New England Wild Flower Society's Go Botany site is a suite of free online tools

Go Botany features an interactive Simple ID Key to 1200 of the more common vascular plants of the region, covering everything from aquatic duckweeds to trees.  In three easy steps, you hone in on the identification of your species while increasing your observational skills.  Once you’ve arrived at a species, visit its information page to learn more: fun facts and uses, maps of the species’ range, gorgeous images, information about all its features, look-alike species, and whether it’s native, invasive, or rare in New England.

Coming soon will be a set of advanced tools for more experienced botanists, including a Full Key, which uses the same friendly interface as the Simple ID Key to identify all 3,500 species, subspecies, and varieties of plants in the New England flora, and a clickable Dichotomous Key that allows you to trace your steps, change your choices, and key out families or genera.  Later this summer, the site will introduce PlantShare, an online forum that connects you with other plant enthusiasts to create and share checklists and photographs of species you have seen.

Elizabeth thinks Go Botany will be a helpful resource for Conway students newly learning about the region’s plants, as well as experienced designers who are assessing sites and creating sustainable landscape plans.

Elizabeth Farnsworth, Conway Conservation Biology Adjunct, is the principal investigator on Go Botany! Elizabeth is also Senior Research Ecologist with the New England Wild Flower Society (NEWFS), and a biologist, educator, and scientific illustrator.

Carol was an adjunct professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania from 1972-2002, and in cultural landscapes in the Department of Historic Preservation. She has written and lectured on American traditions in art, landscape, and architecture.  She recently co-authored Metropolitan Paradise, a book on the social, political, and ecological history of the Wissahickon Valley, a 1,800-acre wooded stream valley that is part of the 9,100 acre Fairmount Park system in Philadelphia.

Kate Benisek ’09 (shown here at the Great Wall) has just returned from several weeks in China, where she made visits on behalf of the Conway School at Peking University’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and at Tsinghua University. In talks she described as informative and cordial, she was able to learn about design education and practice in China. She also saw the offices of Turenscape, an international landscape architecture, urban design, and architecture firm in Beijing.

In Beijing, Kate met with the scholar who is translating Conway Director Paul Cawood Hellmund’s book, Designing Greenways, into Chinese.

In the last few years Conway has had applicants from China and Kate’s trip report will help the school better understand the interests of such potential students.

The David Bird Fellow will receive a $5,000 stipend to help fund transportation, housing, food, and project support.

The 2012-13 Fellow will be announced at Conway’s graduation on June 30.

Click here to read more about the Bird Fellowship program.

More than half of TTOR’s land conservation work is focused on protecting farmland;
they own 35 working farms across the Commonwealth, and have put protective
restrictions an estimated 150 more. The Conway School has been working with municipal and regional groups in New England, Arizona and Italy (see project cover at right; click to link to full report) to create food security plans; the winter 2012 project for Concord, MA will be Conway’s fifth.

The MLCC workshop will focus on specific ways land trusts can not only protect productive farmland, but also make sure that land is an active part of local food systems.

Conway is a co-sponsor of the conference (along with the Association of Professional Landscape Designers), and there will be several Conway faces at the event:

• Ben Falk ’05 will be a keynote speaker; his address, on the evening of March 8th, is titled “Landscapes Coming Full Circle: Cultivating Resilence in a Time of Transition.” His keynote dinner address takes place Thursday, March 7, 6:30-8:30 pm.
• Theresa Sprague ’08 will co-present a session titled “Conservation and Landscape Professionals – Working Together In Ecologically Sensitive Areas,” addressing the importance of thinking beyond the regulations when designing mitigation and buffer plantings as well as how to best develop and present plans to Conservation Commissions for review and permitting. Her session takes place on Thursday, March 7, 1:15-3:15 pm.
• Kate Cholakis ’11 and Laura Rissolo ’11 will present about their Conway spring student project, a restoration and management plan for Westover Air Reserve Base, during the “active zone” at lunch time on Thursday.
• Conway will have a table of information in the exhibit hall, staffed by Admissions Director Mollie Babize ’84 and Giaco Lepore ’11.

See full conference details on the ELA’s website. Walk-in registrations are welcome.

“My new job comes directly out of our Conway teams’ work on both the winter farmland protection project for Bloomfield, Connecticut, and [the feasibility study for the reuse of the land surrounding the decommissioned] Yankee Rowe nuclear facility in Rowe, Massachusetts, in the spring,” noted Wirth.

“This is great news for Conway alums who are looking for additional graduate-level study in related fields,” said Conway Director Paul Cawood Hellmund. This is similar to the agreement we have had with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, since 2003.

The agreements are for the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) and the Master of Environmental Planning and Design Programs at the University of Georgia. Time at Conway will count as up to a year’s worth of courses in the MLA program.

For more information, contact Mollie Babize.

© Nancie Battaglia

Bill McKibben, called in 2010 by the Boston Globe “probably the country’s most important environmentalist,” will be the keynote speaker at a celebration of the Conway School’s fortieth anniversary next fall. McKibben will lead off a weekend of special events that will start on Friday, September 28, 2012. At the time of his visit he will also be presented with an honorary degree.

McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. Time Magazine called him “the planet’s best green journalist.” In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is a frequent contributor to various magazines including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Rolling Stone, and Outside. He is also a board member and contributor to Grist Magazine.

McKibben has been awarded Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships, and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000.

The time and location of McKibben’s talk at Conway’s fortieth event will be announced in spring 2012.

March 5, 2012, 4:30-6 pm,
at the Conway School, Conway, MA. RSVP

Jesse worked with the Odyssey Institute helping plan a special residential facility in West Bali National Park. You can see Jesse’s blog and photos from her trip here.

Please let us know if you are coming. We look forward to seeing you.