Unique Ed Techie: collaborative effort

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Snake types and discovering Maryland's Herps

Yesterday I found this snake in the back yard. Posted the image on Google+ and asked if anyone knew what kind of snake it may be. I asked my neighbor to check it out because they have dogs and my concern was for the Gbaby. No response on Google+ but plenty of responses from neighbors, texts, and email connections.

By deductive reasoning, we have it narrowed down to two types. Northern Brown Snake and Eastern Garter Snake thanks to the Field Guide to Maryland's Herps section on the 27 snakes in Maryland.

So I have learned more about snakes since first moving to Georgia and participating in a required briefing about the area wildlife. So wherever you live, check out the resources available about the wildlife in your area. Many thanks to the groups that collaborated to provide this information and I appreciate how all participants are given credit on the site.

If you found a herp and aren't sure what group it belongs to, click on the silhouette to access the link to the field guide for that group. Amphibian groups in Maryland are salamanders, newts, frogs, and toads. Maryland reptiles groups include turtles, snakes, and lizards.

The Maryland Herpetology Field Guide is a cooperative effort of the MD Natural Heritage Program and the MD Biological Stream Survey within the Department of Natural Resources and their partners. We wish to thank all who contributed field records, text, and photographs, as well as support throughout its development.

The Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas (MARA) is a five-year, joint project of the Natural History Society of Maryland and Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The information gained through your volunteer effort will be used to promote the conservation and protection of Maryland’s 90+ species of frogs, toads, salamanders, turtles, lizards, and snakes. You can submit your findings http://marylandnaturalist.org/submit-observation/

How do you discover information about unexpected backyard visitors? Is there a site where you can submit your observations? Do you know the difference between newts, frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, and lizards?

Saturday, August 13, 2011

My Coke Rewards for school and other things YOU can do to help education

One year ago I did a blog post on Coke Rewards for Schools where I listed the Richmond County Schools that were participating in the program and where anyone could donate points to a school whether the school was registered or not. I recently returned to the site to enter my codes and went to the donate to schools section and Butler High School was registered...finally. Hopefully all of my previous donations went to schools that were registered in our area, if not, I am sure some school was happy to receive the additional points.

The school system is still one part of your community, you still pay taxes (in one form or another) to support the system, so why not support it in additional ways that can help those in the system? Whether you donate your time, your points, your soup labels, or whatever your community is doing...invest in our replacements, as the students today will make the decisions about "who rocks your rocking chair"...it is the circle of life.
What if you don't drink participating Coke products (Water, Tea, Soda, Powerade)? Look around...is there a vending machine in your workplace? Set up a box for people to drop off the lids before they recycle the bottle. Does the team purchase the multipacks of Powerade or Dasani?