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SPINNING TOWARD SOLUTIONS: TAKING CONSERVATION BIOLOGY ON THE ROAD ACROSS AMERICA

From its inception, SCB has maintained a commitment to public education and outreach. Our Bylaws state that we desire to educate people at all levels about the scope and potential applications of conservation biology. With these objectives in mind, we have developed a new educational project, Spinning toward Solutions. The project is targeted at students in grades 5-12, and our goals are to

• Introduce the biology of rare and endangered species
• Introduce the tools and techniques of conservation biology
• Assess conservation attitudes, concerns, and empowerment of students across the country

Beginning in September 2000, we will tackle these goals during a cross-country bicycle expedition from Santa Barbara, California to Washington, D.C. The ride will involve a chain of daily "hops" between schools involved in the international Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program (the black dots in the figure to the right). We will visit several thousand GLOBE students during our 80-day expedition, and we will interact with them using classroom presentations and web-based materials. We hope to make the most of our relatively short classroom visits by sharing exciting success stories from the world of conservation biology. We will use these stories to convey both the basic principles of conservation biology and some of the opportunities for individual, group, and community action. We hope that our bicycle expedition will catch students' attention, and that they will find someone or something they can relate to in our stories.

In addition to sharing our knowledge with the students, we are interested in learning from them by gathering new data about conservation attitudes, concerns, and empowerment. A significant body of literature exists about environmental attitudes and concerns among adults; however, a similar depth of information is not available for children and teenagers. We are particularly interested in the ways in which students transform knowledge about environmental issues into the precursors of action, specifically environmental attitudes, concern, and empowerment. We will gather data using a web-based survey that will be available to students from across the United States.

SCB member involvement

We would like to ask for your help! We want to use real conservation success stories that highlight the activities of SCB members and their communities. We want people to know what SCB members are doing and how they might be able to support or build on these efforts. If you are willing to share one of your favorite conservation success stories with us, please send the following information to pyke@geog.ucsb.edu, britta@bren.ucsb.edu, or Spinning toward Solutions, 285 Mathilda Dr. #13, Goleta, CA 93117.

• Name
• Title
• Email address
• URL where people could find more information
• Institution/Business
• Project location (e.g., nearest town, county, coordinates)
• Project description (a few sentences for a general audience)
• Memorable personal moment or "take home message"
• Pictures, maps, songs, stories, poems, cartoons . . .

After we receive your success story, we will provide several services. We will share your story with children across the country, post your project description on our web site, provide a link back to your URL, and include your information in our set of SCB member success stories. Last, but not least, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped out a good cause and gained our sincere appreciation.

If you live along our route (the black line in the figure below), there are more ways to help! Specifically, we are looking for hosts (individuals, chapters . . .) that are willing to put us up for a night or let us camp in their backyard. We expect to leave Santa Barbara around the first of September and then follow a southern route through Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, Austin, Jackson, Montgomery, Atlanta, Raleigh, and Norfolk, finally ending in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of November. We would be happy to visit non-GLOBE schools in your communities that might be interested in listening to our presentations and participating in our survey. You can find out more about our project (including a detailed map of our route and a preliminary list of schools) by visiting our web page at www.spinningsolutions.org. You also can look for our poster at the Missoula meeting in June.

Thanks to the many SCB members whose encouragement clearly demonstrates their strong commitment to turning SCB goals into action. We particularly appreciate the support of our friends in the Santa Barbara Chapter and of SCB Board members Reed Noss, Dee Boersma, Stephen Humphrey, and Sandy Andelman.

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