Happy Centennial, @ROMtoronto!

Today the Royal Ontario Museum turned 100 years old.

Over the past few years, I've spent some quality time exploring the ROM.  Two highlights include the Grasslands in Crisis symposium and ROM Biodiversity month.

In 2012 I came all the way up to the city from Lambton County to attend the Grasslands in Crisis symposium. That was a roadtrip with my coworkers at Ontario Nativescape. Before I moved to the city, I helped to coordinate tallgrass prairie and wetland restoration projects throughout southwestern Ontario. The symposium was so interesting! We learned about all sorts of projects to conserve this endangered ecosystem and talked to a lot of interested people about our work.

Last year, I visited the ROM during Biodiversity month. I attended the public discussion associated with the Ontario Endangered Species Act conference. This was one of the first events I went out to, 2 weeks after moving to the city. There were some contentious issues debated that night. I was just happy to live in a place where I could go to interesting talks and events, for free, practically any night I wanted to.

Happy Birthday, ROM! Thanks for always reminding us that no matter how busy we are, it's important to remember, and learn from, the past. Here's to the next 100 years of teaching us about the natural and cultural history of Ontario.

Scarborough as an #urbanjungle

What the city would look like as an urban jungle. I read about this at blogTO.

Dorset Park neighbourhood is one of the industrial areas within the most urbanized watershed in Canada. This is what it would look like with a few plants.

Sparkly!

Once I read a book called The World Without Us. When we leave, plants move in. Yesterday I went for a long walk and talked a lot about the plant communities in cultural meadows, the ecosystems that grow up when we abandon agricultural fields or expansive lawns. This is exactly what happens.


I hope there will be no snakes!