Explore Outdoors ~ flower watching

 Spring comes in its own time, sometimes in a flurry of flowering and sometimes a slow opening of a bud. While visiting Boston, I walked around the neighborhood every day just to watch this magnolia wake up from winter. 

This Earth Day, what's blooming in your neighborhood?

April 1

April 6

April 11

April 14

 

A Climate Change Toolbox

 Tomorrow is Earth Day, so today is a perfect day for introducing a book about…

Climate Warriors: Fourteen Scientists and Fourteen Ways We Can Save Our Planet   

by Laura Gehl 

72 pages; ages 9-14

Millbrook Press (Lerner), 2023

“Sometimes, when something is big and frightening, we don’t want to think about it,” writes Laura Gehl. And right now, the biggest and scariest problem we’ve got is climate change. It’s a huge problem, so overwhelming that we might wonder what can we even do to solve it?

As with every problem, the best place to begin is with understanding what it is. So Laura takes the first chapter to explain what climate change is, how humans are causing it, and what we can do about it. Then she introduces fourteen scientists who are studying – and fighting – climate change. A forester, a conservation biologist, a scientist working with artificial intelligence. An economist, a materials scientist, a psychologist, and eight more. 

Chapter by chapter, Laura shows what scientists and climate activists are doing to understand – and communicate their findings about – climate change. In each chapter, the featured “climate warrior” offers recommendations: making cities more walkable, planting trees, creating better public transportation systems, finding substitutes for meat, protecting forests and coastal ecosystems… the list is long.

Each chapter ends with one or more things kids (and their families) can do to combat climate change. Here’s the thing: as crazy as it sounds, individual efforts add up. So if you do something, and get your family and friends to join you, you’re making a positive change. Laura ends her book with a chapter that adds a short list of specific ways you can be a climate warrior. 

Reduce your use of plastics, Laura says. “Switch to reusable containers instead of plastic bags … and encourage your family to use refillable water bottles and soap dispensers.” Plant a garden. Compost food scraps and leaves. Share things like bicycles and books. Eat less meat. Last on the list – and possibly most important – use your voice to share climate-friendly actions. Included in back matter is a quick guide for writing a letter to your Congressperson, Governor, or even the President. There’s also a list of helpful books and websites.

I caught up with Laura Gehl a few days ago and she graciously answered a couple questions.

Me: What do you do to avoid feeling overwhelmed and helpless in the face of such 

a huge problem like climate change?

Laura: One of the scientists I wrote about in Climate Warriors, David Rolnick, told me that he fights climate change using artificial intelligence because that’s what he’s good at. He said that everyone can help fight climate change using their own specific skills and talents. This conversation really resonated with me, because writing is what I happen to be good at. In all aspects of my life, the best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed and helpless is to dig into whatever is making me feel that way. So writing about climate change, specifically the hopeful side and how scientists, kids, and everyone else can work together to help slow it down, was the best possible way to feel empowered instead of powerless. Taking a reusable water bottle when I go for a hike, instead of single-use plastic, is a small way to help slow climate change…but the impact of this book, if it inspires lots of kids, could be much bigger.

Me: I love how you set up each chapter with an explanation of what that climate warrior does, along with recommendations from their work. You follow this up with an entire section 

about how kids can be climate warriors. These features really make this book feel like a toolbox for hope. 

Laura: Climate change is such a huge, complicated topic, and I am a scientist at heart. So I wanted to include a lot of science in this book, which I believe is needed in order to really understand the problem, as well as the possibilities for slowing it down. On the other hand, I wanted the book to feel accessible for kids and not like they were being bombarded by too many tricky concepts—from hydrology to economics to materials science! I experimented with different formats, and both my critique partners and my editors really helped me hone in on a format that would feel kid-friendly and empowering. My personal favorite part is that I talk about what each scientist was like as a kid. I hope that this will really bring home to readers that each of these scientists was once in their shoes…liking music or sports or playing outside, trying to figure out what they might want to do as a job one day…and spark the idea that they too could grow up to be a huge part of finding new ways to combat climate change! 

Laura is a member of  STEAM Team 2023. You can find out more about her at her website

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Inspiring Readers to Save the Planet ~ by Christy Mihaly

Happy Earth Week! The first Earth Day in 1970 focused on air and water pollution. Back then, factories spewed so much oil into water that rivers caught fire. Air pollution gave people cancer. But folks generally assumed this was the price of "progress." 

Christy appreciates water!

Rachel Carson's 1962 book, Silent Spring, helped wake Americans up, and Earth Day inspired broad action. I celebrated the first Earth Day with the Girl Scouts, collecting trash at a creek. But in 1970, we didn't appreciate the full extent of the manmade crises facing Earth. 

Today, I worry kids may see climate change as too big to solve, too daunting to fight. But then I watch young people, teens and younger, raising their voices, demanding action, inventing solutions. There's hope. 

That's why I write what I write. I want to give kids information and incentive to save the planet. Books have the power to do that.

I recently wrote a picture book about water. Why water? It's an ordinary, everyday substance—and central to life. I lived a couple decades in California, where water is often scarce. I worked with diverse stakeholders to negotiate a fair division of the waters of the Sacramento River system (leaving enough for the fish), because users held legal "rights" to an amount of water that exceeded the actual flow. Moving to Vermont in the 2000s, I was struck by the moist greenness and the ubiquity of streams and ponds. But I saw that even where water is so plentiful, we must steward it. 

In Barefoot Books WATER: A Deep Dive of Discovery, I wanted to share my deep appreciation of the science and the wonder of water. Working with the talented Barefoot Books team, we developed an engaging, interactive book.

We created a "water droplet" (fictional cartoon character) to offer funny comments and fun facts. We incorporated experiments, activities, and calls to action for that hands-on element, adding flaps and gatefolds too. And while we confirmed that all infographics and illustrations were scientifically accurate, we left room for the amazing illustrator, Mariona Cabassa, to explore the world of water with colorful, imaginative scenes. 

I used playful language, noting, for example, that water is a "shape-shifter," and wrote poetic passages as well. Together I hope that all these aspects of the books help WATER to capture kids' interest and passion and inspire them to be water stewards.

Thank you for joining us today, Christy.  I chatted with Christy about her book, WATER  back in October over at the GROG Blog. And she shares some hands-on water exploration activities on Patricia Newman's Lit Links blog here. You can visit Christy's website here.

Explore Outdoors ~ spring trees

 

Tomorrow is Earth Day. Traditionally, it's a day set aside for environmental clean-ups, hikes, recycling awareness, and tree hugging. So I headed outside to hug my trees - and get some photos of them nearly one month into "official" spring (last week's snow aside..)

This is a good week to check on what the trees are up to in your neighborhood. Are they leafing out? Flowering? Are birds nesting in them? Have their twig-ends been nibbled by hungry deer? 

Give them a hug and wish them Happy Earth Day.

Earth Day ~ recycling in practice and song

Here in Upstate NY I'm planting seeds for Lemon Queen sunflower.

 I'm planting them indoors so that they'll be ready to transplant into my garden by our last frost date (usually end of May, but given the snow blowing around outside it's hard to say what this year will be like!). My goal this year is to have my sunflowers blooming in time to collect bee counts for the Great Sunflower Project ~ a citizen science project that collects data on pollinators in your garden.

All you need to plant a flower seed is the seed, some potting soil, and a container to put the soil into. I like to recycle containers as pots, so you might find me poking holes into the bottom of cleaned yogurt containers. But sometimes I run out, so I've taken to making seedling pots out of newspapers.

I start with a newspaper. Depending on how big the paper is, I might use a full sheet (it it's my hometown weekly) or just one page (if it's a big paper like the New York Times).

I fold the paper in half length-wise.
 
Then I find a can from the pantry. Soup cans are great for small pots, but for something like a sunflower I want a bit bigger pot. So a can of tomatoes or pasta sauce (not sure how long that's been on the shelf....)

Put the can on the paper so the newspaper extends beyond the can on one end - that will be the bottom of your pot. Then start rolling the can until you've got it all rolled up. The paper should go around three times or so.

Starting at the seam- that's the edge where you stopped rolling - fold the bottom ends in. Keep doing this all the way around until you've got a nice bottom. Then I turn the can over and give it a nice push to squash the base flat.

Take the can out and you've got a seedling pot.
I like to fold the top down because it strengthens the pot, but you don't have to.

Now you've got some seedling pots that can go right into the ground! And you've recycled newspapers. And you're growing plants for the bees.



Speaking of recycling, I'd like to introduce you to Hobo Frog, an advocate for recycling and conservation. Check out this song about Hobo Frog's adventures, written by my back-beyond-the-hayfield neighbor, Trish Engelhard. (really. go to the end of the hayfield, walk down the dirt road, take a left, then a right, go past the pond where Hobo Frog lives and you're practically to her house!)

Rachel Carson and Ecology for Kids

Rachel Carson and Ecology for Kids: Her Life and Ideas, with 21 Activities and Experiments 
by Rowena Rae
144 pages; ages 9 - 12
Chicago Review Press, 2020

With Earth Day coming ‘round the bend, I couldn’t help but grab this new book about Rachel Carson out of my book basket. It’s part of the For Kids series, fun books that feature hands-on activities and experiments.

About 100 years ago, a 14-year-old girl grabbed her notebook, camera, and lunch and headed off to the woods with her dog. That girl was Rachel Carson, a curious kid who wanted to know the names of all the trees and discover which birds were nesting in them. Rachel wanted to pursue science, not an easy path for a woman in the 1920s. But she persisted, doing research at Woods Hole and eventually working with the Bureau of Fisheries – not as a biologist, but writing radio scripts for a series called “seven-minute fish tales.” She kept writing, and eventually got hired as an aquatic biologist, writing and editing reports and information sheets.

Carson loved the sea and was lucky enough to get a grant allowing her to do research and work on her book, The Sea Around Us. After the war, technology brought many new inventions to the market, from kitty litter to bug sprays. Rachel became worried about one widely used chemical, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). She was interested in how the pesticide affected wildlife, and learned that the poison accumulated in birds and other animals.

When Rachel began writing Silent Spring, she used metaphors and anecdotes to connect the important findings from chemistry, biology, and statistics to readers’ emotions. She wanted readers to understand that people depend on things that nature provides, such as pollinators, water filtration, and other “ecosystem services” and need to protect it. Her writing inspired a generation of women scientists and environmental writers; you can meet one, Rebecca E. Hirsch, over at the Grog Blog on Wednesday.

The hands-on activities range from writing nature-inspired haiku to examining food webs, making a worm farm to identifying the ecological services of a tree. Back matter includes a glossary, resources to explore – including places to visit – and chapter notes.

If you're looking for picture books about Rachel Carson, check out these posts here and here.

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Earth Day!

Earth Day was born back in the last century - I remember our Girl Scout troop doing a trash cleanup at the park, and a party-like atmosphere.

In the past few years, Earth Day has focused on particular environmental issues. This year it's plastic. Plastic is a huge problem - there's a huge floating plastic island in the ocean, and plastic is killing whales and birds. You can learn more about this year's Earth Day here.
And here's a link for your own personal "plastic pollution" calculator.
Make this the year you decrease your dependence on plastic.
For me that means cutting down on the food packaging. Instead of putting peppers in a plastic produce bag I can carry my own "veggie" bag for fruits and vegetables that have their own skins. (This is harder to do with things like blueberries...)
What can you do this year?

Happy Earth Day!

April is a month full of celebration: poetry, square-root day (4/4/16), and Earth Day!

photo from NASA

So here we are, stuck to the ground by gravity, spinning our way through space, and everything we need - air, food, water - is on this planet with us. From space, the earth looks like a blue marble. Self-contained. Self-reliant.

What can You do to take care of your corner of the earth?

What about recycling? Perhaps you will turn ripped jeans into book covers, bags, rugs...(or something else).

Maybe you'll figure out a way to collect and conserve water to use for watering a garden (make a rain barrel) - or if you have too much rain,  you might want to plant a rain garden to help slow storm water run-off.

Plant a garden for the pollinators. Sow seeds for asters, purple coneflowers, and sunflowers. Let goldenrod, milkweed, and Joe-pye weed grow. Mow less, and watch as bees and butterflies visit wildflowers in the tall grass.

Go on a scavenger hunt to learn more about the plants and animals that share your part of the world. Instead of collecting items draw pictures, write poems, take photos. Here's a list to get you started:

Look for: two different kinds of leaves, moss, a vine, a dead tree, flowers
Listen for: the sound of the wind, bird songs, buzzing of insects, moving water, frogs
Touch: tree bark, wet mud, rocks with different textures, rotten wood
Smell: pine tree, flower, damp earth, fresh grass

Climate Change (just in time for Earth Day)

Climate Change: discover how it impacts spaceship Earth, with 25 projects
by Joshua Sneideman & Erin Twamley; illus. by Mike Crosier
122 pages; ages 9-12
Nomad Press, 2015

Released just in time for Earth Day (which is Wednesday) - this newest book on Climate Change. Like others in the "Build it yourself" series, this one comes packed with hands-on activities to explore the concepts being discussed. For example: a balance board to help illustrate the idea that keeping gases in Earth's atmosphere balanced is harder to do than to say.

Readers will learn about burps, farts, and other greenhouse gases, why ice cores and paleontology are important, and read about cool biofuels like algae. Throughout the book there are lots of short introductions to scientists who did research in energy, oceanography, geology, climate science and more. Plus there are those 25 hands-on, do-it-yourself activities that require the sorts of things you might find in the kitchen cupboards or at the drug store. Who knows ~ maybe you'll be inspired to build something useful and simple, like the solar powered water purifying system invented by a high school student, or the water-filled plastic bottle "light bulbs".

To help make information easier to find (especially for browsers) the book has:

• "words to know" sidebars
• cool concepts (like atmospheric pressure on other planets)
• essential questions
• primary source icon with QR code link for smartphones or tablets
• index, glossary, and page of resources at the back

  Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copy provided by publisher.

Earth Week ~ Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Got an old pair of jeans hanging around? You know the ones I mean - the jeans with the ripped knees, or your favorite pair that just doesn't fit anymore....

Turn them into something else that you can use.

Make a book cover - or cover an old binder. Those pockets are great for holding pencils, pens, a flash drive.

If you have lots of pockets, you can turn them into pocket purses, or hang them on the wall to organize small things.

Jeans make great placemats and coasters. Cut off the legs and use the top part to make a satchel. Turn the legs into lunch bags.


 You can find these projects and more in Re-Craft: Unique projects that look great (and save the planet) by Jen Jones and Carol Sirrine (Capstone Publishers, 2011). In addition to jeans, there are projects that will turn old T-shirts into wearable items - and even a dog toy. If you don't have a dog of your own, you can always make a bunch for your local animal shelter - that is, if the gardener in your family hasn't already appropriated the T-shirts for tying up tomato plants...

Jones & Sirrine have ideas for recycling cans, bottles, and even CDs. They note that each month nearly 50 tons of CDs are tossed into landfills. "That's the weight of a herd of elephants!" CDs are also made of the hardest plastic to recycle. So they put on their creative thinking caps and came up with some cool uses for old CDs - and their cases.

The authors have an entire section devoted to crafts from natural materials: twigs, pinecones.... stuff you find laying around which - when you tire of it - can be tossed into the compost bin to biodegrade. That's nature's way of recycling. And there's an easy recipe for how to make your own 100% recycles paper for note cards and other art projects.

What will you  make out of the stuff hanging around your home?  Review copy provided by publisher.

Celebrate Earth Week - Explore Natural Resources!

Explore Natural Resources
by Anita Yasuda; illus. by Jennifer Keller
96 pages; ages 6-9
Nomad Press, 2014 (release May 13)

In this book you discover natural resources through hands-on activities. By the end of the book, promises author Anita Yasuda, you'll be able to design a wind-powered car, catch solar rays, build a composter, and be proficient in the 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Topics include: air, water, soil, energy, and conservation. There are plenty of new words to learn (humus, source recuction, VOC) and twenty-five hands-on activities that range from crafts (recycle a T-shirt into a cloth bag) to technology (build a turbine). You'll be able to calculate your "water footprint" - how much water you use each day - and cook a s'more in a solar oven you build out of a discarded box. There's even a recipe for natural pesticide that you can spray on your plants to keep pesky bugs away. It works - I used to use it to keep ants from invading my kitchen counter.

The book is due out in a couple weeks. While you're waiting, here's an activity from the first chapter:

Get to Know Who Lives in Your Neighborhood

• Divide a piece of paper into six sections. Label each section with one of these headings: Birds; Reptiles; Insects; Mammals; Trees; Plants.
•  Draw a picture from each category, or cut out an example from magazines, and glue it into its section.
• Clip your page to a clipboard and take it - and a pencil - along on a walk through your neighborhood. If you have a camera, take it along too.
• As you walk along, listen and look for the animals and plants on your list. Jot down what you see, or keep a tally of what's in your neighborhood.
• Later - when you get home or visit a library - look up some of the plants and animals you discovered in a field guide or on the internet.

Review copy provided by publisher.

Earth Day Sound Scavenger Hunt

The best way to celebrate Earth Day is to head outside and get to know your natural neighborhood better. One way to learn more about the place you are a part of is to go on a listening scavenger hunt. The object: to collect as many natural sounds as you can find.

Here's a short list to get you started: 

• the sound of a peeper, toad, or other frog
• thunder
• a sound made by leaves
• a bird singing
• a woodpecker
• water running or dripping
• a noise made by insect
• call or noise made by a four-legged animal

Celebrate Earth Day with Poetry!

When you hike through a natural area - a wetland, national park, state forest - there's a creed: Take nothing but Pictures. Leave nothing but Footprints.

It's a reminder to tread the earth lightly, as we are but a visitor in wild places.

Earth Day is a good time to remember how we are part of the environment, not apart from it. To celebrate, I share the words of Marilyn Singer, with a poem from her book Footprints on the Roof (Alfred A Knopf, 2002). 

Burrows

Out in the country I walk across towns

            I'll never see:

mazy metropolises

            under the earth

             where rabbits hide from foxes

                 foxes hide from dogs

                 full-bellied snakes sleep snugly

                        worms work uncomplaining

Where what you see is nothing –

what counts is what you smell

            or hear or feel

I try to tread softly:

            a quiet giant

               leaving only footprints

                        on the roof

You can find more of Marilyn's poetry - and her wonderful children's books, at her website. We're joining Nonfiction Monday, where you can see what other reviewers are writing about. Review copy from library.

Check back tomorrow - and all this week - for EARTH Week activities.

Earth Day

A view of home from a long way up. (Clouds along the eastern side of the Andes Mountains, Photographed by astronaut Frank Borman and James A. Lovell during the Gemini 7 mission.)

Habitat Spies Celebrate Earth Day

Habitat Spy
by Cynthia Kieber-King; illus. by Christina Wald
32 pages, ages 4 - 8
Sylvan Dell Publishing, 2011

When I was a kid, we'd play a game called "I Spy" when we traveled. Dad started, challenging people to "spy a red car" or a cow or, when we were in Yellowstone Park, a moose.

Cynthia Kieber-King takes that old game for a ride through 13 different habitats. From backyard to beach, from plains to pond, her "habitat spies" - boys and girls from a diversity of cultures - discover plants, birds, mammals and more. And she does it in short, snappy rhyme that emphasizes action. In the bog, for example, "...sundews gape, beetles trap, flycatchers dart, lemmings tap."

Cynthia, who lives in central NY state, surrounded by a diversity of habitats, shared some thoughts about writing and being a "habitat spy". 

Archimedes: How did you end up with short poetic habitat descriptions that are so action-oriented?

Cynthia:  Habitat Spy started out with a different title, and longer lines of lyrical poetry that just didn’t seem to work. I wondered if I could make the language more engaging and still communicate the information I wanted to share; if I pared away all the descriptive words, leaving just the bare essence. I thought it might work, especially with illustrations sharing the story of each habitat. So I focused on action verbs – especially unusual ones – and added rhyme to make reading it out loud more fun.

Archimedes:  What inspired the idea for a habitat tour? And how did that evolve into habitat "spy"? 

Cynthia: A number of years ago the area behind my backyard was full of brambles, and far beyond the brambles the land rose into a wooded hill.  Whenever I played in the backyard with my young son, I wondered what those faraway and unreachable woods looked like.  I imagined the neat plants and animals I would see if I could get to those woods. Then I wondered what I might see if I kept walking, from habitat to habitat across the US – so many amazing plants and animals and the places they lived!  Since I couldn’t make that walk in real life, I made the trip on paper.  And the images in my mind of spying on all those habitats turned into Habitat Spy.

Archimedes: This is your first book - what other projects are you involved in?

Cynthia: Next week I’ll be starting a training program to become a volunteer at our local zoo – I’m quite excited about that!  I also have several books in the works, in various phases of revision. 

Beyond the Book

Celebrate Earth Day this weekend by learning more about where you live. Become a Habitat Spy - what can you see in your backyard? A vacant lot?

What are the plants and animals doing in your habitat? Come up with a list of action words (verbs) to describe what goes on in your habitat.


Kieber-King includes four pages of science activities "for creative minds" at the back of the book, including what makes a "habitat", animal adaptations, classification, and food chains.

This post is part of STEM Friday round-up. It's also part of PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books. Review copy provided by publisher.

Earth Month Book - Waiting for Ice

Waiting for Ice

By Sandra Markle; illustrated by Alan Marks

32 pages, for ages 5 – 9

Charlesbridge 2012

What if you went for a swim and when you came out of the water you couldn’t find your mother? That’s what happens to the young polar bear in Waiting for Ice, a true story about an orphaned cub who, despite the odds, survived on her own.

The young cub is trapped on Wrangle Island, with hundreds of other polar bears, waiting for the Arctic ice to come back. But the weather has been warmer than usual, and the ice is nowhere to be seen. The bears, who would normally be hunting from the ice floes, are running out of food and without a mother to hunt for her, the cub needs to learn how to get her own food.

Most orphaned cubs die of starvation, but this is one scrappy cub. She fights over fish, steals a mouthful of food when she can, and isn’t too proud to beg. She stubbornly fights to live, earning the name “Tuff” bestowed upon her by the scientists studying the island bears.

The book ends when the ice comes in, but the story continues. In an author’s note Sandra Markle explains that Tuff survives, returning to the island the following spring. She also writes about the impact of global warming on polar bears.

“I’ve always been fascinated by polar bears,” says Markle. (This is her fourth book on bears.) She ran across Dr. Nikita Ovsyanikov, the Wrangle Island polar bear scientist, while researching another book. “He told me about “Tuff” and her story stuck in my mind…and I was looking for a way to connect global warming and polar bear behavior.”

Like her other books, Waiting for Ice is grounded in research. Markle interviewed scientists, watched polar bears and read lots of studies. Accuracy is important, she says. At the same time it’s important for the story to be exciting for kids.

“We (writers) have to give kids a way to stand on the shoulders of the scientists so they can see farther,” says Markle. Having taught science, she knows that sharing information is only half the job of a writer. Or teacher. The other half is to help children understand that there is more to learn, and they can be the scientists of the future.

Markle tries to visit the places she writes about – she’s been to Antarctica three times, she says. But not Wrangle Island. So she learned some surprising things in talking with Dr. Ovsyanikov. “I didn’t know how the polar bears behaved when they were trapped,” says Markle. “Not being able to hunt from ice floes changes their behavior, as does the competition for food.”

You can read more about how Sandra Markle came to write Waiting for Ice here. And you can watch a video about the polar bears of Wrangle Island here.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Today’s post is part of STEM Friday –  a weekly round-up of children’s science, engineering, math and technology resources – and Nonfiction Monday. 

Every Day is Earth Day

Welcome to Earth Month. Instead of just one single day, I'm celebrating the Earth all month long.

This year's theme: climate change. It's getting warmer. The average winter temperature here in NY is a couple degrees higher than 50 years ago.

Fortunately, there are some things that we can do to help stop global warming. Simple things that will have an effect on our homes, our towns and even places as far away as the South Pole. So every Wednesday I'll post one thing you can do to help stop climate change. On Friday's I'll feature books and author interviews, and you can always check the Environmental Tip of the day for more ideas of things you can do.