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Woodend Update

ANNOUNCEMENT

For Immediate Release: August 20, 2018

For more information, contact Caroline Brewer at caroline.brewer@anshome.org or (301) 652-9188 Ext. 23

Woodend Sanctuary to Close Aug. 30-31st for Improvements

Chevy Chase, MD – From August 27th to the 31st, ANS will be making repairs and upgrades along the driveway through Woodend Nature Sanctuary.

From Aug 27-29, the sanctuary will be open to the public, however, the front entrance at Jones Mill Road will be closed.  If you visit on those days, please use the entrance on Brierly Road and park in one of the lots near the mansion.

On Thursday, August 30th and Friday, August 31st the sanctuary will be closed to the public. ANS email will not be available to staff during this time.

Thank you for your patience as we make improvements at Woodend.  When you visit in September, we hope you’ll notice some fantastic upgrades including a new rain garden to capture stormwater from the driveway.

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About ANS: ANS is the longest serving independent environmental organization in the DMV. Throughout its history, ANS has played a pivotal role in conserving our region’s iconic natural places from development including the C&O Canal, Dyke Marsh and, most recently, Ten Mile Creek. Past ANS member and board president, Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, is credited with launching the now global environmental movement. ANS’s nature experts provide hundreds of opportunities each year for children and adults to enjoy, learn about, and protect the environment.

Follow ANS at www.Facebook.com/AudubonNaturalistSociety and www.Twitter.com/ANStweets

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STATEMENT Statements Uncategorized

ANS Testimony on Wildlife-Harming Noise

STATEMENT

ANS Testifies in Support of Bird Life,
Diversity, and Nesting
Supports Ban on Noisy, Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers

When We Drown Out Birds, We Suffer Too

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 2, 2018 

For more information, contact caroline.brewer@anshome.org or 301-652-9188 x23 or Lisa Goodnight, lglisagoodnight@gmail.com,301-523-5394

CHEVY CHASE, MD – The Audubon Naturalist Society today submitted testimony to the D.C. Council in support of a ban that would prevent the sale or use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers in the District of Columbia beginning in 2022.  ANS Member and Volunteer David Cottingham presented testimony at this afternoon's hearing. Here's an excerpt of what he read into the record: 

"Recent peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that where there is loud, human-caused noise, many bird species suffer. Struggling to hear and be heard, they are less protected from predators and less able to find mates. Their stress hormones are elevated, with poor consequences for their health and reproductive success. Scientists have documented declines in bird numbers, bird diversity and bird nesting success in environments with elevated, non-natural noises.

"When we drive out and drown out birds, we suffer, too.  It would be hard to imagine a hearing at which residents complained about too much birdsong.  In fact, some schools in Britain use recorded birdsong to enhance students’ concentration, while a children’s hospital in Liverpool uses birdsong – what the poet Shelley called 'a rain of melody'-- to reduce stress for their young patients.  If we reduce unnecessary noises like those of gas-powered leaf blowers, birds and people will share the benefits." 

The full testimony appears on the ANS conservation blog:
http://conservationblog.anshome.org/blog/ans-testimony-on-dc-noisy-leaf-blower-ban/

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About ANS: ANS is the oldest, independent environmental organization in the DMV. Throughout its history, ANS has played a pivotal role in conserving our region’s iconic natural places from development including the C&O Canal, Dyke Marsh and, most recently, Ten Mile Creek. Past ANS member and board president, Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, is credited with launching the now global environmental movement. ANS’s nature experts provide hundreds of opportunities each year for children and adults to enjoy, learn about, and protect the environment.

Follow ANS at www.Facebook.com/AudubonNaturalistSociety and www.Twitter.com/ANStweets

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CONSERVATION NEWS RELEASE STATEMENT Statements Uncategorized

Stormwater Pollution is Not Going Away

NEWS RELEASE

ANS Message to Montgomery County Council: Stormwater Pollution is Not Going Away

For Immediate Release: July 18, 2018
For more information, contact Caroline Brewer, caroline.brewer@anshome.org or 202-830-5115 or Eliza Cava, 301-652-9188, ext. 22, eliza.cava@anshome.org

CHEVY CHASE, MD – ANS Director of Conservation Eliza Cava issued the following statement in response to the Montgomery County Council’s vote on stormwater issues:

"Stormwater pollution is not going to go away. It is getting worse, with bigger, more intense storms an increasing fact of life due to climate change and more and more pavement and sprawl turning that rain into stormwater pollution. We must redouble our efforts to use green infrastructure to stop stormwater pollution from destroying our streams and infrastructure.

ANS will continue its long partnership with the Department of Environmental Protection to advise upon and watchguard the progress of this new contracting method, and continue to make recommendations about how to clean up our streams and watersheds for the benefit of nature and our communities.

The compromise is not perfect but it allowed the Council to pass a special appropriation, which was needed to get work moving again on these critical environmental projects. We're pleased that it includes commitments to green infrastructure and Low Impact Development projects that use lessons of nature to manage stormwater and heal our streams.

ANS thanks the Councilmembers who worked hard to make this special appropriation happen."

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About ANS: ANS is the oldest, independent environmental organization in the DMV. Throughout its history, ANS has played a pivotal role in conserving our region’s iconic natural places from development including the C&O Canal, Dyke Marsh and, most recently, Ten Mile Creek. Past ANS member and board president, Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, is credited with launching the now global environmental movement. ANS’s nature experts provide hundreds of opportunities each year for children and adults to enjoy, learn about, and protect the environment.

Follow ANS at www.Facebook.com/AudubonNaturalistSociety and www.Twitter.com/ANStweets

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Children and Nature Guide

Education

Audubon Nature Preschool

Washington, DC’s only preschool program on a nature sanctuary for children aged 5 and younger

LOCATION

ANS’s 40-acre Woodend Nature Sanctuary provides a unique home for our preschoolers and their families. This natural environment serves as a one-of-a-kind green venue for creative language, artistic, musical expression, hands-on observation, and discovery.

Audubon Nature Preschool is a nature-based preschool with education and environmental programs for children aged 5 and younger outside Washington, DC in Chevy Chase, MD.

Woodend Sanctuary
8940 Jones Mill Road
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
(301) 652-9188

CONTACT

For more information about Audubon Nature Preschool:

Stephanie Bozzo
Preschool Director
Phone: (301) 652-9188 x32 
stephanie.bozzo@anshome.org

Audubon Nature Preschool is a nature-based preschool with education and environmental programs for children aged 5 and younger outside Washington, DC in Chevy Chase, MD.

Many preschools place greater emphasis on finishing an end product rather than on acquiring knowledge through self-paced activities.

Our curriculum focuses on the experience and children being in the moment. Our student-centered, process-based philosophy introduces young students to a lifetime of learning. 

Children are naturally curious about the environment and we let their natural discoveries guide our explorations. At Audubon Nature Preschool, our curriculum emerges from the children’s interests and follows the seasons. Our student-centered, process-based philosophy introduces young students to a lifetime of learning.

We see a direct correlation between how dirty and messy children get and how happy they feel, and at our 40-acre nature sanctuary, our students engage with the environment and build knowledge in deep and meaningful ways in all types of weather. 

Our school days are spent outdoors, rain or shine as students come to school prepared for all of the elements. Families are our partners and ensure children are properly dressed for the weather each day. Wet and rainy days provide some of our most magical experiences. 

Our program includes a balance of teacher-directed and child-directed activities. Teacher-directed activities include group meeting/circle time, journals, cooking projects and science experiments.

The remainder of our program time is centered on child-directed activities such as our learning centers (art, blocks, easel, dramatic play, sensory table, discovery table, book nook, etc). Materials are rotated to spark and extend children’s play themes.

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Go Wild for Great Outdoors Month

NEWS RELEASE

Go Wild for Great Outdoors Month

ANS Issues Another Challenge for D.C. to Spend at Least an Hour a Day in Nature and the WIlderness

For Immediate Release: May 31, 2018
For more information, contactcarolinebrewer@anshome.org or 301-652-9188, ext. 23 or Lisa Goodnight, lglisagoodnight@gmail.com, 301-523-5394.

CHEVY CHASE, MD –

Tomorrow, June 1 marks the start of Great Outdoors Month. To celebrate, the Audubon Naturalist Society is challenging the DC area to get up and go outside – for the fun of it just as we did for Earth Month! Researchers say Americans live the majority of their lives indoors, despite the well-documented benefits of being in nature and the wilderness. ANS wants to buck this “indoor species” trend by showcasing dozens of the region’s most beloved outdoor spaces and challenging the DMV to spend more time – at least an hour a day - in nature for pleasure.

Fueled by the slogan, “Wild Places Are Closer than You Think. Follow Me!” the goal of the ongoing challenge is to get people to visit outdoor spaces in the DMV, such as Rock Creek Park, Great Falls, the National Arboretum, Dumbarton Oaks, ANS’s Woodend and Rust nature sanctuaries, and the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, where Harriet Tubman grew up. (Download the ANS Great Outdoors Month LocationsPDF). ANS experts are available throughout the month to speak with media about how to #EscapeTheIndoors.

Because scientific studies say the great outdoors is good for the mind, body, spirit, and creativity, ANS is hopeful that spending at least 60 minutes connecting with nature will become habit-forming, for adults, as well as children, who, one leading researcher says are outdoors fewer than seven minutes a day, on average.  This problem is gaining more attention. Just this week, the Washington Post published "Kids do not spend nearly enough time outside. Here's how (and why) to change that," authored by the head of the National Wildlife Federation, which has a "green hour" challenge aimed at kids.  

As to the benefits of being outside, here are some universal facts to consider:

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Follow ANS at www.Facebook.com/AudubonNaturalistSociety and www.Twitter.com/ANStweets

About ANS: Throughout its history, ANS has played a pivotal role in conserving our region’s iconic natural places from development including the C&O Canal, Dyke Marsh and, most recently, Ten Mile Creek. Past ANS member and board president, Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, is credited with launching the now global environmental movement. ANS’s nature experts provide hundreds of opportunities each year for children and adults to enjoy, learn about, and protect the environment.

 

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Rachel Carson: #OnthisDay in history, May 27 – One of the greatest environmentalists of all time was born

NEWS ALERT

Rachel Carson Couldn't Swim - And Other Things You Might Not Know About the Woman Who Started the Modern Environmental Movement

On Carson's Birthday, May 27, ANS Invites You to Learn More
from Her Biographer About Her Remarkable Life

For Immediate Release – May 25, 2018

For more information, contact caroline.brewer@anshome.org or 301-652-9188 x23 or lglisagoodnight@gmail, 301-523-5394

CHEVY CHASE, MD - Schools, parks, and other important landmarks are named after Rachel Carson to honor her invaluable contributions to the environmental movement. While much is known about her life, there is still more to learn.

To mark Carson's 111th birthday, the Audubon Naturalist Society is offering new insight into her life courtesy of Carson's Definitive Biographer Linda Lear, a longtime ANS member, whose ANS lecture: Rachel Carson and Her Friends will debut on ANS's YouTube channel and Facebook page on Sunday.

Lear is willing to speak with media this weekend. Her biography of Carson was awarded the prize for the best book on women in science by the History of Science Society for 1998 and has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Mandarin, and Korean editions. Lear has been featured in two PBS specials on the life of Rachel Carson, discussing the intimate biography and the legendary scientist's writings and letters.

Here are three things people may not know about Carson:

  • For someone who was in love with the ocean and wrote the incredibly compelling and internationally bestselling The Sea Around Us, Carson was a terrible swimmer. Going underwater in a 50-lb steel helmet and diving equipment, as she did once for observation in a diving bell, was deeply courageous. “The Sea Around Us was nothing short of a biography of the sea, which made Carson the trusted public voice of science in America,” according to her biographer, Linda Lear. (www.rachelcarson.org)
  • Carson was an ardent Democrat, serving first under Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, and then Secretary Stewart Udall. She was frequently invited to Robert Kennedy's private think-tank soirees.
  • Carson embraced the organic food movement, at Marjorie Spock's insistence, but could not be public about it because the Nutrition Foundation would have been even more critical of her. They were one of her biggest critics because she was advocating the end of pesticides, which were used heavily in production of American agricultural products.

About ANS: ANS is the oldest, independent environmental organization in the DMV. Throughout its history, ANS has played a pivotal role in conserving our region’s iconic natural places from development including the C&O Canal, Dyke Marsh and, most recently, Ten Mile Creek. Past ANS member and board president, Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, is credited with launching the now global environmental movement. ANS’s nature experts provide hundreds of opportunities each year for children and adults to enjoy, learn about, and protect the environment.

Follow ANS at www.Facebook.com/AudubonNaturalistSociety and www.Twitter.com/ANStweets

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ANS EXPERTS CONSERVATION EDUCATION ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION POLITICAL ACTION Uncategorized WATERSHED YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Lisa Alexander

Media Resources

EXPERTS

Lisa Alexander - Audubon Naturalist Society Executive Director

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ANS

Areas of Expertise:
Conservation
Environmental Education
Environmental Policy
Environmental Restoration

LISA ALEXANDER

Lisa Alexander has served as ANS’s Executive Director since 2013. As Executive Director, she has created a visionary Master Plan that will transform ANS’s iconic headquarters at Woodend Nature Sanctuary Headquarters into a living laboratory for the study of restoration and ecological balance in our increasingly urbanized region.

Lisa plays a leading role in setting diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion goals for environmental organizations throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Prior to stepping into the role of Executive Director, she served as both Deputy Director and Director of Environmental Education at ANS. Lisa launched the ANS GreenKids Program, an environmental education partnership with public schools that has served more than 30,000 school children in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia since its inception in 2005.

Ms. Alexander previously worked on numerous, nationally-based educational programs and outreach efforts. She served as an Educational Resource Specialist in the National Digital Library of the Library of Congress, the Director of Product Development for Delta Education, the Science Product Manager for the School Division of Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, and as National Science Consultant for Scott, Foresman and Company.

Lisa is the 2008 recipient of the Montgomery County “Outdoor Educator of the Year” award and was honored by The Washingtonian magazine as a 2009 recipient of their Green Award for her work with GreenKids. She serves on the steering committee of the Choose Clean Water Coalition and was a member of the 2015 Rock Creek Park Green Ribbon Panel.

She has two sons and lives with her husband just steps from Rock Creek Park where she enjoys frequent hikes.

TAKE A TOUR

Schedule a visit to either of our beautiful nature sanctuaries by calling (301) 652-9188 Ext. 23 or sending an email message to caroline.brewer@anshome.org

WOODEND SANCTUARY

RUST SANCTUARY

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William J Roberts

Get Involved

WIlliam J. Roberts

LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR
OFFICE OF REP JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD)

Areas of Expertise:
Community Engagement
Governmental Relations
Progressive Advocacy
Public Policy

William J. Roberts, Esq

As the Legislative Director for Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Will Roberts brings nearly a decade of experience in public policy, progressive advocacy, and coalition building to the table. As the former Legislative Director of a national advocacy organization, he helped to craft and gain support for various legislaitve proposals at the local, state, and national level – culminating in passage of several of those proposals at the ballot and through local legislatures.

In his role with Rep. Raskin, Will manages the Congressman’s legislative team and the implementation of his policy agenda. In addition to overseeing the Congressman’s work on the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Will has a wide-ranging legislative portfolio including issues pertaining to Housing, Financial Services, Education, Transportation and the Environment.

William holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science with honors from Howard University and received his Juris Doctor from the Howard University School of Law. He is licensed to practice law in the state of Maryland.

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TNB2018 Uncategorized

Joanne Throwe

Get Involved

DEPUTY SECRETARY
MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Areas of Expertise:
Agriculture
Environmental Protection
Governmental Relations
Natural Resurces

Joanne Throwe

Joanne Throwe was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in October 2015. In this role, she manages the day-to-day operations and executes the direction and vision of the department.

Joanne brings 25 years of environmental and natural resources experience at the state and federal level. Most recently, she served as the director of the University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center, where she provided technical assistance on financing issues related to environmental protection activities.

Prior to her work at the Environmental Finance Center, Joanne held leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cooperative Research and Extension Services, and the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. She also served 2 years in the Peace Corps, stationed in the South Pacific.

Joanne lives in Anne Arundel County.

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TNB Topics

Green Jobs Now and in the Future
What Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Look Like
Environmental Justice
Legal Victories for the Environment, Landowners, and Communities of Color
Taking Charge of Your Career
Nature in Your Neighborhood
What You Need to Know to Engage Elected Officials, and more.