Podcasts about butterfly pavilion

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, hosts Seth Fleischauer, Allyson Mitchell, and Tami Moehring welcome Jillian Luciow from the Butterfly Pavilion in Denver (Jillian from the Pavilion!). They explore how live virtual learning programs bring invertebrates like butterflies, tarantulas, and crabs into classrooms through engaging, curriculum-aligned content.Key Topics Discussed:Butterfly Pavilion Overview: Jillian shares how the Pavilion is the world's first AZA-accredited invertebrate-only zoo, showcasing diverse species beyond butterflies.Live Virtual Programs: From close-up encounters with tarantulas to life cycle lessons, Jillian explains how Butterfly Pavilion's virtual offerings align with educational standards and bring unique learning opportunities to classrooms worldwide.Technology & Innovation: The conversation dives into how high-definition cameras, and digital microscopes bring these tiny creatures to life in a digital environment.Memorable Moments: Jillian shares stories of “golden moments” when students' curiosity sparks during live animal interactions.De-Ickification of Invertebrates: The goal is to help students appreciate the importance of often-overlooked creatures like cockroaches and tarantulas, fostering a love for nature.Tune in to this episode to discover how virtual field trips and hands-on experiences with invertebrates can transform learning. Explore more about Butterfly Pavilion's offerings at butterflies.org.About the Guest:Jillian Luciow is the virtual and school programs coordinator at the Butterfly Pavilion, where she develops and leads engaging educational content. With a background in history and public engagement, she brings a unique perspective to connecting students with the natural world through live virtual learning.Host Links:Discover more virtual learning opportunities and resources at CILC.org with Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell.Seth Fleischauer's Banyan Global Learning builds cultural and digital competencies in students to prepare them for an interconnected and changing world.

Learn how 350 Colorado can help you become a climate activist, or have more fun and be more effective if you're already an activist. Chelsea Alexander and Melissa Burrell share what 350 Colorado is and does, and then drill down to some activities and events coming up in Colorado Springs and Pueblo. 350.org. 350 Colorado is the largest Colorado-based grassroots network focused on taking action to stop climate change. It's an independent state affiliate of 350.org, the well-known global organization. After listening, you'll understand why 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben said, “It's hard to imagine a place more important to the climate fight than Colorado.” In this episode: Melissa BurrellDenver, Boulder, & CO Springs Team Coordinator, 350 Colorado Chelsea AlexanderMovement Building & Volunteer Director, 350 Colorado Dave Gardner, Peak Environment Host Learn more and plug in at https://350colorado.org/ or find @350Colorado on social media  Join 350 Colorado, The Butterfly Pavilion, Rocky Mountain Bee Supply, Cronk Art, Rick's Garden Center, Pikes Peak Beekeepers Association, Heroes To Hives, and The Horticulture Society at: Pollinating Climate ActionAugust 4, 2024  2 to 7 pmSoda Springs Park (at farmers market)Manitou Springs, COInfo & RSVP: https://secure.ngpvan.com/Yr2N45vPpUeOCLrrqK6oTA2 Contact Melissa for Colorado Springs specific questions or suggestionsmelissa@350colorado.org Contact Chelsea, as wellchelsea@350colorado.org Thanks to these Peak Environment underwriters: Pikes Peak Permaculture https://www.pikespeakpermaculture.org/ Old Town Bike Shop https://www.oldtownbikeshop.com/ The following environment/sustainability organizations in the Pikes Peak region collaborate to produce the Peak Environment podcast about environmental stewardship, sustainable living and enlightened public policy in the Pikes Peak Region. Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future https://peakallianceco.org/ Pikes Peak Permaculture https://www.pikespeakpermaculture.org/ GrowthBusters https://www.growthbusters.org Keep up with all the organizations and events making our area a better place to live. Follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode:    

Dress like a flower! We're taking a trip to the Natural History Museum of LA County today so we can check out the "Butterfly Pavilion." It's something that happens over a few months and it's a chance to learn about all sorts of butterflies. Why do we need them? Are they really that delicate? And how does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly? We're back with a previous guest from the old "I've Got Questions" podcast -- spread your wings and enjoy!

Hello Listener, This month, we discuss butterflies and the Smithsonian Butterfly Pavilion at National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. with  Arthur Earle.Arthur answers all our questions about the behind-the-scenes part of running a butterfly show.  We talk about why butterflies are important. Arthur gives us some fun butterfly facts about poop and why butterflies like booze.  This month we skipped the Native Plant of the Month, Bug of the Month, and Garden Tips of the Month. We currently have an open survey for ALL listeners, whether you've listened to all of our episodes or this is your first time. We developed an evaluation to find out if the information we share on the podcast has made a difference in your practices at home. We promise that it is a short, easy 5-minute survey, and we even have exclusive podcast stickers to give to those who participate. We are so thankful for the feedback, and we appreciate you tuning in for the podcast! You can take our survey here.  If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at UMEGardenPodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GardenThymePodcas. For more information about UME and these topics, please check out the UME Home and Garden Information Center and Maryland Grows Blog at https://marylandgrows.umd.edu/. The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Principal Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture, Rachel Rhodes- Senior Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County), and Emily Zobel-Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).Theme Song: By Jason Inc, University programs, activities, and facilities are available to all without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, national origin, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, religion, protected veteran status, genetic information, personal appearance, or any other legally protected class. 

Amy King hosts your Thursday Wake Up Call. ABC News correspondent Steven Portnoy joins the show to discuss Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene officially filing her motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson andthe Biden administration pausing weapons shipments to Israel. Amy talks about the kind of cars that are most likely to get tagged for speeding and a kitten found on a train now up for adoption. Amy takes us ‘Out and About' to the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum and speaks with Lisa Gonzalez, the Program Manager of Living Invertebrates. The show closes with Space Force Guardian Col. Nick Hague.

Amy takes us ‘Out and About' to the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum and speaks with Lisa Gonzalez, the Program Manager of Living Invertebrates.Watch butterflies take flight around you in this seasonal exhibition:https://nhm.org/experience-nhm/exhibitions-natural-history-museum/butterfly-pavilion

A storm is bringing more winterlike conditions to Southern California, as thunderstorms, hail and flooding are possible this Easter weekend. We check in with Dodgers fans about the Shohei Otani scandal as the team continues a series against the St. Louis Cardinals. And you can see hundred of colorful butterfly species all in one place at the Natural History Museum's Butterfly Pavilion.Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com.  Support the show: https://laist.com

In this episode we talk with Sara Stevens (Director of Animal Collections at Butterfly Pavilion) who is on location in the Florida Keys as coral preservation and restoration efforts are underway.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode our special guest, Sara Stevens from The Butterfly Pavilion talks about Florida Reef Tract recovery efforts, her fear of centipedes, rare invertebrate poaching and more! Butterfly Pavilion Website: https://butterflies.org/ Use the code "RT10" at http://ICP-Analysis.com for 10% off your next ICP test! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new program at the Denver-area Butterfly Pavilion focuses on helping pollinator-friendly communities.

The Moab Museum wants to help you record oral histories from the community. The museum loans equipment for free and periodically hosts workshops to teach people how to collect the best stories. Plus we hear from our partners about preparations for the spring runoff at Lake Mead, a governmental program to pay water users to scale back, and a trip to The Butterfly Pavilion in Colorado. Photo: A Grand Heritage: Stories from the Oral History Archive is on display at the Moab Museum until the end of April. Show Notes: //KUNC: An extra boost of water is flowing into Grand Canyon after a wet winter https://www.upr.org/environment/2023-04-27/an-extra-boost-of-water-is-flowing-into-grand-canyon-after-a-wet-winter //KGNU: Will the government pay water users to scale back to boost Lake Mead? https://www.ksjd.org/podcast/ksjd-local-newscasts/2023-04-26/ksjd-local-newscast-april-26-2023 //KSJD: The Butterfly Pavilion near Denver supports pollinator conservation efforts locally and globally https://www.ksjd.org/2023-04-26/the-butterfly-pavilion-near-denver-supports-pollinator-conservation-efforts-locally-and-globally

On today’s Morning Magazine, we'll go to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster to hear about the work they do locally and abroad. After that, City Cast Denver speaks to an urban planner about transforming suburban sprawl into dense and walkable “15 […]

Did you know that 97% of all animal species are invertebrates?  Explore the real butterfly effect with two experts from the Butterfly Pavilion, Dr. Rich Reading and Shiran Hershcovich, as we discuss pollination, butterfly farms, and how a community can come together to study animals.OneWildPodcast.comSupport the show

I love getting feedback about the podcast, and in May, within days of each other, I received some interesting and overlapping suggestions. One listener said "I enjoy the deep dives into different taxa or environments, but I also really enjoyed some of your earlier episodes where you had people with different ways of engaging with nature, such as the standup paddleboard guest" (Christian Shaw, who was drawing attention to plastic pollution). And a former guest gave me similar feedback, along the lines of wanting to hear from guests with "different relationships with nature".My guest today will make both of those listeners happy, and hopefully you, too. She's inspiring, she has a wealth of knowledge in environmental education and natural sciences, and has charted a unique path. My guest is none other than Parker McMullen Bushman, also known as Kweenwerk on social media!Today's discussion might very well be the widest ranging that I've had to date. Parker tells us how to connect with everyone about nature, beginning with Parker's unique journey that led her to getting a Master's degree of science and natural resources, focused on environmental education and interpretation. She's worked in marine sciences and was Vice President of Community Engagement, Education, and Inclusivity at the famous Butterfly Pavilion.Parker gives many examples of how she and her organizations reached people that had been thought to be difficult to reach. If you are a nature communicator - and I think nearly all of us are, even if only with our family and friends - you'll walk away from this episode with some new tools in your toolkit. After 25 years in environmental education, Parker's personal and life experience led her to an even bigger calling - founding The Inclusive Guide. It's an online crowdsourced review service, like Yelp, but focusing on safety, accessibility, and inclusion. The guide is for everyone, regardless of race or identity, and covers not only businesses but also parks, outdoor spaces, nature centers, and more.Check The Inclusive Guide, and if you are inspired, contribute to their gofundme. Reach the Inclusive Guide by email at hello@inclusiveguide.com, instagram or twitter.Follow Parker on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter as Kweenwerk, or LinkedIn.And stay tuned until the end to hear about a roly poly the size of a football see a video here!FULL SHOW NOTESBlack Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry by Camille DungyButterfly PavilionCrystal Egli Inclusive Guide cofounderThe Diverse Green ProjectEcoInclusive Parker's consultancy and training organizationThe Inclusive GuideOutdoor Afro  a not-for-profit that celebrates and inspires Black connections and leadership in nature.Support the show

Hannah Grant, with the Animal Law Firm, interviews Catherine Makofsky, a Colorado State University alumni who has experience as a Predator Ridge Animal Care intern at the Denver Zoo, a Lepidopterist intern at the Butterfly Pavilion, as well as participating in the PSM graduate program for Zoo, Aquarium, and Animal Shelter Management at CSU. Listen in as we focus on her work at the Denver Zoo, discussing conservation, the zoo industry, animal rehabilitation, public education, and so much more! This podcast will make you want to visit your nearest zoo as soon as possible! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Welcome to Episode #337 of the 303 Endurance Podcast. You are listening to your weekly connection to coaches, experts, and pro athletes to help you reach your endurance goals. We're your hosts coach Rich Soares and 303 Chief Bill Plock. Thanks for joining us for another week of endurance interviews and discussion.   Format recently has been less interview focused.   Show Sponsor: UCAN Take your performance to the next level with UCAN Energy and Bars made with SuperStarch®  UCAN uses SuperStarch instead of simple sugars to fuel athletes.  UCAN keeps blood sugar steady compared to the energy spikes and crashes of sugar-based products.  Steady energy equals sustained performance!   Use UCAN in your training and racing to fuel the healthy way, finish stronger and recover more quickly!  Use the code 303UCAN for 20% off at ucan.co/discount/303UCAN/ or ucan.co     In Today's Show Feature Coaching Topic How Consistency Makes You Faster Endurance News New Garmin Varia RCT715 tail light has a camera to record your crashes What's new in the 303 Colorado Connections in Costa Rica Video of the Week Coast to Coast Costa Rica   Training Discussion: Consistency Is Key   Last week I spoke about how regular testing of your threshold intensities in each discipline will keep training zones current to make sure you are training at the correct intensities. In that discussion I used the example of training in your threshold training intensity zone. If you want to increase your threshold power you need to train at that Z4 Threshold zone to train your body to process muscle lactate efficiently. The more time you spend in that zone, the more adaptation you get. Without the FTP number or accurate substitute, you may be training in the wrong zone (eg Z3 or Z5), neither of which create the same adaptation of teaching your body to improve lactate processing and increasing your capacity to do work.   I also mentioned that training regularly and progressively overloading the correct training zones over the course of 3 weeks will set you up on the 4th week for your retest. If things are working, the next FTP test is at a higher average power than the one 4 weeks earlier. You then adjust the training zones. In this case increasing the power ranges for each zone. Another 3 weeks of training at the new (accurate) zones causes another adaptation, another test, another increase, another adjustment to training zones, etc.   This week I'd like to build on that concept and talk about the importance of consistency in training and how inconsistency can sabotage the process and will likely result in no improvement in the month over month testing.   Lets first discuss the concept of progressive overload and we'll use a simple example. Last week we used training at threshold as the example, but I want to be clear that the concept of progressive overload to achieve adaptation is not limited to the threshold training zone. If we break it down to a fundamental level, there are just a few adaptations that we are trying to affect in our training. We want to adapt our body to have greater endurance (go longer) and we want adapt our speed (go faster). The faster we go for longer, the better our race performances will be.   To improve our endurance, we want to be more efficient at an aerobic intensity. To improve our speed, we want to have a higher anaerobic capacity. Besides doing "field testing" like the Swim CSS, Bike FTP and Run TT, one scientific way to test is how well the body processes muscle lactate. If you've ever done a Lactate Threshold Test (LTT), here's how the test administrator interprets the lactate measurement to determine your training zones.   The LTT is performed by starting the athlete a warmup at a very easy intensity. We'll use the run discipline for this example. The athlete will walk on a treadmill for 10 minutes before starting the test and once the test starts, the intensity is increased every 2 minutes. At the beginning of the 10 minutes, the test administrator takes 4 metrics - pace, rate of perceived exertion (RPE), heart rate (HR) and lactate millimoles per liter of blood with a blood sample and lab kit. The lactate compared to the pace is the primary metric and the HR and RPE are secondary but useful to confirm and interpret the data. The administrator takes those same 4 metrics at the end of the 10 minutes and every 2 minutes there after. Every 2 minutes the treadmill pace is increased by 30 seconds of pace (11:00, 10:30, 10:00, 9:30 and so on).   There are two key inflection points the test administrator is looking for. When the intensity is increased and the lactate level remains the same as the previous level means that the subject athlete is predominantly aerobic (zones 1-2). When the lactate level increases and levels out after each increase the athlete is in between aerobic and anaerobic (zone 3). When the lactate level continues to rise without an increase to intensity, the athlete is above lactate threshold (zone 4-5).   Let's set aside other adaptations like muscle and tendon strength and flexibility as well as other adaptations to prevent injury. To achieve greater aerobic efficiency and aerobic capacity requires consistent and  progressive overload dosing of aerobic and anaerobic training. Think of dosing as the number of minutes in each zone that we are trying to affect. The following example is conceptual, but can be extrapolated to fit a training plan for different distance events or performance goals.   Assume that your baseline of training is 200 minutes in aerobic training the week before your last threshold test. To progressive overload dosing, you would increase the load of training over the next 3 weeks as 210, 220 and 230 minutes. It's the same with anaerobic adaptions. Assume you had 20 minutes of anaerobic training in the week before your last test. To progressively overload the dosing of anaerobic training, you may increase that as 43, 46 and 49 over then next three weeks.   A well designed training plan will have this progressive overload concept built into the cumulative training for each week over the course of the weeks between tests. Each training session will have a goal number of minutes for specific training zones which collectively make up the dosing for the week. Using the previous example of threshold dosing, let's assume there were two run training sessions in week 1 that cumulatively added up to 23 minutes of threshold dosing and you nailed the total of 43 minutes. In week 2 your goal was to achieve 46 minutes and assume there were again 2 sessions that totaled 46 minutes of threshold. The first session prescribed 20 minutes, which you nailed.   Lets assume you cut the second session and instead of 23 minutes of threshold you only get in 10 minutes, resulting in 30 total minutes for the 2nd week. Even if you nail the 3rd week of 49 minutes, you have interrupted the progressive overload process. Just looking at the run threshold stress load for each week, the minutes of threshold dosing in minutes would be 43 for week 1, 30 for week 2, and 49 for week 3; 43, 20 and 49. The training stress is inconsistent and the body's reaction to the stress will likely stagnate resulting in plateauing performance.   Cutting workouts short or missing the  altogether across a single or all disciplines can sabotage your adaptations, training progress and race performance. There is another problem as well. When you miss or cut training stress short, your body is less prepared for subsequent training. When you try to do that next harder week of training, you can potentially present more stress than the body is prepared for, which can lead to risk of injury. Athletes will try to make up for missed workouts by adding the missed training. Using the previous example, imagine if you tried to add the missed 16 minutes to the 3rd week and did 46, 20 and 65 (49+16), the risk of injury becomes even greater.    Training software helps athletes by converting training dosing into training stress scores across each discipline to help you track your progress and consistency. Some even weight higher intensities with a higher stress coefficient. This will give you visibility to the inconsistency but its after the fact. One of the things I like about TriDot is that it makes the goal dosing in minutes for each training zone visible before the workout. Most workouts will have a warmup, main set and cooldown, each with goal minutes by zone. The workouts can be pushed to your Garmin or other device and alert you if you are out of the prescribed intensity zone, helping you achieve the goal training stress. TriDot gives the athlete a training execution score called TrainX. If the athlete follows the prescribed training and consistently get high TrainX scores, they get faster results with fewer injuries.   If you want to talk further about how to train consistently to get better results, reach out at Rich@303colorado.com or message me @tripodcasterrich.   Check out the TriDot Free Trial https://app.tridot.com/onboard/sign-up/richsoares   Our News is sponsored by Buddy Insurance. Buddy Insurance gives you peace of mind to enjoy your training and racing to the fullest. Buddy's mission is simple, to help people fearlessly enjoy an active and outdoor lifestyle.    Get on-demand accident insurance just in case the unexpected happens. Buddy ensures you have cash for bills fast.  This is accident insurance not health and life insurance.  Go to buddyinsurance.com and create an account.  There's no commitment or charge to create one.  Once you have an account created, it's a snap to open your phone and in a couple clicks have coverage for the day.  Check it out!   Endurance News:   New Garmin Varia RCT715 tail light has a camera to record your crashes The Varia's high-definition camera will record everything behind you and its radar will alert you to approaching vehicles. Garmin has released the Varia RCT715, a new version of its tail light that features a high-definition camera to record any incidents out on the road.   The Varia RCT715 features the same radar technology as its predecessors. When paired with a Garmin bike computer or smartwatch, the Varia will alert users to vehicles approaching from behind up to 140m away. Garmin says the device can be paired with selected cycling apps such as Ride with GPS. This will enable users to overlay maps with the radar notifications.   Garmin claims the Varia RCT715's tail light can be seen up to one mile away in daylight. The camera records continuously and will save footage if an incident is detected. Garmin says the Varia's camera will “capture sharp, clear footage” at up 1080 pixels and 30 frames per second.   The camera will record constantly when the Varia is in use. If an incident is detected, via Garmin's Incident Detection feature, the camera will automatically save footage from before, during and after the event. According to Dan Bartel, Garmin's vice president of global consumer sales, this is to provide users with evidence of an incident “should they ever need it”.   However, the camera also provides more recreational functions, in line with how you might use a GoPro. Via the Garmin Varia app, users can access the video footage, transfer files and customise the camera's settings, to do things such as overlay data, including speed and location.   Garmin says the use of the camera will be prohibited or regulated in some jurisdictions, adding that it is the responsibility of the user to know and comply with applicable laws and rights to privacy. While Garmin has added a camera to the Varia, it has retained the radar and tail light functionality of the device.   Like the previous Garmin Varia RTL515, the radar on the new version will still detect and alert users to vehicles approaching from behind to the same distance of 140m.   Similarly, the tail light on the new version is said to be visible up to one mile away in daylight, which is the same as the Varia RTL515. But while the RTL515 has a claimed battery life of up to 16 hours, the RCT715 has a shorter claimed battery life.   The Varia RCT715's battery life is said to be up to four hours with radar and the tail light on ‘solid high' or ‘night flash', and up to six hours with the light flashing. The reduction in battery life is presumably because the camera is recording continuously.   Why Running at Night Feels Harder An interesting new study by researchers at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology, working with the Swedish military and colleagues in Slovenia. They'd noticed that soldiers on night marches seemed to burn more energy than would be expected from the physical demands of the mission, especially when wearing night-vision goggles that restrict peripheral vision. They wondered whether not being able to see forced the soldiers to alter their strides, sacrificing efficiency for stability, so they decided to test this theory.   The new study, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, had 15 volunteers do a series of ten-minute treadmill walks in four conditions: with and without a 56-pound pack, and with and without a blindfold on. The treadmill was set at a comfortable pace of around 30 minutes per mile, with a laser warning system to alert them if they were about to fall off the back of the treadmill.   The results showed that oxygen use (a proxy for energy consumption), breathing, and heart rate all increased substantially when wearing the heavy pack, as you'd expect. The surprise was that they increased by nearly the same amount when adding a blindfold. Here are the graphs of those three parameters, with (circles) or without (squares) the blindfold:   If you compare the circles on the left (i.e. blindfolded with no backpack) to the squares on the right (i.e. not blindfolded with a backpack), you see they're almost the same. In other words, walking with a blindfold takes as much extra effort as walking with a 56-pound pack. To be precise, the backpack increased oxygen consumption by 20 percent, while blindfolding increased oxygen consumption 19 percent.   The explanation for this effect seems to be that the subjects adjusted their strides when blindfolded: their steps got 11 percent shorter and 6 percent wider, and they also lifted their feet 18 percent higher. Bear in mind that this is on a perfectly flat treadmill, so there are no bumps or potholes to avoid: this is just an instinctive response. It's also worth noting that the effect probably isn't just because they're unfamiliar with the challenge of walking while blindfolded: a similar test of blind subjects found that they burned about 25 percent more energy while walking than sighted controls.   Of course, being blindfolded is significantly more disruptive than wearing night goggles, or simply being out at night in poorly lit conditions. That means the size of the effect is probably exaggerated. And walking is different from running. But it seems reasonable to assume that similar mechanisms are at work when you're running in the dark—along with other, more subtle mechanisms like optic flow, which is the pattern of objects flowing through your vision as you move through space.   When you're running or cycling in the dark, you can only see objects that are relatively close to you. That means that they appear in your field of vision only briefly before disappearing behind you, which corresponds to faster optic flow than you'd experience in daylight. A few previous studies, most notably those by Dave Parry and Dominic Micklewright of the University of Essex, have tried manipulating optic flow in virtual reality setups, making the scenery fly past more quickly or slowly than the speed of the treadmill or exercise bike. Sure enough, when optic flow is faster—as you'd experience in dark conditions—you feel like you're moving faster, and any given pace feels harder.   There's an interesting corollary to these findings about optic flow, as Parry explained to Runner's World's Scott Douglas back in 2012. “Running in an environment where most of the visual reference points you can see are close by, you experience a greater sensation of speed than when in an environment where your reference points are far away,” he said. That means running through a forest or through city streets will likely feel faster than running across an open field.   Ever since reading about those optical flow results, I've dismissed the gap between my actual and perceived pace during night runs as a quirk of how my brain estimates effort. During most of my runs, that gap doesn't matter—but if I'm trying to do a tempo run or hard workout before sunrise, the slower pace can be a bummer. So I'll take the new Swedish results as reassurance that night running might really be physiologically harder, not just a brain error—and if that's what it takes to avoid tripping in the dark, I'll accept the trade-off.   What's New in the 303: Costa Rica Leatherback Turtle Conservation Butterfly farm and the Butterfly Pavilion in Broomfield, bats, bugs, In room spiders, centipedes, roaches, beetles, crabs, bats Monkeys (spider, white faced and howler) Cuati and racoon   Bill's updates   Video of the Week: Costa Rica Coast to Coast, Highlights 2022       Closing: Good luck to those racing Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga and Ironman Tulsa this weekend! Thanks again for listening in this week.  Please be sure to follow us @303endurance and of course go to iTunes and give us a rating and a comment.  We'd really appreciate it! Stay tuned, train informed, and enjoy the endurance journey!

Welcome to Episode #337 of the 303 Endurance Podcast. You are listening to your weekly connection to coaches, experts, and pro athletes to help you reach your endurance goals. We're your hosts coach Rich Soares and 303 Chief Bill Plock. Thanks for joining us for another week of endurance interviews and discussion.   Format recently has been less interview focused.   Show Sponsor: UCAN Take your performance to the next level with UCAN Energy and Bars made with SuperStarch®  UCAN uses SuperStarch instead of simple sugars to fuel athletes.  UCAN keeps blood sugar steady compared to the energy spikes and crashes of sugar-based products.  Steady energy equals sustained performance!   Use UCAN in your training and racing to fuel the healthy way, finish stronger and recover more quickly!  Use the code 303UCAN for 20% off at ucan.co/discount/303UCAN/ or ucan.co     In Today's Show Feature Coaching Topic How Consistency Makes You Faster Endurance News New Garmin Varia RCT715 tail light has a camera to record your crashes What's new in the 303 Colorado Connections in Costa Rica Video of the Week Coast to Coast Costa Rica   Training Discussion: Consistency Is Key   Last week I spoke about how regular testing of your threshold intensities in each discipline will keep training zones current to make sure you are training at the correct intensities. In that discussion I used the example of training in your threshold training intensity zone. If you want to increase your threshold power you need to train at that Z4 Threshold zone to train your body to process muscle lactate efficiently. The more time you spend in that zone, the more adaptation you get. Without the FTP number or accurate substitute, you may be training in the wrong zone (eg Z3 or Z5), neither of which create the same adaptation of teaching your body to improve lactate processing and increasing your capacity to do work.   I also mentioned that training regularly and progressively overloading the correct training zones over the course of 3 weeks will set you up on the 4th week for your retest. If things are working, the next FTP test is at a higher average power than the one 4 weeks earlier. You then adjust the training zones. In this case increasing the power ranges for each zone. Another 3 weeks of training at the new (accurate) zones causes another adaptation, another test, another increase, another adjustment to training zones, etc.   This week I'd like to build on that concept and talk about the importance of consistency in training and how inconsistency can sabotage the process and will likely result in no improvement in the month over month testing.   Lets first discuss the concept of progressive overload and we'll use a simple example. Last week we used training at threshold as the example, but I want to be clear that the concept of progressive overload to achieve adaptation is not limited to the threshold training zone. If we break it down to a fundamental level, there are just a few adaptations that we are trying to affect in our training. We want to adapt our body to have greater endurance (go longer) and we want adapt our speed (go faster). The faster we go for longer, the better our race performances will be.   To improve our endurance, we want to be more efficient at an aerobic intensity. To improve our speed, we want to have a higher anaerobic capacity. Besides doing "field testing" like the Swim CSS, Bike FTP and Run TT, one scientific way to test is how well the body processes muscle lactate. If you've ever done a Lactate Threshold Test (LTT), here's how the test administrator interprets the lactate measurement to determine your training zones.   The LTT is performed by starting the athlete a warmup at a very easy intensity. We'll use the run discipline for this example. The athlete will walk on a treadmill for 10 minutes before starting the test and once the test starts, the intensity is increased every 2 minutes. At the beginning of the 10 minutes, the test administrator takes 4 metrics - pace, rate of perceived exertion (RPE), heart rate (HR) and lactate millimoles per liter of blood with a blood sample and lab kit. The lactate compared to the pace is the primary metric and the HR and RPE are secondary but useful to confirm and interpret the data. The administrator takes those same 4 metrics at the end of the 10 minutes and every 2 minutes there after. Every 2 minutes the treadmill pace is increased by 30 seconds of pace (11:00, 10:30, 10:00, 9:30 and so on).   There are two key inflection points the test administrator is looking for. When the intensity is increased and the lactate level remains the same as the previous level means that the subject athlete is predominantly aerobic (zones 1-2). When the lactate level increases and levels out after each increase the athlete is in between aerobic and anaerobic (zone 3). When the lactate level continues to rise without an increase to intensity, the athlete is above lactate threshold (zone 4-5).   Let's set aside other adaptations like muscle and tendon strength and flexibility as well as other adaptations to prevent injury. To achieve greater aerobic efficiency and aerobic capacity requires consistent and  progressive overload dosing of aerobic and anaerobic training. Think of dosing as the number of minutes in each zone that we are trying to affect. The following example is conceptual, but can be extrapolated to fit a training plan for different distance events or performance goals.   Assume that your baseline of training is 200 minutes in aerobic training the week before your last threshold test. To progressive overload dosing, you would increase the load of training over the next 3 weeks as 210, 220 and 230 minutes. It's the same with anaerobic adaptions. Assume you had 20 minutes of anaerobic training in the week before your last test. To progressively overload the dosing of anaerobic training, you may increase that as 43, 46 and 49 over then next three weeks.   A well designed training plan will have this progressive overload concept built into the cumulative training for each week over the course of the weeks between tests. Each training session will have a goal number of minutes for specific training zones which collectively make up the dosing for the week. Using the previous example of threshold dosing, let's assume there were two run training sessions in week 1 that cumulatively added up to 23 minutes of threshold dosing and you nailed the total of 43 minutes. In week 2 your goal was to achieve 46 minutes and assume there were again 2 sessions that totaled 46 minutes of threshold. The first session prescribed 20 minutes, which you nailed.   Lets assume you cut the second session and instead of 23 minutes of threshold you only get in 10 minutes, resulting in 30 total minutes for the 2nd week. Even if you nail the 3rd week of 49 minutes, you have interrupted the progressive overload process. Just looking at the run threshold stress load for each week, the minutes of threshold dosing in minutes would be 43 for week 1, 30 for week 2, and 49 for week 3; 43, 20 and 49. The training stress is inconsistent and the body's reaction to the stress will likely stagnate resulting in plateauing performance.   Cutting workouts short or missing the  altogether across a single or all disciplines can sabotage your adaptations, training progress and race performance. There is another problem as well. When you miss or cut training stress short, your body is less prepared for subsequent training. When you try to do that next harder week of training, you can potentially present more stress than the body is prepared for, which can lead to risk of injury. Athletes will try to make up for missed workouts by adding the missed training. Using the previous example, imagine if you tried to add the missed 16 minutes to the 3rd week and did 46, 20 and 65 (49+16), the risk of injury becomes even greater.    Training software helps athletes by converting training dosing into training stress scores across each discipline to help you track your progress and consistency. Some even weight higher intensities with a higher stress coefficient. This will give you visibility to the inconsistency but its after the fact. One of the things I like about TriDot is that it makes the goal dosing in minutes for each training zone visible before the workout. Most workouts will have a warmup, main set and cooldown, each with goal minutes by zone. The workouts can be pushed to your Garmin or other device and alert you if you are out of the prescribed intensity zone, helping you achieve the goal training stress. TriDot gives the athlete a training execution score called TrainX. If the athlete follows the prescribed training and consistently get high TrainX scores, they get faster results with fewer injuries.   If you want to talk further about how to train consistently to get better results, reach out at Rich@303colorado.com or message me @tripodcasterrich.   Check out the TriDot Free Trial https://app.tridot.com/onboard/sign-up/richsoares   Our News is sponsored by Buddy Insurance. Buddy Insurance gives you peace of mind to enjoy your training and racing to the fullest. Buddy's mission is simple, to help people fearlessly enjoy an active and outdoor lifestyle.    Get on-demand accident insurance just in case the unexpected happens. Buddy ensures you have cash for bills fast.  This is accident insurance not health and life insurance.  Go to buddyinsurance.com and create an account.  There's no commitment or charge to create one.  Once you have an account created, it's a snap to open your phone and in a couple clicks have coverage for the day.  Check it out!   Endurance News:   New Garmin Varia RCT715 tail light has a camera to record your crashes The Varia's high-definition camera will record everything behind you and its radar will alert you to approaching vehicles. Garmin has released the Varia RCT715, a new version of its tail light that features a high-definition camera to record any incidents out on the road.   The Varia RCT715 features the same radar technology as its predecessors. When paired with a Garmin bike computer or smartwatch, the Varia will alert users to vehicles approaching from behind up to 140m away. Garmin says the device can be paired with selected cycling apps such as Ride with GPS. This will enable users to overlay maps with the radar notifications.   Garmin claims the Varia RCT715's tail light can be seen up to one mile away in daylight. The camera records continuously and will save footage if an incident is detected. Garmin says the Varia's camera will “capture sharp, clear footage” at up 1080 pixels and 30 frames per second.   The camera will record constantly when the Varia is in use. If an incident is detected, via Garmin's Incident Detection feature, the camera will automatically save footage from before, during and after the event. According to Dan Bartel, Garmin's vice president of global consumer sales, this is to provide users with evidence of an incident “should they ever need it”.   However, the camera also provides more recreational functions, in line with how you might use a GoPro. Via the Garmin Varia app, users can access the video footage, transfer files and customise the camera's settings, to do things such as overlay data, including speed and location.   Garmin says the use of the camera will be prohibited or regulated in some jurisdictions, adding that it is the responsibility of the user to know and comply with applicable laws and rights to privacy. While Garmin has added a camera to the Varia, it has retained the radar and tail light functionality of the device.   Like the previous Garmin Varia RTL515, the radar on the new version will still detect and alert users to vehicles approaching from behind to the same distance of 140m.   Similarly, the tail light on the new version is said to be visible up to one mile away in daylight, which is the same as the Varia RTL515. But while the RTL515 has a claimed battery life of up to 16 hours, the RCT715 has a shorter claimed battery life.   The Varia RCT715's battery life is said to be up to four hours with radar and the tail light on ‘solid high' or ‘night flash', and up to six hours with the light flashing. The reduction in battery life is presumably because the camera is recording continuously.   Why Running at Night Feels Harder An interesting new study by researchers at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology, working with the Swedish military and colleagues in Slovenia. They'd noticed that soldiers on night marches seemed to burn more energy than would be expected from the physical demands of the mission, especially when wearing night-vision goggles that restrict peripheral vision. They wondered whether not being able to see forced the soldiers to alter their strides, sacrificing efficiency for stability, so they decided to test this theory.   The new study, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, had 15 volunteers do a series of ten-minute treadmill walks in four conditions: with and without a 56-pound pack, and with and without a blindfold on. The treadmill was set at a comfortable pace of around 30 minutes per mile, with a laser warning system to alert them if they were about to fall off the back of the treadmill.   The results showed that oxygen use (a proxy for energy consumption), breathing, and heart rate all increased substantially when wearing the heavy pack, as you'd expect. The surprise was that they increased by nearly the same amount when adding a blindfold. Here are the graphs of those three parameters, with (circles) or without (squares) the blindfold:   If you compare the circles on the left (i.e. blindfolded with no backpack) to the squares on the right (i.e. not blindfolded with a backpack), you see they're almost the same. In other words, walking with a blindfold takes as much extra effort as walking with a 56-pound pack. To be precise, the backpack increased oxygen consumption by 20 percent, while blindfolding increased oxygen consumption 19 percent.   The explanation for this effect seems to be that the subjects adjusted their strides when blindfolded: their steps got 11 percent shorter and 6 percent wider, and they also lifted their feet 18 percent higher. Bear in mind that this is on a perfectly flat treadmill, so there are no bumps or potholes to avoid: this is just an instinctive response. It's also worth noting that the effect probably isn't just because they're unfamiliar with the challenge of walking while blindfolded: a similar test of blind subjects found that they burned about 25 percent more energy while walking than sighted controls.   Of course, being blindfolded is significantly more disruptive than wearing night goggles, or simply being out at night in poorly lit conditions. That means the size of the effect is probably exaggerated. And walking is different from running. But it seems reasonable to assume that similar mechanisms are at work when you're running in the dark—along with other, more subtle mechanisms like optic flow, which is the pattern of objects flowing through your vision as you move through space.   When you're running or cycling in the dark, you can only see objects that are relatively close to you. That means that they appear in your field of vision only briefly before disappearing behind you, which corresponds to faster optic flow than you'd experience in daylight. A few previous studies, most notably those by Dave Parry and Dominic Micklewright of the University of Essex, have tried manipulating optic flow in virtual reality setups, making the scenery fly past more quickly or slowly than the speed of the treadmill or exercise bike. Sure enough, when optic flow is faster—as you'd experience in dark conditions—you feel like you're moving faster, and any given pace feels harder.   There's an interesting corollary to these findings about optic flow, as Parry explained to Runner's World's Scott Douglas back in 2012. “Running in an environment where most of the visual reference points you can see are close by, you experience a greater sensation of speed than when in an environment where your reference points are far away,” he said. That means running through a forest or through city streets will likely feel faster than running across an open field.   Ever since reading about those optical flow results, I've dismissed the gap between my actual and perceived pace during night runs as a quirk of how my brain estimates effort. During most of my runs, that gap doesn't matter—but if I'm trying to do a tempo run or hard workout before sunrise, the slower pace can be a bummer. So I'll take the new Swedish results as reassurance that night running might really be physiologically harder, not just a brain error—and if that's what it takes to avoid tripping in the dark, I'll accept the trade-off.   What's New in the 303: Costa Rica Leatherback Turtle Conservation Butterfly farm and the Butterfly Pavilion in Broomfield, bats, bugs, In room spiders, centipedes, roaches, beetles, crabs, bats Monkeys (spider, white faced and howler) Cuati and racoon   Bill's updates   Video of the Week: Costa Rica Coast to Coast, Highlights 2022       Closing: Good luck to those racing Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga and Ironman Tulsa this weekend! Thanks again for listening in this week.  Please be sure to follow us @303endurance and of course go to iTunes and give us a rating and a comment.  We'd really appreciate it! Stay tuned, train informed, and enjoy the endurance journey!

Todays guest is Jackie Billotte, M.S. who is currently working on her PHD in the entomology department at Colorado State and received her Masters in Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnology from the University of Colorado. We have an in depth conversation about the current research into mapping the genetic sequences of tarantulas for many different applications in research, the possible medicinal value of tarantula venom and the disease it could treat or prevent, and how all this research is used to further the conservation of tarantulas in the wild. We also discuss what we can do as tarantula keepers to get involved in conservation and bridge the gap between the tarantula hobby, tarantula research, and tarantula conservation! It sounds very technical, but it was actually a  very fun and interesting conversation I am sure you will enjoy listening to!LINKS REFERENCED IN THE PODCAST:Jackie Billotte's website: https://jackiebillotte.weebly.com/Butterfly Pavilion: https://butterflies.org/ Dr. Ruth Hufbauer's site: http://www.hufbauerlab.org/ Greenville Zoo: https://www.greenvillezoo.com/ Southern Plains Land Trust: https://southernplains.org/ Colorado Arachnid Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/380343932143412/ Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/The_Tarantula_Collective)

Tarantulas aren't just large, slow-moving, articulate hair chucking arachnids. They are also a wealth of potential when it comes to pain killing venom. In other words, these gentle killers could be holding the solution to all our Chronic Pain problems. Join Misty as she reminisces about visiting Rosie at the Butterfly Pavilion, travels the Eastern Plains of Colorado to learn an appreciation for tarantulas, discusses chronic pain issues, and talks excitedly about the possibility of tarantula informed pain control techniques. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/savvyspoons/message

There are many species of native butterflies in California. These winged gems, symbols of beauty, depend on California native plants for survival. We call this the butterfly connection!We are unfortunately unable to open our beloved Butterfly Pavilion this year, an exhibit that showcases native butterflies and their favorite host and nectar plants, but we are excited to share the wonders of these remarkable organisms with you virtually. Join us in conversation with Butterfly Pavilion volunteer and Professor Emeritus of Biology of Cal Poly Pomona Steve Bryant and Butterly Specialist, Marion McGinnis, as we discuss native butterfly species and how to attract and raise them! Whether you have a big backyard or a balcony, you can cultivate plants that support and draw in these gorgeous creatures. From the iconic monarchs to dazzling tiger swallowtails, California dogfaces to the masses of painted ladies, California is abounding with butterflies. But these important pollinators could use many more native plants as further habitat is disturbed and developed. Give them a hand (or host or nectar plant) and support our local butterflies! Support the show (https://11213.blackbaudhosting.com/11213/Garden-Fund-General-Donations)

Parker McMullen Bushman is the Vice President of Community Engagement, Education, and Inclusion at Butterfly Pavilion in Denver, Colorado, where she educates the public on invertebrates and their cultural and environmental importance. Bushman is also the founder of EcoInclusion, “an organization committed to creating healthy and diverse organizational and community ecosystems”. As a woman of color in working in the environmental sector, Bushman noticed that she was often the only one of her kind in the room and that other white American peers would look to her to lead the charge in diversity. Eventually she was able to find her voice and her place to make a difference, through educating organizations on the importance of inclusivity, and the cultivation of genuine diversity in the environmental movement. Diversity and Inclusion EcoInclusion provides resources for environmental organizations to diversify their staff and incorporate people of color and their perspectives into the decision making process through inclusion workshops, staff training, and more. Through EcoInclusion, Bushman encourages companies to go beyond the talking phase of diversity implementation and empowers them to make the necessary changes to create real change. EarthKween is another inclusivity project with Bushman’s involvement. Kween stands for: Keep Widening the Environmental Engagement Narrative, and pushes for more representation in environmental imagery. By addressing the unconscious bias produced by white-dominant depictions of environmentalists, space opens for other members of society to join in the conversation. What Really Changes Perspectives Bushman answers this question by presenting some well supported statistics on the changing demographics: By the year 2023, the generation of people 18 and younger, is predicted to be 50% people of color. By the year 2050, the United States will be over 50% people of color. For environmental organizations to stay relevant in the upcoming decades, they must have wider reach and incorporate the voices of the people who will make up the majority of the country in the foreseeable future. With people of color establishing their own grassroots organizations, more inclusive spaces are being cultivated, are impacting more and more communities. Other Topics We discuss so much with Parker, from why changing the default “nude” setting on things such as make up and band aids away from white tones is important, to the Aztecs and their connections to invertebrates, to how heritage increases an individuals’ perception of something, and so much more. Tune in for an incredibly interesting conversation this week on Breaking Green Ceilings! About Parker McMullen Bushman Parker McMullen Bushman is the VP of Programs and Interpretation for Butterfly Pavilion. Parker’s background in the education, outdoor recreation and interpretive fields spans over 22 years. Parker’s interest in diversity, equity and inclusion issues developed from her personal experience. Parker has a passion for equity and inclusion in conservation and the outdoors. Her interest in justice, accessibility, and equity issues developed from her personal experiences facing the unequal representation of people of color in nonprofit and environmental organizations. She has a Master of Natural Resources from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, with a focus in Environmental Education and Interpretation. Ecoinclusive Parker Bushman Bio Earth Kween Facebook Butterfly Pavilion LinkedIn Related Resources Why Diversity Matters Think people of color don’t care about the environment? Think again 10 Diversity & Inclusion Statistics That Will Change How You Do Business

Mario Padilla (@Mario_J_Padilla) is back as we record in the Grain Room of Kokopelli Brewing in Denver, Colorado to continue the conversation about Entomology, his backstory and education, why he is so passionate about learning, and lots more about his collection of animals at the Butterfly Pavilion. Music at the end from Lorelei with I … Continue reading 196 – Entomology with Mario Padilla pt. 2

Johnny and Kevin are back for a quick recap of past news stories that caught their attention. The two discuss the Spider-man PS4 game “Puddlegate” outrage (4:40), the controversial penalties against Serena Williams in the 2018 US Open Finals (12:10), Congressman Billy Long using his auctioneering skills during a congressional hearing (26:00), and the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion robbery (32:40). Links: U.S. Open Drama - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiBrForlj-k Bug Heist - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/philadelphia-insectarium-stolen-insects_us_5b90bc3ce4b0162f4729d2d4 Auction in Congress - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjgdMqShI5s&feature=youtu.be Spiderman Video Game drama - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t7V6fW-MCt4

The Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion is a science museum providing educational programming about insects.  Recently the museum was robbed.  Over 7,000 insects, bugs, spiders and other critters were stolen from the museum.  As a result of this theft, the museum lost over 80% of their insects and they need help to rebuild.  It will … Continue reading "PSA: Help Save the Philly Insectarium & Butterfly Pavillion"

1:00- Podcast start and an overview of what we will be talking about on today’s episode including the farm and starting a local food campus.3:50- Kim and Nate talk about the driving force within the local food campus and coming up with the plan for the farm. They talk about how creating farmers' markets made them want to help local farmers.8:06- How to start a local food campus. They talk about where that started for them. The list of things they wanted to accomplish in the first year, and what they learned about their list being a little too ambitious.11:30- The corn maze. They talk about the first year's corn maze and the obstacles they had to overcome including replanting the corn, starting over because of no rain in the middle of summer, the irrigation system and all the other fun things they had to deal with during the first year.15:16- Drip tape. They talk about learning how to create a drip tape irrigation system and it taking much longer than it should have.23:11- Green corn. They talk about the thing that they thought was so unique about their corn maze, the fact that it was green. Then talk about how quickly they realized that green corn was a bad thing due to what happens when it’s still green and it’s cold outside.28:31- The wind. They talk about how they didn’t realize how windy it is in Brighton, Colorado where their farm is located. They tell a story of the first year's fall festival and how crazy the wind was and that they are not sure how to prepare for that in year 2.34:01- The animals at the farm. Kim & Nate talk about all the animals & pests they they have encountered including mice, coyotes, snakes, bobcats, pigeons, black widows, geese, eagles and wild chickens.40:00- Living on the farm. They talk about moving to the farm this summer into a small house and all the cool stuff they are doing and year 2.43:25- Strategic Partners. They talk about how they are working with Veterans to Farmers, restaurant owners, farmers, lavender farmers, The Denver Rose Society, The FFA, The Butterfly Pavilion and the Brighton Bee Club and how much those groups have helped them with their plan for the farm.45:08- Finding farmers. They talk about how difficult it was in year 1 to find farmers. Kim talks about meeting a woman named Josie Hart and how she introduced them to new farmers and people who want to teach classes and do farm to table dinner’s.53:06- The chickens. They talk about working with the FFA and having kids raise chickens and the crazy story of what happened to the first groups of chickens.57:26- The different projects the FFA kids are doing like building a shelter, raising animals and helping with various projects.59:26- What they have learned from year one. They talk about everything they learned in year one so that they can make the farm even better in year two including marketing and working with the American ninja warriors. They also talk about how excited they are for the Farm Festival in October and what they are planning for that.01:03:29- Wrapping up and final thoughts.Check out the Farm at:http://www.historicbromleyfarm.com

Jon and Sam fight their way through the podcast doldrums in this fraught episode.

We offer two features on today's show: Protecting Pollinators (start time: 0:58): Hills, prairies and gardens are neon green and in full bloom. A pollinator's paradise, at least it should be. Birds, bees, butterflies, beetles and other pollinators rely on the nectar from flowering plants. We humans rely on them; roughly one out of every three bites we take comes from food that would not exist if not for pollinators. National Pollinator Week is June 19 - 25.  It will celebrate pollinators and promote how humans can help protect them.  Vicki Wojcik, research director at Pollinator Partnership, an organization that focuses on conservation, scientific research and education aimed at preserving pollinators, talks with host Susan Moran. Resources: Bee Safe Boulder (People and Pollinators Action Network), Colorado State Beekeeper Association, and Butterfly Pavilion. Testing Drinking Water (start time: 14:00): Two years ago Flint, Mich., turned the issue of lead in drinking water from a little known, or distant-past, hazard into a national scandal. Human error and coverups resulted in many Flint homes showing staggeringly high levels of lead in their drinking water. What happened in Flint has afflicted other cities. Water districts, which are required to monitor a sampling of homes in their districts for lead in drinking water, are stepping up efforts to prevent more Flints from happening. Here in Colorado, water districts use soda ash and other chemicals to keep their water from being overly corrosive, which was the problem in Flint. How On Earth's Shelley Schlender interviews Michael Cook, district manager of the Little Thompson Water District at the Carter Lake Water Filtration Plant near Loveland. The plant was recently out of compliance, meaning that samples from water district have shown higher levels of lead than what the state health department considers safe. Cook discusses what the district has done. (Boulder has its own water-filtration plant and has not been out of compliance at least in recent years. But all water districts must address similar concerns.) Hosts: Maeve Conran, Susan Moran Producer: Susan Moran Engineer: Maeve Conran Executive Producer: Susan Moran Listen to the show:

Pollinators Matter (starts at 4:43): Now that backyard gardens are in full bloom it's a good time to think about pollinators. Honeybees, butterflies, beetles and other pollinators depend on many flowering plants for nectar. And we depend on these pollinators for many foods we love in our diet, from almonds to apples to blueberries. Some of these pollinators, especially honeybees and monarch butterflies, are facing severe threats, here in Colorado as well as globally. Among the culprits are habitat destruction and insecticides called neonicotinoids.  The Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster is not only a popular destination for kids and adults who want to walk among butterflies, and tough tarantulas. It is also conducting research on pollinators and their habitat. Mary Ann Colley, vice president of science and conservation at the Pavilion, discusses with host Susan Moran some pollinator-focused research and educational campaigns. Info on Butterfly Pavilion's citizen science efforts--Colorado Butterfly Monitoring Network and Urban Prairies Project--are on the Pavilion's website. Related citizen science projects: The Bees' Needs and Xerces Society. For more info on pollinators go to the National Wildlife Federation and USDA Agriculture Research Service. The New Biology (starts at 16:48): Denver Biolabs is the first community do-it-yourself bio-lab in Colorado. It focuses on making synthetic biology--where biology meets engineering--accessible to everyone. Biolabs is a community resource, giving students, researchers, entrepreneurs and others access to a community lab space. It also offers training in building bio-tools, learning lab fundamentals and experimenting with molecular gastronomy. Biolabs also develops technologies related to bioinformatics, biomimicry, bio-hacking and bio-printing. Dr. Heather Underwood is the co-founder and executive director of Denver Biolabs, which she discusses with host Leslie Dodson. For info on similar labs that have inspired Denver Biolabs, go to: Berkeley Biolabs, BioCurious, and Counter Culture Labs. Hosts: Leslie Dodson, Susan Moran Producer: Susan Moran Engineer: Maeve Conran Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender