Stewart Wechsler

Unido: 12.nov.2017 Última actividad: 27.mar.2024 iNaturalist

At my coffee shop where I spend much my time using iNaturalist to teach, and sometimes learn, about nature, on-line, I put a sign on the back of my computer: “The On-Line Nature Professor Is In”. While so far my path never quite took me to become a professor in a university, I've studied my local, lower Georgia – Puget Trough natural community nearly as much as anyone might, including those who profess in the universities. My studies have primarily been about the macroscopic terrestrial, to amphibious, plants, animals, and fungi, their identification, habitats, community roles, and stories. I know our vascular plants the best, and know the mosses, and lichens, at least better than the average botanist, most of whom don't study them nearly as much as the vascular plants. When I realized that it had become a full time job to review what I had already learned, so I didn't forget it, I figured I had learned nearly as much about nature as I could. While this puts me in a small group, through iNaturalist, I've been able to connect with other people in that small group that are spread, both throughout my eco-region (the “lower Georgia-Puget Trough” as I have delineated it), and the world. This is a much wider area, to connect with a larger number of similar people, than I might otherwise connect with in my coffee shop, my city, or my state!

In iNaturalist I have found a great community of both nature students, and teachers, who might be interested in what I am able to teach, and who can teach me what I am interested in learning, ranging from those university professors, and their university students, to many others, like myself, who have a great knowledge of, and / or passion for, nature, without universities being primary avenues for their teaching or learning. Through iNaturalist, this community of teachers and students now can include everyone on the planet that shares with me any amount of the knowledge of, and / or passion for, nature, and the natural community. Sharing the knowledge of nature, that I have spent so much of my life acquiring, is possibly my favorite thing to do, so don't hesitate to ask for help with an ID, or help learning how you could come to that ID yourself, or possibly a bit about its habitat, its role in the community, or its story. I particularly like helping those who have the greatest hopes, and expectations, of applying that knowledge in the future to the protection, and assistance with the regrowth, of the natural wealth, and natural beauty, of our Mother Nature, and her natural community. (I think of the whole of nature as functioning almost as a living being, so I sometimes like that personification of “her” as "Mother Nature".)

When I am not on-line using iNaturalist to teach and learn about nature, I am likely at my local park (Lincoln Park, West Seattle), working for the protection, and regrowth, of the natural wealth, and beauty, there, and when I find the opportunity, teaching passers-by about it. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/55550214 All are welcome to come and let my show you what might be Seattle's richest, most diverse, remaining relatively natural spot, including the ~18 years of slow work I have done there for its protection, and regrowth. I am also happy to share my thinking, after 26 years of a strong focus on the subject, about how to best do it. I'm also always happy to share crowded seedlings, or extra seeds. If its raining you might join me at my coffee shop to talk about nature, and how we might best help Mother Nature with the protection, and regrowth, of her great natural wealth, and beauty. We can help build a growing community of Homo sapiens, that starts to do less to degrade that wealth and beauty, and more to help with its protection, and regrowth.

A painting a friend did of me in the "Butterfly Meadow" in Lincoln Park that I have worked for years on the growth of.

Contact me if you want to let me show you a bit of my park, and my work there!

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