11th Annual Storming the Sound - North

Friday, January 29th, 2010, Maple Hall in La Conner

Registration is officially open!

Storming the Sound is an annual one-day conference that brings together environmental educators, teachers and students of environmental education. Meet with old and new friends and hear from the movers and shakers of environmental education in the North Sound. If you live or work in a North Sound County (Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, Clallam, Jefferson, Island or San Juan) and are interested in environmental education, this event is for you.

Come to Maple Hall on January 29 prepared to be challenged, informed, stimulated and fed. (Lunch is free!)

Keynote speaker, David Henry will share his work with the Pew Charitable Trust campaign, Arctic Waters - Protecting Life in the Arctic. A great list of breakout sessions is forming, including topics like school gardens, Puget Sound Starts Here campaign, boat-based education, climate change education, mediation/conflict resolution, EE and literature, citizen science, rain gardens, and much more.

To Register, Registration is free, but we request a $10 donation at the door to help cover costs of the event. Register online at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=p70J_2f4onQdWxaXj9BACcOQ_3d_3d.

If you would like to register a group, please ask each member to complete the online registration. If this isn't feasible, contact Dorothy Haase at gypsys@wavecable.com. (This survey tool allows only one registration per computer.)

Teachers- scholarships are available to help cover the cost of a substitute teacher. Application deadline is December 10. Email swood@padillabay.gov for an application.

Thanks to Storming the Sound Sponsors. Check our website to learn about the organizations who help support Storming the Sound. http://www.padillabay.gov/storming. To find out how your organization can be a sponsor, contact Ann Butler at abutler@pugetsound.org.

See you in January!

Storming the Sound 2010 Planning Team - Susan Wood and Alex Alexander, Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve; Paula Ogden-Muse, National Park Service; Adam Lorio, Deception Pass State Park; Callie Martin, Skagit County Public Works; Pete Haase, Skagit Conservation Education Alliance; Ann Butler, People For Puget Sound

Chemicals in Pregnant Women

From the Seattle Post Globe

Infuriated mom: Why can't I protect my body? Study pinpoints chemicals in moms-to-be

by Sally Deneen

Pregnant and looking forward to motherhood, Kim Radtke walked the three-mile-long trail around Green Lake twice a week. She swam. She stretched in prenatal yoga class. She munched mostly organic foods – for years. Aware of chemicals in everyday products, she refused such things as ordinary scented lotions and deodorants. Trained as a midwife, she made a career of helping babies get a good start in life and she wanted the same for her unborn son.

So when Radtke took part in a new study – released today – that tested levels of chemicals in pregnant women, she was dismayed to learn she rated worst among nine West Coast women tested for a particular class of chemicals: perfluorinated compounds (PFOS). They’re used to make Teflon pans, clothing, furniture, and food packaging such as pizza boxes and fast-food containers.

In all, 11 nasty chemicals from everyday products and foods were detected in Radtke’s blood, meaning such substances also passed through her umbilical cord to her unborn child. And now that nearly three-week-old Karson has arrived, with every nutrition-filled breastfeeding, he sucks in chemicals. Read more....

Two Free Training Webinars on Social Media

What: The City of Seattle, Restore Our Waters, is hosting four social media webinars focused on twitter, Facebook, or other social media to spread messages to your target audience. The webinars are free, and you can attend one or all of them. There will be an hour reserved for discussion after the session. Feel free to bring a lunch!
For more information about the webinars go to http://www.social-marketing.com/webinars.html#

Where: Seattle Municipal Tower – 700 5th Ave. Conference Room 4630 (46th Floor)

When: Thur., Nov. 12, 11am-noon (noon – 1pm discussion) Conference Room 4630
Thur., Nov. 19, 11am-noon (noon – 1pm discussion) Conference Room 4630

Please RSVP to susan.harper@seattle.gov as soon as possible – space is limited. Be specific about which sessions/dates you plan to attend.

Webinar #3: Twitteracy for Social Marketers
November 12, 2009, 11 am
Lately you can’t read the news or watch TV without running into a mention of Twitter – the online microblogging site. When used strategically, Twitter can be an invaluable tool for networking, information filtering, tapping into a human search engine, and for reaching your target groups. This 60-minute webinar will cover the whats, whys and hows of Twitter for people who want to use it for health or social change.

Webinar #4: Monitoring and Evaluating Social Media
November 19, 2009, 11 am
Social media tools like blogs, Twitter and social networks are not just useful for communicating with the groups you want to reach. They are also valuable as "listening" tools to pick up information about news, opinions and trends on the issues you care about. This 60-minute webinar will demonstrate how to easily set up a social media monitoring system as well as discussing methods for evaluating your own social media efforts.

10 Million Available to Clean Up Puget Sound at Local Level

In case you haven't heard, the RFP is now available for the 10 million in grant monies available through the EPA Region 10 office for the recovery of Puget Sound. It's called the Puget Sound Watershed Management Assistance Grants. They are available to local government entities, tribes and special purpose districts acting as the leads on proposals. Partnerships with other organizations and entities are encouraged.

For more information visit http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/water.nsf/Office+of+Water/WEI09RFP