Susan’s presentation will address the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when, and why) and the one H (how) the Nash Prairie came to be owned by The Nature Conservancy.

Susan became a Cradle of Texas Master Naturalist in 2001 and have been a volunteer land steward for the Nash Prairie since 2010. Recently she have completed an 11-month job as an AmeriCorps Member working as an assistant land Steward for the Columbia Bottomland Preserves for The Nature Conservancy, which includes the Nash Prairie, Mowotony Prairie, Brazos Woods, and The San Bernard Woods in Brazoria and Matagorda county.

The Rothko Chapel and Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice present the 5th Annual Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Endowed Lecture Series in Peace, Social Justice and Human Rights, which honors Sissy for her relentless pursuit of social justice.

The 2019 lecture will feature Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a renowned activist and public scholar known for her work on prison abolition. Gilmore is professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences and American Studies, as well as Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In addition to her scholarly work, Professor Gilmore co-founded several grassroots organizations, including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network.

Gilmore’s lecture, Meanwhile: Making Abolition Geographies, explores how visions of abolition guide and connect organizing across a range of social justice struggles. Examples in the talk will highlight: environmental justice, public sector labor unions, farm workers, undocumented households, criminalized youth, community based approaches to prevent and resolve gender and interpersonal violence, and organizing by people while incarcerated. The vivid stories demonstrate how abolition is a practical place-specific program for urgent change based in the needs, talents, and dreams of vulnerable people.

About the Farenthold Lecture series:
In line with Sissy’s own history of exposing and responding to injustices and inequality as both a public servant and citizen, the lecture series brings to Austin and Houston internationally renowned scholars, activists and politicians who will inspire their audiences to think and act creatively to respond to some of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.

To register:  https://law.utexas.edu/prison-abolition/registration/

The Woodlands G.R.E.E.N. is sponsoring a Going Green Sustainability Lecture. The USGS has been monitoring groundwater table levels in hundreds of water wells in our region for more than 40 years, including wells that are pumping water from the Chicot, Evangeline, and Jasper aquifers–sources of drinking water for much of Montgomery County.  At September’s Woodlands G.R.E.E.N. lecture, speakers Chris Braun and Jason Ramage (both with United States Geological Survey) will discuss the results from the latest round of measurements and will highlight various trends that have developed over the past decades of data collection and analysis.

Chris Braun is currently a Hydrologist and Groundwater Specialist with the USGS Texas Water Science Center.  Chris’ work as a hydrologist covers a full spectrum, including water quality, surface water, and groundwater projects through his 26-year career with USGS.  In July, 2019, Chris transferred to the Texas Water Science Center Gulf Coast Branch to serve as a hydrologist.  He holds a B.S. degree in Geological Sciences and a M.S. in Water Resources Engineering, both from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jason Ramage is currently a Hydrologist with the USGS Texas Water Science Center.  Jason’s project work has been focused on groundwater, compaction, and subsidence in the Gulf Coast Aquifer System.  He has also been involved in groundwater quality sampling in production wells looking at a variety of constituents from major and minor ions, trace metals, radiochemical isotopes, age dating isotope, and others.  Jason holds a B.S. degree in Geology from the University of Houston.

Registration for this event is not necessary.

Shell Educators’ Preview: Start your evening at 4 p.m. and earn one hour of CPE credit while viewing our newly renovated George W. Strake Hall of Malacology.

HMNS’ Educator Members will have an opportunity to speak to Tina Petway, the
Museum’s Associate Curator of Malacology, during the Shell Educators’ Preview.
As a special treat, all guests will also be able to visit our newest special exhibition,
Art of the Brick until 6:00 p.m.!

The Educator Event @HMNS: Continue your evening with us starting at 5 p.m.
and earn up to three additional hours of CPE credit depending on which
programming you attend. HMNS is featuring several ways to earn CPE credit from
attending workshops to taking a guided tour to seeing a show in our Planetarium.
Educators are able to earn a total of up to 4 hours of CPE credit while attending
HMNS’, An Evening for Educators!

Registration Information
Educators: Free
Non-Educators: $10.00

(Pricing includes entry to the George W. Strake Hall of Malacology and Art of the Brick)
Registration begins Tuesday, July 30th and ends Wednesday, October 2nd.
Please complete the online form at hmns.org/eveningforeducators to reserve your spot. For questions, contact educatorevent@hmns.org.

Dahr Jamailo will give a presentation on climate disruption and read from his book, The End of Ice. Dahr is an award-winning independent journalist, , who has won numerous awards, including the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism, The Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, five Project Censored awards, and an Izzy award.

The Woodlands G.R.E.E.N. is sponsoring a FREE Going Green Sustainability lecture: “Mycophile or Mycophobe–we all need mushrooms” with guest speaker, Teri MacArthur, Certified Texas Master Naturalist. This event is free and open to the public.

From the Garden of Eden to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – gardens have played a central role in human history and have been a popular subject for artists throughout time. Join us to explore the gardens depicted in the collections at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. GARDENS is sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts Guild and is presented by Gerry Aitken, past president of the Museum Guild and a current docent and coordinator of the Speakers Bureau at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Bring lunch and enjoy a different gardening topic each month during these presentations. Lunch Bunch is recommended for ages 12+. Call Mercer Botanic Gardens to RSVP. Please note: Location temporarily outdoors in main garden under staff building.

The focus of this presentation will be on light pollution and the adverse impact from unshielded light on plants, animals and humans, including glare and visibility problems and health effects. Deborah will discuss the threat of the proliferation of bright white street lighting and present solutions that double down on the advantages of LED light. Learn how to light with minimum impact for greater visibility at the least energy use and where to buy good quality lighting.

Interested in Urban Forestry? Come join Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, HAUFC and ISA-TX for a great day of education. Topics include: Emerald Ash Borer – Coming to a City Near You, Using Tree Growth Regulators to Reduce Pruning Costs, and Greening the Houston Region – Partnerships and Projects that Support the Urban Forest.

Duke University Press Description of Book:  “Based on fieldwork among state officials, NGOs, politicians, and activists in Costa Rica and Brazil, A Future History of Water traces the unspectacular work necessary to make water access a human right and a human right something different from a commodity. Andrea Ballestero shows how these ephemeral distinctions are made through four technolegal devices—formula, index, list and pact. She argues that what is at stake in these devices is not the making of a distinct future but what counts as the future in the first place. A Future History of Water is an ethnographically rich and conceptually charged journey into ant-filled water meters, fantastical water taxonomies, promises captured on slips of paper, and statistical maneuvers that dissolve the human of human rights. Ultimately, Ballestero demonstrates what happens when instead of trying to fix its meaning, we make water’s changing form the precondition of our analyses.”