Tag: health
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The Queen of May
May Day is gathered together in Nowhere Wood. The guests are all assembled, having arrived in timely order, ready for the magical day. First to arrive was the wild garlic, clean and green with the freshness of a memory of good times around the family table. Then the first bluebell opened up to the sky,…
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What can eat a tree like this?
This story is about how a pair of tiny insects about 6mm long and their very hungry caterpillars can eat a large tree. Ash trees are beautiful: young trees have smooth grey bark, whilst older trees have bark that cracks to form diamond shapes, like the pattern we see on a chain-link fence. No one…
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Climate change and the air
The air is all round us and is a mixture of many different gases. 78% of the air is made of nitrogen, which is the most common gas. This story is about two other gases found in the air – oxygen and carbon dioxide. We breathe in oxygen and use it to release…
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Climate change and the weather
Most scientists think that the Earth is getting warmer and that human activities are making it worse. This story looks at some of the evidence they use. Weather experts collect millions of temperature measurements from all around the world every day. They put these results into powerful computers that build a picture of the climate…
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Climate change and new arrivals
Some animals and plants can’t live in Nowhere Wood because it’s too cold or too wet for them. But the climate has warmed by about 1°C since the 1970s. This small change has allowed new species to come and live in the wood because the climate now suits them better. In 2019, a pair of…
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Climate change and the leavers
We can spot new arrivals in Nowhere Wood, if we have time and patience. Anyone can do this if they walk through the wood often, thinking about what they see. It is much harder to notice species that disappear because the changing climate does not suit them. Species come and go from the wood all…
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Climate change: what can we do about it?
The climate of the whole world is changing because of the rising temperatures. Scientists think that increasing levels of carbon dioxide gas in the air are making these changes worse. The Earth is now an average of two degrees warmer than it was in the 1700s, before the start of the industrial revolution. We should…
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All change!
When you next look into a mirror ask yourself if you are the same person as you were yesterday. Well, of course you are. Even people who last met you ten years ago can still recognise you and call you by your name. Although they might add, “My, how you have grown!” And yet, if we…
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Life is a relay race
This story continues the adventures of the ferns in Nowhere Wood. The first part of the story is Climbing the walls. The genome of the fern contains essential information that the fern needs to grow and make new cells. At different times the fern produces spores, sperm and eggs and the two forms of the…