plant species and one animal species as part of their course assignments. Maybe this way they will become more connected to the "nature" that surrounds and encompasses them even in a large urban setting. Liane **************************************** D. Liane Cochran-Stafira, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Biological Sciences Saint Xavier University 3700 West 103rd Street Chicago, Illinois 60655
phone: 773-298-3514 fax: 773-298-3536 email: [email protected] http://faculty.sxu.edu/~cochran/ <http://faculty.sxu.edu/~cochran/> ________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news on behalf of SJ Melles, Environment Canada Sent: Tue 8/11/2009 8:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Are humans part of nature? There's a very good article in the NY Times (Aug 10, by Carol Kaesuk Yoon), which may shed some light on this topic. It's called 'Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World.' You can view the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/science/11naming.html? pagewanted=1&8dpc&_r=1 The article finishes with the following thoughts: "Today few people are proficient in the ordering and naming of life. We are willfully ... losing the ability to order and name and therefore losing a connection to and a place in the living world. No wonder so few of us can really see what is out there. Even when scads of insistent wildlife appear with a flourish right in front of us, and there is such life always - hawks migrating over the parking lot, great colorful moths banging up against the window at night - we barely seem to notice. We are so disconnected from the living world that we can live in the midst of a mass extinction, of the rapid invasion everywhere of new and noxious species, entirely unaware that anything is happening. Happily, changing all this turns out to be easy. Just find an organism, any organism, small, large, gaudy, subtle - anywhere, and they are everywhere - and get a sense of it, its shape, color, size, feel, smell, sound. Give a nod to Professor Franclemont and meditate, luxuriate in its beetle-ness, its daffodility. Then find a name for it. Learn science's name, one of countless folk names, or make up your own. To do so is to change everything, including yourself. Because once you start noticing organisms, once you have a name for particular beasts, birds and flowers, you can't help seeing life and the order in it, just where it has always been, all around you." I think the meaning in this message is that the idea of whether or not humans are a part of nature comes back to how our language shapes the way we view the world around us. I once had Karel Klinka as a guest lecturer for a UBC forest science field course and he stressed that students should learn the names and ecology of the plants and organisms around them as they would their own family. I can't say I have fully embraced his advice, but I am learning.
