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Each Christmas season, people across the Caribbean raise a ruby glass of sorrel in celebration. But while sorrel is commonly associated with Jamaica, iterations of the refreshing tart-sweet hibiscus drink abound: it's known as agua de Jamaica, jugo de Jamaica, or rosa de Jamaica in much of Latin America; bissap in Senegal; sobolo in Ghana; and zobo in Nigeria. It can be enjoyed hot or cold; with or without wine; and is sometimes mixed with an overproof rum or other alcohol. Most use a sweetener like simple syrup, brown or cane sugar, or honey; some brew it with aromatics and spices like cloves, ginger, cinnamon, allspice (also known as pimento), star anise, bay leaves, nutmeg, vanilla, or mint. Still others add a citrus boost of lemon, lime, or orange.

No matter the version, this family of aromatic drinks all begins with the Hibiscus sabdariffa, often called roselle, a plant indigenous to continental Africa that now flourishes in tropical regions of the Western hemisphere. Hibiscus-based beverages are made by steeping the calyx of the plant-a plump, radiant cup-like formation at the base of the flower that contains a seed. Once harvested and divested of their seeds, calyces can be used fresh or dried in recipes like jams, cordials, and, of course, tea-style beverages like sorrel.

For many Afro-Diasporans, hibiscus drinks do more than nourish the body and raise the spirits: they invoke history.

When the transport of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic began in the early 1500s, livestock and plants like hibiscus also made the voyage. In "Seeds of Memory: Botanical Legacies of the African Diaspora," UCLA geography professor Judith Carney explains that the indigenous African foliage and plants served a dual purpose: they were meant to keep the animals alive, and having access to these familiar foods and medicinal plants increased the chances that enslaved people would survive the journey. As a byproduct, "In the early colonial period, plantation owners encountered many new plants growing in the food plots of their slaves," writes Carney. "Many of these dietary staples are still known in the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English languages by the place name 'guinea,' the name slave traders generally applied to the African continent."

Thanks to tropical climates comparable to West Africa's, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the American South became a new home for "guinea sorrel." In addition to its medicinal and culinary applications, hibiscus and other transplants, like okra and kola nuts, likely served a greater purpose: "Having the same plant in the tropical Americas was a semblance of hope," says Michael W. Twitty, the culinary historian and author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South. "You reinforced your identity, you reinforced the things that made you happy, you reinforced memories of things that would otherwise be lost."

In fact, food historian Adrian Miller has made the argument that hibiscus tea, in combination with kola nut tea, formed the basis for red drink -a reference to several red beverages, such as red flavored Kool-Aid, the soft drink Big Red, and old-school, carbonated red drinks-an iconic piece of African American culinary traditions that he refers to as "liquid soul." Like sorrel, red drink is often associated with celebrations, and records show its presence on US plantations during slavery and after Emancipation, as well as, more recently, Juneteenth.

These traditions continue today. Andrea K. Castillo, the Brooklyn-born, Belizean-American founder of Cas Rum Beverages, followed in the footsteps of her great-grandfather, who made fruit wine. The entrepreneur's love for beverages led her to bottle up her creations for friends, family, and strangers, and eventually launch her bottled rum-cocktail company in 2019. The lineup includes three flavors: rum punch, rum popo, and rum sorrel. "These three things represent my culture and the greater Caribbean diaspora," says Castillo. "I'm literally able to share my culture with each bottle."

Her recipe for sorrel, which derives from a Jamaican sorrel recipe, balances sweet elements with citrus, Belizean overproof rum, and pimento seeds. After bringing water to a boil, she pours it over the dried hibiscus flowers, pimento seeds, and ginger juice, then pours it back in the pot and lets the mixture sit for about 24 to 72 hours. Once strained, Castillo adds sugar, lemon juice, and rum, mixes it all, and prepares it for distribution.

Over the years, there have been a number of boutique beverage brands selling the bright-to-maroon-colored concoction to large-scale commercial businesses, especially Caribbean beer companies like Shandy Carib and Red Stripe. It's not uncommon for Latin American, Caribbean, or African restaurants of any size to offer a traditional version of sorrel or a fusion cocktail or rum punch version.

With various renditions found across the diaspora, Chef Pierre Thiam, co-founder of Teranga, a fast-casual West African restaurant nestled within East Harlem's Africa Center, views the dried roselle as a bridge.

"Food, in general, and ingredients, in particular, are unique connectors between cultures," says the Dakar-born executive chef. "Hibiscus, in this case, transcended borders through the Middle Passage. When I visit Mexico or Jamaica, and I am served their version of bissap, there is a familiarity that makes me feel as if I was home."

Riaz Phillips, author of Belly Full: Caribbean Food in the UK, recalls his aunts' fridges stocked with sorrel. Though there hasn't been much documentation on how Afro-descendants, particularly those of Caribbean descent, preserve cultural cuisine in Europe, the East London-born writer has made it a priority to document the UK's Caribbean culinary scene. Phillips, who is of Jamaican-Vincentian-Cuban heritage, sees how the dried hibiscus flowers found in popular markets in Dalston and Brixton connect to the Caribbean community in places like Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and ultimately, to the African continent.

"This plant, like all other pan-African foodstuffs, including the famed plantain, can be a representation to illustrate our unified origins and highlight how similar we all are," says Phillips. "We get wrapped up in these modern nations and flags, but the interesting founding histories of all these do well to document that we all come from the same people, and all eat and drink the same things."

In the case of sorrel, "that's Black joy and Black survival," says Twitty, "and Black culture, and Black foodways, and Black drinkingways-all bound up in one cup of hibiscus."

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The History of Hibiscus Drinks in the African Diaspora

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The hibiscus flower, the key ingredient in sorrel, evokes a legacy of joy and survival.

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In Southern California, low-hanging fruit is ripe for the picking-or so it seems. If you stroll down any residential street, figs, oranges, loquats, and persimmons hang over fences like jewels. Many locals don't bother picking their fruit, preferring the taste of store-bought produce to the abundance in their yards. Luckily, state laws permit California residents to pick what hangs over a residential fence and into public property, including the plump, nearly overripe Mission figs my mom and I were picking one hot afternoon from a prolific tree whose branches dangle into an alley in my Los Angeles suburb.

We didn't even notice a car pull up because we were concentrating on reaching the high-up figs. But soon, I felt a pair of eyes on me, and I turned to see a middle-aged white woman staring at us. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Those don't belong to you." I had no idea whether this person lived in the adjacent house, or if she just pulled over to police two Asian American women dressed in tattered sneakers and gardening clothes. I wondered whether she had considered that we could own this house, but I'm guessing that in her racial profiling, this expensive house couldn't be ours.

My mom is a pretty advanced forager, and she knows her rights. Like many members of the online foraging group I'm in, she's not afraid to knock on strangers' doors and ask if she can take excess fruit off their hands. She wasn't afraid, on this particular day, to retort that it was perfectly legal for anyone to pick anything that hung over the fence. Smashed figs were literally rotting into jam on the ground and being devoured by fruit flies and fig beetles, but this person thought it would be better off being eaten by insects than by us. Most of the food my mom and I forage, in fact, is stuff that no one except certain animals or the occasional forager wants-acorns, dandelions, wild turnip greens, poor man's pepper, invasive mustards. We're careful not to over-forage, and we know not to harvest in certain parks to preserve biodiversity. We're not just here to gain; we teach neighbors how to use their persimmons: Koreans often dry this fruit and turn it into tea.

I've always been impressed by my mom's courage in the face of intimidation, but it's a privilege that not every forager of color can exert, especially those who are Brown and Black. For Asia Campbell, who is Black, foraging alone is a risk that could endanger her health or her life, especially when approaching someone's yard. "Whenever I go foraging, I always go with someone," she says. Campbell says educating other co-foragers is key. She lets other members of her foraging group approach someone's front yard and ask if they'll share their fruit. "Sometimes it feels like when people see me, they automatically assume our group is 'up to something' or doing something we're not supposed to be doing," she says.

Campbell forages mostly in Pasadena, an ethnically diverse area but one that still contains mostly white neighborhoods such as Madison Heights and Oak Knoll, both of which are teeming with plentiful, mature fruit trees. Campbell began foraging as a means of learning herbalism and plant identification and found it necessary to head outdoors in order to accurately learn. "Identification of a plant is very important and, if you don't know what you're doing, ingesting something could seriously harm you," Campbell says. For foragers, experience is vital to being able to correctly identify plants, especially since their appearance can vary from state to state. "It's important to learn about the plants around you and getting outside is the best way to do that. I thought, If I join a group, I'll be surrounded by so many knowledgeable people with lots of experience."

Campbell's knowledge and love for the activity has deepened over time. "The joy came when I could walk around a neighborhood or hiking trail and recognize most of the plants around me," she says. "I love being knowledgeable about the things around me in case of an emergency. I love knowing that my body can benefit from these plants when I incorporate them into my diet, instead of only grabbing them when I'm ill. We're in a time when having adequate healthcare is uncertain, and while plants won't cure everything, they're still beneficial to our health." Anisha Kumra, an Indian American forager who lives in San Francisco, says her foraging has drawn suspicion from others. "I do get looked at funny sometimes, but I explain what I'm doing if someone looks scared," she says. Kumra, who alsoforages at night with uv lights, says that during one incident, a neighbor came out of their house and most likely called the police on her.

Despite its hazards, Kumra says foraging is a necessity-whether it's for the food or herbal medicinal needs, the thrift, or the daily joy it brings. For Kumra, who suffers from chronic swelling, polycystic ovary syndrome, and endometriosis, foraged plantain and mugwort have helped treat her pain, and the experience of foraging mussels, sea urchins, seaweed, mushrooms, wild radishes, cherries, plums, oranges, and lemons has brought her joy. Foraging also honors Kumra's culinary heritage and her connection with her mother (like it does for me and my relationship with my Korean mother) who taught her the skill as a child in east San Jose. "My mom, Indian-born and raised in Malawi, spent her childhood climbing trees and eating the fruits from them," she says. "My mom would often encourage me to eat certain plants and fruits that grew on the hillside behind our house and in the parks. She also told parents on our block [to encourage their kids] to hop the three-foot fence and forage from our trees."

"The joy came when I could walk around a neighborhood or hiking trail and recognize most of the plants around me."

Kumra's family turned to foraging because spinach from the grocery store failed to provide the wild or spicy taste of Indian greens. "They just didn't have many Indian grocery stores in the '80s, so we would go forage mustard greens with our family friends who had four kids," she says. "Our mothers and grandmothers would go into every open field to forage mustard greens so they could make saag." Foraging as a woman of color can bring heightened, unwanted attention to intersectionality. Kumra had a terrifying experience while foraging last summer in the midst of covid: A man chased her up the hill she was on. The man chasing her seemed to think she was alone but saw her white male friend when he reached the top of the hill. "My friend was very confused by the man 10 feet away and the new holes in my dress," she says, referring to how her dress was ripped from being caught on theblackberry brambles. "I was so scared I didn't explain."

Sometimes foragers will avoid certain areas or scope the people nearby to see if it's safe to forage there. "Having an understanding of what happens with trespassing laws and how Black and Brown bodies are treated differently really limits where I forage," Stephanie Gravalese says. Gravalese, who is Afro Latina, says that while visiting Washington Park in Albany, New York, she wanted to pick a few magnolias, which are edible, but was scared she would get yelled at. That heightened sense of awareness is common among all people of color during any activity, including driving, shopping, or even simply existing, but it's particularly strong when approaching the property of a white homeowner. That's why Gravalese restricts her foraging to areas where she knows the owners. "Due to awareness of how Black and Indigenous folks are perceived in these spaces, I tend to stick to areas that are known to me-my backyard, spaces where I know the landowners, or sparsely populated areas-or I stay only for a very short while," she says.

Kumra is still foraging and has photographed 1,700 items for her iNaturalist account, relying upon fellow foragers to help her identify them. Like Kumra, all the women of color I spoke with are adamant that they won't stop foraging anytime soon-whether they do it out of necessity, passion, or for the purpose of maintaining health. For us, foraging is a lifestyle-not a hobby we can just discard. Each day, when foragers of color set out with satchels, knives, and sun hats, they have to keep their wits about them, weighing potential dangers and calculating the risk of hostility or violence against the benefits of rich, ripe fruit, fresh air, and immunity-boosting herbs. Whenever I make a foraging decision, it's important to realize my privilege as an Asian American, then calculate any potential risks and prepare for how I will speak with homeowners and observers. I recently went back to the same spot where my mom and I were accosted by the fig gatekeeper, fully expecting to see her again. She wasn't there, but the next time I see her, I'll be ready to engage in a larger discussion about foraging, the risks that foragers of color face, and, of course, tips for cooking delicious Mission figs.

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For People of Color, Foraging Can Be a Fruitful Risk

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A heightened sense of awareness, common among all people of color during any activity, is particularly important to foragers of color.

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Southern California isn't the most obvious place to forage for mushrooms. Mushrooms thrive in damp and dark places, a description that doesn't always match the climate of drought-dried Los Angeles.

But during L.A.'s rainy season - from mid-October to mid-April - local mushroom lovers still hit the trails.

"This is an exceptionally good mushroom year," said Bat Vardeh, the field trip chair for the Los Angeles Mycological Society, walking through the trails behind Canyon View Park in Aliso Viejo. "This is not common, just walking around and seeing mushrooms left and right."

Vardeh, 26, essentially eats, sleeps and breathes mushrooms. When she's not leading Mycological Society forays (group trips to identify fungi), she runs another group called the Foraging & Mushroom Hunting Women of SoCal and forages on her own to reduce food waste. Even when it comes to work, she's hunting for 'shrooms.

"Technically, I get paid to collect mushrooms for the fungal diversity survey," she said. "I collect fungi that seem interesting and I send them in for DNA sequencing."

For the last three years, both foraging and fungi have been on the rise. Creators like Alexis Nicole Nelson, who's best known on TikTok as Black Forager, and William Padilla-Brown, who's known on Instagram as Permaculture Papi, have drawn audiences with their tips and finds. The foraging hashtag on TikTok itself has more than 115 million views.

There are plenty of reasons why people enjoy foraging for mushrooms: Some forage for their own cooking and baking purposes, while others just enjoy the opportunity to get out of the house. One big draw for both beginners and experts is the challenge of exploring a field that still has so many unidentified species.

If you're new to the foraging community, never fear. Here are some of Vardeh's best tips and tricks for identifying and responsibly gathering fungi in the wild.

Go with the experts first

It's advisable to start your foraging journey with some supervision. If nothing else, this will ensure you have someone verifying your mushroom identifications and bringing you to the safe trails. "There's a lot of stuff that you might think you know, but until you have it confirmed, you won't really know," Vardeh said.

The Mycological Society organizes forays that are open to members (membership costs $25 annually) and some events that are open to the public, but parks like Griffith Park sometimes also offer forays that are open to anyone.

Vardeh, who leads field trips and forays for several different organizations, said she always tries to ensure that newcomers feel welcome to participate. "I tell them all that it's a no-judgment zone," she said. "They can take any mushroom ID guess they want.

"I love getting a ton of people just really excited about mushrooms," she added. "And then getting them hands-on with the mushroom so they can go home and think about it."

Beyond just keeping people safe (which we'll expand upon in a moment), Vardeh guides groups to fruitful spots and nurtures their curiosity.

"Look to your left and right," she said as we wandered deeper into the woods. "There's mushrooms everywhere already. Once your eyes land on them, you won't stop seeing them."

Look for the right plants

One tip that Vardeh gives new foragers is to look for plants that have symbiotic relationships with fungi. "Oak trees are like 'X marks the spot,' because there are so many mushrooms that have special relationships with oak trees," she said. If it rained recently, you'll very likely find a mushroom under the tree.

"Let's look up here because some of these oak trees are really big and really old," she said as we approached a large tree. "They have some dead branches on them that are still kind of hanging on. A lot of times you can find oyster mushrooms coming off of these."

As expected, her advice was spot-on.

"We're gonna get them. Yeah, we're not leaving without them," she said as we looked at a cluster of oyster mushrooms about 20 feet above us. "We're gonna get a big stick. One person pushes; the other one catches."

Vardeh suggests that new foragers in SoCal keep an eye out for common mushrooms such as coprinoids (inky caps), Leratiomyces percevalii (a woodchip-loving 'shroom), Agrocybe (found in grassy and wood-chip-heavy areas) and fungi.

Agaricus is "really common to find year-round anywhere there's irrigation and grassy areas, and a lot of those are edible," she said. "But they're also known as the 'lose your lunch bunch,' because edible ones look exactly like the not-edible ones, but the worst that they'll do is make you throw up."

After a good rain, Vardeh also recommends looking for Pleurotus ostreatus (oyster mushrooms, which grow on some hardwood trees) and Trametes versicolor (turkey tails, which some people like to brew into a tea).

If you're lucky, you might even come across Vardeh's favorite mushrooms to find: Lactarius rufulus, better known as candy caps. "They smell and taste like maple syrup when they're dried," she explained. "Candy cap cookies are very popular."

Take safety precautions

Vardeh uses the acronym BOLETE (yes, like the type of mushroom) to remind her foraging groups of what to keep in mind.

B: Be aware of your surroundings.

O: Only forage in areas where it is permitted.

L: Let someone know where you will be going.

E: Extra water and snacks.

T: Toxic lookalikes? Always make sure to double-check what kind of mushroom you found.

E: Eat only what YOU are 100,000% sure about. When in doubt, throw it out.

The last rule is especially important, since a few types of mushrooms are deadly when ingested.

"You can touch any mushroom," Vardeh reassured. "In order for mushroom toxins to impact you, they have to be digested."

There are some general indicators that can help new foragers avoid poisonous mushrooms. Fungi with red caps or stems; mushrooms with white gills, skirts or rings on their stems; and any 'shrooms with a bulbous sack or volva are all worth avoiding. Some edible mushrooms are nearly identical to toxic ones, which is a great reason to err on the side of caution.

While you're on the trails, it's also essential to note where you're grabbing mushrooms from.

"We have this thing that we call the dog pee zone," Vardeh said, pointing to the edge of the trail. Plucking mushrooms from there would be similar to eating yellow snow: gross.

But bugs, for the most part, are not a concern.

"Mushroom hunters are very aware of springtails being in their baskets," Vardeh said as she brushed away some small insects. "They don't actually cause any harm. Some people are like, 'I don't want to eat bugs,' but we're all just like, 'It's extra protein.'"

Bring the right tools and know the rules

Though it might sound obvious, it helps to show up prepared.

Vardeh recommends wearing a long-sleeve shirt and long pants since some of these trails have poison oak and other itchy plants nearby. She also recommends bringing ample water, snacks and some reusable containers in which to stash your finds.

Reading up before you hit the trails also can be helpful. Vardeh's favorite book for beginners is "All That the Rain Promises and More..." by David Arora. (For more advanced foragers, she recommends "Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast" by Christian Schwarz and Noah Siegel and "Mushrooms Demystified" by Arora.)

She also recommends joining iNaturalist, a social network for naturalists and scientists. "When somebody takes a photo of a mushroom and posts it on iNaturalist, it shows the location where it was found and has an algorithm that gives you a suggestion as to what it thinks it is," she explained. "But then, it publishes it for experts - like really mushroomy experts - to take a look at these and then tell you what you have."

Though you can observe mushrooms and fungi anywhere you please, each park and forest has different policies when it comes to taking anything home with you.

Cleveland National Forest, Los Padres National Forest and Angeles National Forest are three of Vardeh's favorite places to forage. Most of the national forests advise visitors to limit "collection of edibles, such as mushrooms and berries, to what you can consume during your visit," but it's worth checking specific guidelines with rangers at each park.

"For the most part, as long as you're being ethical and conscious of your harvest - basically not out there to pick the forest clean and sell them - national forests are OK with foraging," Vardeh said.

And if you're just curious to look around and take photos, most public parks are also fair game.

"This area's really amazing because Southern California is not like this," Vardeh said as we explored Canyon View Park. "It's normally uncommon to find more than a couple of different species, but we've already found a ton of different species and we haven't even scratched the surface."

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Curious about mushroom foraging? It's an 'exceptionally good' year to start in SoCal

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The best tips and tricks for identifying and responsibly gathering fungi in the wild.

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Housing, worker shortage, and transportation between satellite communities and labor hubs are all top-of-mind, at least in how they relate to mountain towns' abilities to serve the tourist economy. Layered and complex, these are issues that need to factor in town planning, Short-term rental (STR) rules, and labor planning and support-all these issues are flashpoints in the ongoing conversation that's largely divided along socioeconomic lines within these communities.

Even if we were to solve all the problems plaguing recreation economies of the American West, we'd still run into one huge fundamental problem: adventure is just another form of extraction. In the West, where mining towns often convert to tourist hubs, unplugging and escaping is simply a more modern version of dominating and denying.

Commodification of joy, nature, and human experience without an integrated awareness of social, cultural, and environmental factors play simply becomes unchecked exploitation.

And regarding the exclusion and erasure of Latinx/e populations from recreation communities: this is a highly actionable item that can be undertaken in partnership with local leaders from those communities. Whether you need help with culturally acute messaging, advice on relevant programming, or athlete role models from the community (✋🏽), we must be including all the voices that keep this economy growing!
What are the other advocacy issues you're working on right now?
The Outdoorist Oath is the perfect intersection of adventure, planet, and inclusion: these three elements are intrinsically linked, and cannot exist without the other. To me, the Oath can help us fundamentally shift towards a more sustainable recreation economy, one that takes into account both individual and collective experiences.

Since the rise of the outdoor industry, recreationists have been pushed to adopt the same individualist mindset that is at the heart of many of our current environmental, social, and political problems. If we start thinking, believing, and acting from a place of reciprocity-with our friends, community, and strangers, places we visit, and those very different from us-then we might be able to start pulling apart the systems that commoditize our joy and ultimately lead to adventure as an extractive resource.

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Outdoor Allies: Dani Reyes-Acosta - Outdoor Alliance

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Outdoor Alliance's Outdoor Allies series features Dani Reyes-Acosta, a mountain athlete and storyteller rewriting the narrative of who plays outside and how we build community with others on this planet.

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Throughout the Arb you'll find many special places to discover, including extensive but dispersed collections of native and exotic trees and shrubs masterfully crafted into a naturalistic landscape begun by O. C. Simonds in 1907. The Arboretum is jointly owned by the City of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan as a resource for the entire community. As you explore you'll find one of the richest landscapes in the region, as well as a complex glacial topography that presents vast panoramas, broad valleys, and intimate dales and glens. View and download a visitor guide and map of Nichols Arboretum. NOTE: Trails in the Arb cover diverse terrain and a variety of grades, some steep, for example, going down to the river or up from the river to the Washington Hts. or Geddes St. entrances.

Limited City of Ann Arbor metered street parking is available at Nichols Arboretum on Washington Hts. and on Observatory St. Street metered parking charges apply Mon-Sat 8 am-6 pm; free Sundays and holidays. Visitors may park in the University of Michigan blue lot M28 on Washington Hts. for free after 5 pm weekdays and on weekends. Visitors with University of MIchigan blue passes may park at M28 & M95 on Washington Hts. or in M34 on Observatory. For more information on parking on central campus and the hospital area visit the university's parking site.

Your exploration begins at any of the three entrances:

Geddes Avenue - features the ceremonial iron gates sporting the letters "UM," the Geddes Avenue entrance sits atop the highest point in the Arb and offers a commanding view of North Campus.

Washington Heights - this entrance is next to the James D. Reader Jr. Urban Environmental Education Center near the U-M hospitals. Located on the lower level of the Reader Center is our visitor center where you will find restrooms, maps, and information, as well as a small shop with snack, beverages, and gifts. The building is staffed seasonally mid-March through November. Just beyond the Reader Center lies the famed Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden, the largest collection of heirloom peonies in North America.

Nichols Drive - If you walk downhill to the river, turn left when you've reached the river and follow the road along the water to the Nichols Drive entry. If you're not near the river, just follow the drives and trails uphill along the valleys and you'll thread your way to either the Washington Heights or Geddes Street entrance. Enjoy!

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Throughout the Arb you'll find many special places to discover, including extensive but dispersed collections of native and exotic trees and shrubs masterfully crafted into a naturalistic landscape begun by O. C. Simonds in 1907. The Arboretum is jointly owned by the City of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan as a resource for the entire community.

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Nature & Nurture Seeds - Heirloom & Organic Vegetable Seeds

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We provide quality, heirloom, organic & non-GMO seeds for diverse farms and gardens. We offer a wide variety of vegetable, herb, flower, and native plant seeds. Rooted in the Great Lakes region, we specialize in seeds for short seasons that are adapted to growing in the north and Midwest.

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FORAGING FOR NATURAL COLOR - IDAHO - PART 1 | PINE & SPRUCE CONE | ORGANIC COLOR | BEIGE PINK TANNIN

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HOW TO MAKE NATURAL DYE WITH BLACK-EYED SUSAN | ORGANIC COLOR | GREEN YELLOW BROWN | RUDBECKIA

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In the early spring before the nettles, dandelions, ramps and sochan, there's dames rocket, or Hesperis matronalis. It's a delicious, sweet-tasting green every forager should know.

Dames Rocket Identification

As it's in the mustard family, dames rocket plants are easy to identify. Here's a few tips.

Rosettes of stalked basal leaves appear in early Spring before many other greens.

The previous years flower stalks are usually visible.

The greens can be slightly serrated, or nearly smooth.

It likes disturbed areas, especially places that experience seasonal flooding in my experience.

In the early Spring, the leaves may appear purple-a natural resistance to cold.

The flowers can appear as purple to lavender, or white.

Common Names

The plant has many names. Whatever you call it, it's a fantastic edible spring plant. Here's a list of common names I can find.

damask-violet

dames-wort

dame's gillyflower

night-scented gilliflower

summer lilac

sweet rocket

mother-of-the-evening

winter gilliflower

dame's-violet

queen's gillyflower

Is Dames Rocket Invasive?

Yes, as an aggressive perennial, dames rocket is an invasive species that poses a threat to native plants. It was Introduced to North America via Europe in the 1600s for use in ornamental landscaping.

Like garlic mustard, and watercress it's a prolific seeder. Every year I see it in more places where I forage in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Following that, it's important to inspect the plants you would harvest as food to make sure they haven't been sprayed with herbicide.

Dames Rocket Look ALikes

Dames rocket has no poisonous look alikes, but it's very easy to confuse it wild phlox, which is a native plant. Once the plant starts to flower, phlox flowerswild phlox ( Phlox paniculata) and white phlox (Phlox divaricata) look very similar.

Another edible look alike is annual honesty ( Lunaria annua) which is also a cruciferous plant with four-petaled purple flowers. All of these plants are edible.

Dames Rocket vs Phlox

A key to identifying dames rocket vs phlox is looking at the flowers. Dames rocket always has 4 petals on the flowers. Phlox will have 5.

Dames Rocket Flavor

The leaves were delicious with a flavor like sweet arugula. The young, tender leaves were pleasantly spicy raw ( a nod to their heritage in the Brassicaceae or mustard family, just like regular arugula) but without any hint of bitterness.

To be frank: Young dames rocket greens are one of the greatest greens I've eaten, wild or cultivated.

Cooking Dames Rocket

You can use dames rocket anywhere you'd use spinach. Some people use it in salad but I don't recommend that. The very young leaves a few inches long can be good in salad, but the window for harvesting them is short.

As dames rocket grows, the leaves develop chewy stems, and a hairy texture with won't like. But, after a quick dip in boiling, salted water the texture is greatly improved, and the leaves become sweet and delicious.

They're so tender when young that they're easy to overcook and will start to break down in the blanching pot quicker than most greens. To get the most from the plant, harvest more mature leaves, say 6-7 inches long.

In the Spring I often have a nice bowl of them all alone--a sallet, if you will, sallet being the antique name for salad, originally referring to only cooked greens or "pot herbs".

Other Edible Parts

The shoots can be cooked like a small vegetable. The unopened flower buds, or raabs are great cooked quickly like a small broccoli. The flowers are good added to salad with a peppery, slightly sweet flavor not unlike arugula or mustard flowers.

A great way to compliment the sweet flavor of the greens is to serve them like Lebanese Dandelions with Caramelized Onions (Hindbeh).

Dames Rocket with Raisins and Pine Nuts

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Dames rocket, sweet rocket, or Hesperis matronalis is a fantastic wild green to forage in the early spring. Make sure to go back during the growing season to harvest the immature flowers or raabs.

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This Common Tree Flower is EDIBLE and DELISH ✨🌸

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Edible Trees: Foraging for Food from Forests

Most of us know of, and greatly appreciate, the wild and cultivated fruits, nuts and berries that come from trees. However, few are aware of the edible yields (and great value) that several of our trees have to offer. Aside from producing delicious snacks, such as apples, cherries, walnuts and chestnuts, some trees provide other edible parts: bark, leaves, twigs, seeds, pollen, roots, new growth, flowers and, of course, sap used for syrup.

For example, did you know that the young leaves and even the seeds of many of our maple trees are edible? Maple trees provide more than the familiar delicious maple syrup! Also, did you know that the inner bark and young twigs of many of our birch trees are edible? Birch trees can also be tapped for a sweetish sap/syrup. Then, there are the immensely valuable pines, with their edible inner bark, seeds and so much more.

Deciduous Trees

The American beech, F. grandifolia, is an exceptional, magnificent and majestic shade tree that definitely deserves to be grown more often in the landscape. A slow-growing native of eastern North America, the tree can grow to about 100 feet tall, often with a nearly equal spread. It has grayish bark and dark green foliage that turns golden bronze in autumn. The small, edible nuts are very tasty but not that well known. Young leaves can be cooked as a green in spring. The inner bark, after drying and pulverizing, can be made into bread flour, though this is probably best considered as a survival food.

The birch species are well known, especially the strikingly beautiful white-barked varieties. The inner bark of birches is edible, making it an important survival food. Many have kept from starving by knowing this. Native peoples and pioneers dried and ground the inner bark into flour for bread. You can also cut the bark into strips and boil like noodles to add to soups and stews or simply eat it raw. In spring you can drink the tree's sap directly from the tree, or boil it down into a slightly sweet syrup.

The linden (or basswood) is often a well-shaped tall tree, with grey fissured bark. The young leaves in spring are pleasant to eat raw or lightly cooked. The flowers are often made into a soothing, tasty tea.

The sugar maple, A. saccharum, is a beautifully formed tree. It provides us with some of the best and intense autumn foliage color, ranging from brilliant orange to yellow to bright reds.

Sugar maples have distinctive, slightly notched, three-lobed leaves, whereas those of the black maple, A. nigrum, are more shallowly notched. The bark of the black maple is almost black in color. The five-lobed leaves of the silver maple, A. saccharinum, have narrow and deep indentations between the lobes. The undersides of its leaves are notably silvery-white in color.

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The sugar maple is famous for the deliciously sweet syrup you can make from its sap. But, few are aware that many other species of the larger maple trees can also be tapped for an edible sap. Among these include: the black maple, whose sap tastes almost identical to that of the sugar maple; and the silver maple, also providing an equally sweet-flavored sap. The syrup you can make from other maples varies considerably in flavor and quality, but feel free to experiment. Native peoples and pioneers drank the fresh sap from maples in spring, as a refreshing drink.

The inner bark of maples can be eaten raw or cooked - another survival food source! Even the seeds and young leaves are edible. Native peoples hulled the larger seeds and then boiled them.

The mulberry, M. alba and M. rubra, are mediumsized, fruit-bearing trees, with a short trunk and a rounded crown. The twigs, when tender in spring, are somewhat sweet, edible either raw or boiled.

All Juglans species can be tapped for sweet-tasting syrup, particularly black walnut and butternut.

The oaks are mentioned here, for it is not that well known that the acorns are edible. All acorns are good to eat, though some are less sweet than others. Some, like red oak, Q. rubra, are bitter tasting, while others like white oak, Q. alba, sometimes have sweet nuts. The bur oak, Q. macrocarpa, often bears chestnut-like flavored acorns.

The Populus genus includes aspens and poplars. Their somewhat sweet, starchy inner bark is edible both raw and cooked. You can also cut this into strips and grind into flour as a carbohydrate source. Quaking aspen, P. tremuloides, catkins can also be eaten.

Sassafras tea (mainly from the young roots) is well known, and its pleasantly fragrant aroma is unmistakeable. The young, green-barked, mucilaginous twigs of this small- to medium-sized tree, when chewed, are delicious to many. The green buds and young leaves are also delicious. Try them in salads! Soups and stews can be thickened and flavored with the dried leaves (but, remove the veins and hard portions first).

This medium-sized tree is well known for its many herbal medicine uses. The thick and fragrant inner bark is extremely sticky, but provides nourishment, either raw or boiled.

The inner bark of the willows can be scraped off and eaten raw, cooked in strips like spaghetti or dried and ground into flour. Young willow leaves are often too bitter, but can be eaten in an emergency - it is a survival food!

Conifers (in particular, The Pine Family, Pinaceae)

The entire pine family comprises one of the most vitally important groups of wild edibles in the world, particularly for wildlife. The inner bark and sap is very high in vitamins C and A, plus many other nutrients. And, when eaten raw or cooked, its bark has saved many from starvation and scurvy. You can cut the inner bark into strips and cook like spaghetti, or dry and ground into flour for bread and thickening soups and stews. The sap in spring can be tapped and drunk as a tea.

Even pine needles, when young and starchy, are rich in nutrients, like vitamin C, and are reasonably tasty. These are not usually eaten, but rather chewed upon for about five minutes, swallowing only the juices. Perhaps a better alternative is to make a tea with the needles. Pine or fir needles make a fine tea in winter.

Then, there are the edible cones, seeds and pollen of the Pinus genus. The woody cones that produce seeds within their framework are female. These are delicious when shelled and roasted. Nutritious pine nuts are often not considered for food because they are too tiny and hard to get at (a hammer or rock will be needed). However, there are a few pine species that provide delectable pine nuts (seeds) that can be as large as sunflower seeds or larger. Here is a small selection of these: the Korean Pine, P. koraiensis; Italian Stone Pine, P. pinea; and Pinyon Pine, P. edulis.

The soft male cones and pollen are also edible, but the taste is very strong, so is better if used in cooking. In spring many of these male cones produce copious quantities of pollen, so much so, that you can practically scoop it up from the golden carpet it makes on the ground.

The pine family includes genera such as: the pines, Pinus; spruces, Picea; larches, Larix; firs, Abies; and the hemlocks, Tsuga (not to be confused with the totally unrelated poison hemlock).

Certain genera of another plant family, Cupressaceae, specifically two species of arborvitaes, Thuja, cedars, also have an edible and nutritious inner bark. These are: western red cedar, T. plicata (in particular); and eastern white cedar, T. occidentalis. Native peoples would harvest and dry it, then grind it into a powder for use when travelling or as an emergency. On the advice of native peoples, Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, used the eastern white cedar to treat scurvy among his crew.

Sap, Syrups and Tapping

There are a relatively surprising number of trees that can be tapped for their sap and syrup. However, be forewarned; many of these offer a bland, bitter or almost tasteless flavor and quality. For example, you will find that tapping a hickory tree will result in unsatisfactory tasting syrup. Whereas, tapping certain other nut trees, like butternut and black walnut, will provide you with quite a fine-tasting syrup. Also, the native peoples tapped the sycamore tree, Platanus acerifolia, but this syrup is considered much too dark and strong flavored by most people. The maple by far yields syrups of the best quality and taste, and the best of these is from the sugar maple, or black maple, and followed closely by the silver maple.

Properly selecting and tapping trees for sap can be a detailed process, so here we will address just the basics. You can purchase the necessary spiles and pails for sap gathering, or for better enjoyment do it on your own.

First, in most instances, you will want to select trees that are at least 18 inches in diameter. A rough estimate of how much finished syrup you will get per tap is about one to two quarts, or about one gallon of syrup per year, per tree.

Cut a V-shaped gash into the tree (an age-old method of our native peoples), at the base of which you can drill a hole about 2 inches deep and close with a peg. Then, when you are ready, remove the peg and insert your spile. A spile is the means to convey the sap from the tree trunk to your bucket or pail. This is essentially a hollow tube with a spout end. It can be made from a wide range of materials from metal to bamboo. One of the best is made from a sturdy, hollowed out twig or branch of a staghorn sumac, Rhus typhina. Or, you can use the lid from a tin can for a sort of spile. Just smooth the rough edges first. Make a single bend in the lid and insert it into your tree tap hole. Drive a small nail into the tree to suspend your bucket or pail from.

Then, it's just a matter of boiling the sap with water, and spooning off the characteristic scum as it rises. The best ratio is around 35 parts of water to one part sap. The water evaporates over time, leaving a clear amber syrup. Strain carefully.

For sugar, continue boiling until a test portion of the syrup forms a very soft ball in cold water. Remove from the heat, agitate with an egg beater and pour into dry molds. Delectable!

Jesse is an author and instructor in environment, ecology, sustainability, horticulture and natural history. Check out his first book, "Quiver Trees, Phantom Orchids and Rock Splitters: Remarkable Survival Strategies of Plants" at www.ecwpress.com/products/quiver-trees.

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Edible Trees: Foraging for Food from Forests - American Forests

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Discover many forgotten ways in which trees can provide food for us, including both delicious treats and survival resources.

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Indigo Dye: Learning the significance of this natural dye

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Indigo dye is a natural dye that is extracted from plants and animals. Though the dye was and is still produced organically, most of the indigo dye available in the market today is mass produced through chemical processes to satisfy increased demand for blue dye. Indigo is thus named due to its dist…

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Tanneries, Cloths and Dyeing in the Arab World

posted on: Mar 24, 2021

By: Lindsey Penn/Arab America Contributing Writer
The Arab world is well known for its leatherwork, dye, and cloths. Their traditions surrounding leather and cloth go back to thousands of years ago. They have still managed to keep many of these traditions alive, despite the manufacturing boom and the widespread use of factories. Using leather for garments, shoes, and containers goes back thousands of years. Once people discovered that leather could protect their feet and bodies from the elements and can be used for storing goods like water, the use of leather increased.

Methods for Tanning Leather

Leather drying in the sun.

Many places have different methods for tanning leather, but in places such as Morocco, traditional tanneries have stayed in use. Part of what makes Morocco unique is because its method-the process of tanning leather remains completely done by hand. Typically, goats, sheep, and camel hides are the most common, although they do use cowhides occasionally.

The first step in traditional Moroccan tanneries is to wash the skin with salt to dry it out, then they coat the leather in a paste made from limestone. This paste makes the leather supple and soft, something that Moroccan leather is well-known for. The hides, once cleaned, are left to dry for two weeks. Once the two weeks are up, the leather is put into vats of guano (excrement from birds). This step is what causes the smell that a lot of real leather products have. After putting the hides in the bird droppings, they are hung out to dry. The final step is to scrape the hides to remove any leftover hair. Once the whole process is complete, the tanner sells the hides to dyers and crafters.

Dyeing Leather

The vessels used for dyeing leather in Morocco.

When the leather is sold to the dyers, the dyers use a method of natural vegetable dyeing. This means that the colors are created from plants and are natural. They can dye the leather to just about any color, including bright red (red poppy), pink (rose), orange (henna), black (henna and sugar), blue (indigo), green (mint), and yellow (pomegranate mixed with saffron). Each dye is made in a stone vessel that is about four feet wide, and each vessel has a specific smell because of the ingredients for the dye. The leather is soaked in the dye until it takes on the color.

From there, the leather can be made into anything, although most commonly it is shoes and handbags. The leather can be stamped with patterns, sewn into shapes, and more before being sold.

Textiles in the Arab World

The Arab world is also famous for its textile industry, ranging from exports to producing clothing. Starting hundreds of years ago, there are records showing flax for linen being exported by Egypt, raw cotton being shipped from Syria and Egypt, and silk sent from Syria and Iran. Many clothes from the Arab world are beautifully woven and dyed, garnering admiration from people around the world. Throughout the Arab world, there are also different styles of textiles. For example, the Moroccan Amazigh have their own style, and then there is the kilim style, common throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.

Rugs woven by Amazigh

The Moroccan Amazigh textiles have different patterns based on the different tribes. That being said, though, most of them are made of wool and basically, all of them are handwoven. Some of the patterns are geometric (incorporating stars and diamonds), while others have sequins or are hand-embroidered. The Amazigh culture holds a special place for textiles, as many different types (blankets, clothing, etc.) have a special meaning. One example of this would be a wedding blanket, woven by the bride's family, and given to the married couple to bring good luck.

A kilim pattern.

Kilim textiles are typically rugs made from wool. They can have so many different designs, although geometric designs are the most common, as they are easier to create. These textiles can also be very colorful.

Dyeing Cloth

The royal purple color is created from shellfish.

Similarly to dyeing leather, textiles can be dyed using natural ingredients. Indigo, for example, is a popular dye for blue. It was used a lot in ancient Egypt and continues to be so popular today that people have found a way to create the artificial indigo dye. The Ottomans also used indigo to create red or purple colors by combining it with other ingredients cochineal (creating a purple color). Other natural dyes include the madder plant (red, also used a lot in ancient Egypt), turmeric (yellow), saffron (also yellow), and some types of shellfish (royal purple).

Check out Arab America's blog here!

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Tanneries, Cloths and Dyeing in the Arab World

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The Arab world is well known for its leatherwork, dye, and cloths. Their traditions surrounding leather and cloth go back to thousands of years ago.

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For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

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Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

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home |about us | Forugh's life | Forugh's work | about Forugh | contact us | search the site | literary works |order memorabilia

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It has a tart, cranberry-like flavour, and sugar or honey is often added to sweeten it. The tea contains vitamin C and minerals and is used traditionally as a mild medicine. In west Sudan a white hibiscus flower is favoured for its bitter taste and is customarily served to guests.

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What is wood smoke?

Smoke forms when wood or other organic matter burns. The smoke from wood burning is made up of a complex mixture of gases and fine particles (also called particle pollution, particulate matter, or PM). In addition to particle pollution, wood smoke contains several toxic air pollutants including The following links exit the site

The more efficiently you burn wood (e.g., using an EPA-certified wood stove and dry, seasoned wood) the less smoke is created.

Smoke may smell good, but it's not good for you. The biggest health threat from smoke is from fine particles, also called fine particulate matter or PM2.5. These microscopic particles can get into your eyes and respiratory system, where they may cause burning eyes, runny nose, and illnesses, such as bronchitis.

Fine particles can make asthma symptoms worse and trigger asthma attacks. Fine particles can also trigger heart attacks, stroke, irregular heart rhythms, and heart failure, especially in people who are already at risk for these conditions.

Learn more about the health and environmental effects of fine particles.

Wood Smoke & Asthma Videos

During the wintertime, residential wood smoke is a main contributor to fine particle pollution (PM) and is responsible for poor air quality days in many areas across the United States. The following videos highlight the health effects related to PM exposure from residential wood smoke.

Who is at risk from wood smoke?

Wood smoke can affect everyone, but the populations known to be at greater risk include: children, teenagers, older adults, people with lung disease -- including asthma and COPD, people with heart disease, outdoor workers, and people of low socioeconomic status, including those who are homeless and with limited access to medical care. Research indicates that obesity or diabetes may also increase risk. New or expectant mothers may also want to take precautions to protect the health of their babies, because some studies indicate they may be at increased risk.

It's important to limit your exposure to smoke-especially if you are more susceptible than others:

If you have heart or lung disease, such as congestive heart failure, angina, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema or asthma, you may experience health effects earlier and at lower smoke levels than healthy people.

Older adults are more likely to be affected by smoke, possibly because they are more likely to have chronic heart or lung diseases than younger people.

Children also are more susceptible to smoke for several reasons:

their respiratory systems are still developing,

they breathe more air (and air pollution) per pound of body weight than adults, and

they are more likely to be active outdoors.

Learn how to reduce wood smoke and lower your risk.

Wood smoke and COVID-19

Wood smoke can irritate your lungs, cause inflammation, affect your immune system, and make you more prone to lung infections, likely including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that cause COVID-19. According to information provided on CDC's website, people who currently have or who are recovering from COVID-19 may be at an increased risk of health effects from exposure to wood smoke due to compromised heart and/or lung function related to COVID-19.

If you are recovering from COVID-19, or are at increased risk for COVID-19, take steps to reduce your exposure to wood smoke. See additional information on wood smoke and COVID-19.

Know the difference between symptoms from smoke exposure and COVID-19. The following links exit the site.

Symptoms, like dry cough, sore throat, and difficulty breathing can be caused by both smoke exposure and COVID-19.

Learn about CDC's list of symptoms of COVID-19. Symptoms like fever or chills, muscle or body aches, and diarrhea are not related to smoke exposure. If you have questions about your symptoms, contact a healthcare provider.

If you have severe symptoms, like difficulty breathing or chest pain, immediately call 911 or the nearest emergency facility.

For more information about COVID-19, go to CDC's Coronavirus (COVID-19) webpage.

Environmental effects of wood smoke

The particles in wood smoke can reduce visibility (haze). Particles can also create environmental and aesthetic damage in our communities and scenic areas - like national parks. Health resources

Related Information
Health resources Asthma resources Outreach materials

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Racist Housing Practices From The 1930s Linked To Hotter Neighborhoods Today

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A study of more than 100 cities nationwide shows neighborhoods subjected to discriminatory housing policies nearly a century ago are hotter today than other areas.

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Parks and green spaces provide a variety of health benefits by promoting physical activity, connection to nature and opportunities for community engagement. Nature-based programs can even be prescribed by health care providers as part of alternative, cost-effective treatment plans.

In a paper recently published in the North Carolina Medical Journal, Lincoln Larson and Aaron Hipp, associate professors of parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State, provide an overview of how parks and green spaces can help alleviate contemporary health challenges.

We recently spoke with Larson and Hipp to learn more about the value of these spaces, the programs capitalizing on their benefits, and the equity issues that exist in relation to accessibility. Check it out below.

What defines a green space?

Larson and Hipp: Green spaces can be defined in many ways, from narrow (e.g., forested areas) to broad (e.g., any landscape that includes some natural elements, like a backyard or even street trees).

In general, we like to think about green space as a term that includes both natural ecosystems and key components of the built environment such as public parks, greenways, gardens and forests, as well as private yards and other natural areas.

How do these spaces positively impact physical health?

Larson and Hipp: Because the benefits provided by parks and green spaces are typically free and publicly accessible, they represent a cost-effective alternative and/or supplement to conventional health promotion strategies. These spaces are especially important for physical health. They create environments that support active lifestyles and improve access to exercise opportunities. They also improve cardiovascular health by mitigating risk factors such as high cholesterol levels, hypertension and obesity.

In some cases (think community gardens and hosted farmers' markets), parks can also foster healthy eating habits. And they provide a variety of ecosystem services by improving air quality, regulating temperature and attenuating impacts of severe weather, all of which impact our health as well. These benefits can therefore be experienced by people that are both physically in parks and green spaces (e.g., running in a park) and communities that live near them (e.g., air quality and temperature regulation).

What mental health benefits do these spaces provide?

Larson and Hipp: Parks and green spaces also provide a number of mental health benefits. People who spend more time in nature enjoy enhanced cognitive functioning and attention and reduced stress. They are also less likely to display anxiety disorders and depression and more likely to report high levels of happiness and well-being.

Connection to nature and green spaces has also been shown to enhance positive youth development. Parks provide benefits to broader communities too, providing spaces where people gather and interact to build social cohesion and foster social capital.

Green land cover also yields economic benefits, and has been linked to lower levels of health care spending and higher levels of financial well-being and security. These benefits have been especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, where individuals and communities who had access to parks and green space demonstrated better health outcomes and a heightened ability to cope than those who weren't able to use or access these areas.

What equity issues exist around realizing these health benefits across all communities?

Larson and Hipp: Despite the immense capacity of parks and green space to improve health outcomes, these resources often remain inequitably distributed across diverse communities. Neighborhoods with a large proportion of low-income or racial/ethnic minority residents typically experience limited access to quality parks and green space, including limited programming within the spaces.

Even when parks are located in these communities, they tend to be of lower quality and are therefore often used less frequently. These disparities have only grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring the need to ensure the benefits of parks and green space are accessible to and enjoyed by all segments of society.

How can parks and green spaces be leveraged to support community health?

Larson and Hipp: As more people recognize the health promotion potential of parks, a number of programs, tools and initiatives have been designed to leverage these opportunities. Examples of efforts to accentuate these connections include the National Park Service's "Healthy Parks Healthy People" initiative, the "Leave No Child Inside" movement, and the rise of nature prescription (or Park Rx) programs designed to formalize the health benefits of outdoor spaces through a written prescription from a health care provider.

Novel partnerships are also playing an increasingly important role. In North Carolina, for instance, "Let's Move Libraries" is a UNC-Greensboro resource for linking public libraries to outdoor-based active living opportunities, and 4-H Youth Development programs run through cooperative extensions offices in each county help youth connect with nature. Play Streets and Open Streets initiatives that increase access to safe outdoor recreation opportunities highlight another creative trend toward outdoor and nature-based health promotion during the pandemic.

Although challenges persist, the health-related benefits generated by parks and green space may be more conspicuous now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, than ever before. At this critical juncture, we need to embrace the value of nature-based interventions at both the individual (e.g., more time outdoors and Park Rx prescriptions for patients) and community level (e.g., policies and programs that facilitate equitable connections to parks and green space). Although more research is needed, the current evidence is clear: elevating the role of green space access and quality in planning, policy and decision-making across diverse contexts could ultimately lead to a healthier and happier population.

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How Green Spaces Can Improve Your Health

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NC State experts Lincoln Larson and Aaron Hipp discuss the role of parks and green spaces in promoting well-being.

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https://www.airnow.gov/announcement/3336

Recursos de AirNow en español

Ahora los recursos de AirNow en español son más fáciles de encontrar. Haga clic en los Recursos en español para encontrar los enlaces a nuestros documentos en español sobre el Índice de Calidad del Aire, cómo prepararse para los incendios forestales y más.

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AirNow is your one-stop source for air quality data. Our recently redesigned site highlights air quality in your local area first, while still providing air quality information at state, national, and world views.

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Highlights

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Artist Bisa Butler and her husband, a longtime DJ, chose this selection of songs to pair with each of her quilts as well as other works from the museum's collection, all of which are on view in Bisa Butler: Portraits.

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Bisa Butler: The Playlist | The Art Institute of Chicago

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Artist Bisa Butler and her husband, a longtime DJ, chose this selection of songs to pair with each of her quilts as well as other works from the museum's collection, all of which are on view in Bisa Butler: Portraits.

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Explore Bisa Butler's Portfolio- Art, Songs and Words from the Artist

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Explore Bisa Butler's Portfolio- Art, Songs and Words from the Artist

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How can you create art using fabric? This classroom exploration is on Bisa Butler an artist who creates portraits using quilting techniques. Look closely…

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Save the date! Ypsilanti’s 3rd Annual Juneteenth Celebration weekend returns on June 16, 17, and 18. Expect local vendors and community organizations, live performances, and a weekend of community gathering. View the schedule below: Friday, June 16th | 6 PM-9 PM Enjoy a Divine 9 Community Mixer. Com…

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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WSSU Choir - Lift Every Voice and Sing - arr. Roland M. Carter

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Lift Every Voice And Sing | Davey Yarborough & Esther Williams | TEDxPearlStreet

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Listen to my interview with Sawsan Jaber, Reem Fakhry, Fatma Elsamra, and Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi (transcript):

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One of the many ways we can make our schools more nurturing for all students is to diversify our classroom materials. When students see people like them in the curriculum, it shapes their identities by offering a reflection of themselves; Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop describes these kinds of materials as "mirrors." Diverse materials also serve as what she calls "windows" and "sliding glass doors," allowing us to view people who are different from us and enter worlds different from what we're familiar with.

While many educators embrace the goal of diversifying classroom materials in theory, they may not be confident about how to achieve it. Websites like We Need Diverse Books and Diverse Book Finder are great places to start. Another approach is to look into our curricula to find places where the contributions of many cultures can be more fully acknowledged.

We'll be doing this here with a specific focus on Arab cultures. A little over a year ago, Dr. Sawsan Jaber helped us understand how Arab-American students often experience exclusion, bullying, and other forms of marginalization in our schools, and how we can do a better job of supporting them. Now she returns with three other educators - Fatma Elsamra, math, Reem Fakhry, science, and Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi, social studies - to focus more specifically on the curriculum piece of this work, approaches we can take to integrate Arab narratives into our teaching and curriculum.

The Big Picture

"I think oftentimes people think cultural responsiveness sits more in a humanities classroom," Jaber says. "And the reality is that the Arab heritage and the Arab culture is something that is across content areas. When we really interrogate curriculum in most schools, we often see a conflation of Arab and Muslim identities. We see those come up only when we're talking about the Ottoman Empire or 9/11. Those very limited stories are not creating a fuller picture, like the contributions that Arabs have in arts, in the maths, to the sciences, and in humanities."

Weaving these contributions into the curriculum doesn't have to mean a huge overhaul, she says. Teachers "can easily augment standards and things that we're doing in our classroom spaces...that narrative is one that is very present in a lot of things we're already doing, but people don't know because it's an intentionally erased narrative."

English Language Arts

The most obvious way to integrate Arab narratives into ELA classes is through literature, by adding more work by Arab authors to the materials available to students and the texts teachers choose to study closely as a class.

"Poetry is very much part of the Arab culture," Jaber says. "Even our Quran is written in verse. It's a beautiful literary piece to really analyze." While other genres of literature from Arab voices haven't been as easy to find, that is starting to change. Jaber says there has been an emergence of new novels from contemporary Arab writers, but these are still somewhat limited.

"The reality is no matter how many novels we do read about the Arab world, there are 20-plus countries and they're all very, very different, even within the same country. I'm Palestinian. If you come from a village in Palestine, it's very different than if you come from the main cities. So the culture is different. The traditions are different. The dialect of Arabic that's spoken is very different. And so no matter how much we read about cultures that we are not a part of, there is always something to learn."

One book in particular, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, is a popular choice in American classrooms, and Jaber takes issue with this being positioned as a representation of Arab cultures.

"Hosseini is not an Arab. I think oftentimes there's a conflation of identities. Yes, he may identify as a Muslim, but the Islam that's represented in that text is extremist Islam. It's not the Islam that many Muslims follow or the Islam the majority of Muslims follow. So if we're putting this text into the curriculum because we feel like it's speaking to the students, whether Arab or Muslim, it's not speaking to them. It's immersing them in stereotypes of themselves. And oftentimes it's not taught as a stereotypical text. And so it becomes the only window that a lot of other kids, whether there are Arab students in those schools or not, have into the Arab culture - or they think they have into the Arab culture, because he's not an Arab. And then there's nothing else that's in the curriculum, oftentimes, that actually is representative of these students."

Because there is so much diversity under the big umbrella of Arab culture, Jaber puts an equal amount of effort into creating an environment where students feel safe to tell their own stories - not just Arab students, but all marginalized students.

"We spend the first months of school really just questioning identity through literature and talking about it deeply. As an English teacher, I've learned (how to) get students to feel comfortable enough and safe enough to let go of their sense of duality when they're walking into my classroom space. That takes a lot of culture-building and community-building first. And then, how do I get them to really realize and think about how important it is for them to reclaim their own narratives? Because Arabs aren't the only marginalized group that have had their narrative taken away from them. And so by doing it this way, we're kind of elevating the voices of the students in the classroom, and they are becoming the content creators that become the main resources of our classroom space."

With that said, she cautions teachers not to use Arab students to teach the rest of the class about their culture. "The worst thing we could do is single out specific students to ask them like, 'Hey, are you fasting in Ramadan? Can you tell us about Ramadan?' That's the worst thing you can do to a child who already is in crisis about who they are, because it's gonna make them stand out more."

Instead, create regular opportunities for students to write about their own experiences, even if they only do so privately. "Get them to really think about themselves, their place in the world, who they are, and all of these different big questions that will help them come to terms with whatever it is that they're dealing with and really heal from it," Jaber says.

ELA Resources

Social Studies

"I think the main reason why Arab Americans are not in curriculum is because people look at Arab Americans through such a stereotypical and biased lens," Shinnawi explains. "They tend to be overlooked. And therefore people look at the Arab communities as a new phenomenon, something that happened maybe in the last couple of decades, or something that's related to what's going on geopolitically in the region of the Middle East. And it's also always taught as the concept of either Arabs or Muslims and a concept of something 'foreign' or in the past."

When Arab narratives are included, she says, the inclusion is often limited to coverage of Islamic Spain, the Crusades, or 9/11. "So you have all of these pieces of Arab history that are either in the past, that don't even exist anymore, or in the present but more in such a stereotypical negative concept of everything as war."

One important shift in social studies would be a recognition that people from Arab countries have been in the United States for generations. Along with so many of the other groups who arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a large wave of Arabs immigrated to the U.S. at that time. Many in this early wave were Christian, from countries now known as Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan. They settled in the big cities, yes, but many also made their homes in the Midwest, something that isn't really covered in history textbooks. "Their experience is just like every other immigrant experience," Shinnawi says. "So when you start normalizing people that you haven't normalized for a long time, that's difficult for some people to understand."

Another important step would be to make sure any curriculum that incorporates more representation of the Arab experience is written and vetted by those with lived experience. Shinnawi describes how much of the curriculum on Arab and Muslim history is written by people in academia, often by those who have no personal experience with the topics they are writing about. "When curriculum is written by people outside of that lived experience, a lot of it is written through a biased lens. Intentional, unintentional, regardless of what it is, it's biased. They're going to come in and they're going to present their own understanding of the religion and interpretation of the culture." For more accurate and positive representation, those who publish curriculum need to be intentional about who is writing the material.

Social Studies Resources

Math

One of the most important ways to integrate Arab narratives into mathematics instruction is by acknowledging the contributions made to the field by people from Arab countries.

"The history of math started actually from an Arab, a mathematician scholar named Muhammad al-Khwarizmi," Elsamra explains. "He is actually known as the father of algebra." Al-Khwarizmi is also credited with creating the Arabic number system that we still use today and introducing the concept of zero. While his tremendous influence on mathematics is sometimes given a brief mention in textbooks, Elsamra says, "That's not enough. One line should not be the end all be all when it comes to the inception of mathematics and how it came into fruition."

Math teachers can also bring in tools that have Arabic origins, like the abacus. "That's a math manipulative that can be brought back into the elementary classrooms where students can learn the four basic operations through using the abacus and understand, conceptually, what's behind addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Some schools still use it, but it's not something that's used often. You never know what students can benefit from something like this. But also tying it into the history and how this is a tool that before calculators, this is what mathematicians used to calculate the four basic operations or just do basic counting. And it can be brought back into the classroom as early as pre-K when students start learning how to count."

Elsamra points out another area for connection: geometry. "The Arab culture is infused with such beautiful architecture and patterns and vibrant colors and tessellations," she explains. "Geometry is not just about statements and justifications. You have that piece of the patterns and the tessellations, and it's important for geometry teachers to incorporate projects and activities where students can look into these patterns and tessellations and architecture through the Arabic world and the palaces and the mosques and the churches that were built in the Middle East. They carry such beautiful architecture, and bringing that through geometry would be such a beautiful thing for our students to see."

While these integrations will enrich all students' study of mathematics, they will have a profound impact on Arab students.

"Imagine how a student feels, an Arab student in the classroom, just being proud of their ancestors," Elsamra says. " This is what my roots are coming from, and these are the people, and this is how they affected my studies today. The Arab students aren't feeling that connection or that appreciation or that value, and knowing that their ancestors had a lot to do with how things are run today in all content areas, it would it definitely change their outlook on a lot of things."

Math Resources

Science

Because the history of science has been taught through a Eurocentric lens, Fakhry explains, Arab contributions have been largely erased or whitewashed.

"The time period we know as the Dark Ages...we're only seeing what's happening in Europe. But if we turn our focus slightly to the East, we can see that there is a Golden Age happening, innovations that are surpassing anything that could have been imagined. Scientists who have been able to identify the difference between measles and smallpox. Surgeries are happening, surgery that was not happening anywhere else on the globe. Sanitation measures were happening, so people were being able to overcome disease. That was not happening in the West."

Just as the West was coming out of the Dark Ages, she says, "anything that was published in the East is now being translated into Latin. The names of the scientists are now being whitewashed and they're Latinized. And all of a sudden Abbas Ibn Firnas, who was an aviator, figured out how to fly, is now Armen Firman. And students are coming into science class, and they're not learning about what happened during that time because it's too old. It's too ancient. It's gone, completely erased. All they're learning about is what happened in Europe. It's all Eurocentric."

The resources below are a good place to start uncovering those contributions that have historically been erased.

Science Resources

Other Resources

These are not aligned with any particular content area, but offer more information, stories, and perspectives on the intersection of teaching and the Arab experience in America.

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Integrating Arab Narratives Across the Curriculum

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Listen to my interview with Sawsan Jaber, Reem Fakhry, Fatma Elsamra, and Abeer Ramadan-Shinnawi (transcript): Sponsored by JumpStart This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.