A guide to child-led family activities centred on nature rambles in different habitats
- park seaside woodland moorland river &
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The Nature Connection" is an interactive workbook chock-full of creative exercises for kids ages 8 to 13. Leslie begins simply by encouraging children to look out the window & record what they observe: What colour is the sky? What shapes are the clouds? Are there any birds? What kind? Are there signs of what season it is? Once outdoors kids are prompted to record the sounds they hear the ground plants they see the direction of the wind the shape & direction of their own shadows & how each of these change from day to day season to season. " The Nature Connection" offers dozens of fun things to do during every season: write a poem; make a sketch; tell a story; record the daily sunrise & sunset times for the next month; draw a local map & mark the spots where trees rocks animals & other nature sights reside (and identify each one); keep a moon journal; learn the constellations; or collect leaves & bring them home to sketch & identify. Sure to engage the whole family in outdoor fun & year-round nature activities " The Nature Connection" will also stand as a permanent record of a child's unique sightings & experience with nature." ...

The first British edition of this worldwide bestseller The Nature Doctor fully revised & updated comes complete with comprehensive appendices offering the reader easy access to wealth of information from the 'father' of natural healing. Dr H. C. A. Vogel comes from a Swiss family where the secrets of herbalism were known & practised. From early childhood he was eager to learn about the healing powers of plants & bit by bit he collected & expanded the traditional & empirical knowledge of European folk-medicine. Since 1929 he has reported his experiences & observations as a nature practitioner nutritionist researcher of medicinal plants & discoverer of natural healing powers in his monthly periodical Gesundheitsnachrichten (A. Vogel's Health News). First published in 1952 The Nature Doctor has become a recognised standard publication even among medical doctors & scientists. ...

Bring your child face-to-face with nature with this first reference for young animal lovers now in paperback. You can explore nature in all its glory & discover all about plants & animals & where they live. You can find out what life is like underground where you can find the world's ugliest fish & why fungi are so fantastic. It is packed with curiosity quizzes 'turn & learn' boxes & bite-sized nature facts kids love getting their teeth into there's lots to see & explore. Go ahead let your children take a walk into the natural world! ...

Honey Santana
- self-proclaimed queen of lost causes
- has a Plan. She's working on a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility

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A collection of anecdotes facts figures folklore & literature The Nature Magpie is a veritable treasure trove of humanity's thoughts & feelings about nature. With acclaimed nature writer Daniel Allen as your guide join naturalists novelists & poets as they explore the most isolated parts of the planet choose your side
- pineapple or durian
- in the great 'king of fruits' debate & discover which plants can be used to predict the weather. Meet the roadkill connoisseurs learn to dance the Hippopotamus Polka find out the likelihood of sharing your name with a hurricane
- & much more.


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Einstein said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. But was he right? Can the quantum theory of fields & Einsteins general theory of relativity the two most accurate & successful theories in all of physics be united in a single quantum theory of gravity? Can quantum & cosmos ever be combined? On this issue two of the worlds most famous physicists
- Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time") & Roger Penrose (" The Emperors New Mind" & " Shadows of the Mind")
- disagree. Here they explain their positions in a work based on six lectures with a final debate all originally presented at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. How could quantum gravity a theory that could explain the earlier moments of the big bang & the physics of the enigmatic objects known as black holes be constructed? Why does our patch of the universe look just as Einstein predicted with no hint of quantum effects in sight? What strange quantum processes can cause black holes to evaporate & what happens to all the information that they swallow? Why does time go forward not backward? In this book the two opponents touch on all these questions. Penrose like Einstein refuses to believe that quantum mechanics is a final theory. Hawking thinks otherwise & argues that general relativity simply cannot account for how the universe began. Only a quantum theory of gravity coupled with the no-boundary hypothesis can ever hope to explain adequately what little we can observe about our universe. Penrose playing the realist to Hawkings positivist thinks that the universe is unbounded & will expand forever. The universe can be understood he argues in terms of the geometry of light cones the compression & distortion of spacetime & by the use of twistor theory. With the final debate the reader will come to realize how much Hawking & Penrose diverge in their opinions of the ultimate quest to combine quantum mechanics & relativity & how differently they have tried to comprehend the incomprehensible. In a new afterword the authors outline how recent developments have caused their positions to further diverge on a number of key issues including the spatial geometry of the universe inflationary versus cyclic theories of the cosmos & the black-hole information-loss paradox. Though much progress has been made Hawking & Penrose stress that physicists still have much farther to go in their quest for a quantum theory of gravity."

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Lucretius poem On the Nature of Things" combines a scientific & philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is mortal & the world & everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature & not by gods; & that by believing this men can live in peace of mind & happiness. He bases this on the atomic theory expounded by the Greek philosopher Epicurus & continues with an examination of sensation sex cosmology meteorology & geology all of these subjects made more attractive by the poetry with which he illustrates them." ...

In this lucid step-by-step guide Susan Raven introduces us to the world of nature spirits & elemental beings & explains why these entities wish to reconnect with us. By working together with the elementals
- which reside in earth water air & fire
- we can become responsible co-creators at this critical time in our evolution. The future of humanity & that of the Earth may be dependent upon such a positive & reciprocal relationship. Susan investigates the nature of the accelerated evolutionary wave of consciousness pulsing into Earth at the present time & how its effects are helping us forge a new link with the spiritual & etheric worlds. It is in the ether
- where the dissolving & coalescing forces behind physical matter exist
- that we find the kingdom of the nature spirits. Making use of her personal experiences Susan describes the activities of these beings in the landscape in plants & in human beings. She presents meditations & exercises to prepare us for a meeting with the nature spirits & emphasises the importance of working with the elemental kingdom in our immediate environment. The path of personal development outlined in Nature Spirits: The Remembrance features a wide range of insightful testimony from some of the most well-respected seers with particular emphasis on the work of Rudolf Steiner. The task of the troubadour has always been to listen to the wind & anticipate the future to discern the fine nuances of a spiritual age & to play the dual roles of receiver & transmitter. My many years as a songwriter & performer have encouraged me to go ahead & petition the hidden spirit within nature to reveal its inspirations & imaginations...



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Acclaimed author Matt Ridley's thrilling follow-up to his bestseller Genome. Armed with the extraordinary new discoveries about our genes Ridley turns his attention to the nature versus nurture debate to bring the first popular account of the roots of human behaviour. What makes us who we are? In February 2001 it was announced that the genome contains not 100 000 genes as originally expected but only 30 000. This startling revision led some scientists to conclude that there are simply not enough human genes to account for all the different ways people behave: we must be made by nurture not nature. Matt Ridley argues that the emerging truth is far more interesting than this myth. Nurture depends on genes too & genes need nurture. Genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain; they also absorb formative experiences react to social cues & even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will. Published fifty years after the discovery of the double helix of DNA Nature via Nurture chronicles a new revolution in our understanding of genes. Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature & nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature the human being can be simultaneously free-willed & motivated by instinct & culture. Nature via Nurture is an enthralling up-to-the-minute account of how genes build brains to absorb experience. ...