STEM Tuesday — Earth Day 50th Anniversary Celebration– Interview with Author Mary Kay Carson

Providing habitat for local wildlife is a real passion of mine. My husband and I live in the city, but chose to buy the 100+ year-old home we did fifteen years ago because of the acres of urban green space that surround it. We’ve been able to watch all kinds of critters take up residence as invasive plants has been removed, native plants encouraged and cultivated, dead trees left standing, and lawn abandoned! And I want kids to feel similarly empowered. To know that they can help wildlife right in their own backyards by providing one or more of the Big Four—water, food, shelter, and nests. Kids love animals, and presentations about how scientists are helping endangered animals are some of my most requested during school visits. And while kids are drawn to the well-publicized plight of pandas, tigers, and penguins, there isn’t a whole lot a young person in Iowa can do to help those faraway animals apart from raising awareness or donating money from a bake sale. But helping the wild animals that live all around us? That’s something anyone of any age can do.

I do love to write about space and weather! But biology is actually my background. My degree was biology (systematics and ecology), I served in the fisheries program as a Peace Corps volunteer, and I have quite a few animal books under my belt—Emi and the Rhino Scientist, The Bat Scientists, Do Sharks Glow in the Dark?, etc. But I’d have to say that it was my years of experience writing for Audubon Adventures that most inspired me to propose the idea of Wildlife Ranger Action Guide. I knew there were lots of fun projects out there for kids to do that would truly help wildlife.

Our home is filled with field guides, so I can’t say the research was difficult. I am embarrassed by how much I learned along the way, however. After all, these are animals I’ve seen most of my life. But somehow I never realized that green darners migrate nor knew that cottontails can have six litters a year. SIX! I’m ready for native wildlife trivia night!

 

Choose a format that works for you. Some kids are more likely to use something they’ve invested time into or personalized, like a Wild Notes Notebook. (Download template pages here.) But there are also apps for recording observations for the smart-phone savvy, too. In these times of global climatic changes, tracking when flowers bloom  and birds migrate has never been more critical.