Hi all,

I've attached the PPT on invasive species that Dr. Tom Wentworth presented to us earlier this semester! Make sure to check it out! [Note: You will have to click on "Read More" first.] Also, here's a picture of a cute panda to help you get through these last couple of weeks of classes. :)

Thursday, March 2nd, at 7:00 pm starting at David Clark Labs we will be having a meeting! We will be painting the Free Expression tunnel and eating delicious pizza! ANYONE can join, whether you are a member or not please come and hangout with us to share our love for the world around us.

Paint Party at a Pizza Picnic and a Precious Panda

• Supplies will be provided; however, bring your own item to guarantee you will have what you want!

We are really excited for this Spring semester as we have lots of ideas and plans for some rad events! Our first meeting will be on Thursday, February 2^nd, in David Clark Labs in room 102. This will be an interest meeting for anyone, new or old to the club; so we can all get to know each other and learn what Roots and Shoots is really about!

It is also ground hog day; therefore, we will be celebrating and as always, there will be yummy food (probably Pizza)!

We are excited for Heather Kasey from the Elephant Education Initiative to speak to our club about the current elephant conservation efforts.

Come by David Clark Labs room 102 on Thursday, September 15th at 7pm to see the presentation!

To create a sustainable future for elephants through the education of children around the world. We provide elephant education by working with experts in both conservation and education.  We hope to inspire children and parents everywhere to take part becoming an advocate for elephants worldwide.  ​

Support the elephants by joining Roots and Shoots on Thursday!

We are excited for representatives of the Wildlands Network to speak to our club about the wild red wolf population crisis in North Carolina.

Come by David Clark Labs room 102 on Thursday, September 1st at 7pm to see the presentation!

"As you may or may not know, the red wolf program has been under review by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for several years. A final decision by the Director of the FWS is expected in September as to whether or not to continue the wild red wolf recovery program in eastern NC. If the Agency chooses to discontinue the program, red wolves will become extinct in the wild and the southeast will lose its historic top carnivore. Right now the signs are not good, which would mean that the red wolves will be either recaptured or simply abandoned. The FWS leadership has been taking remarkable steps to undermine their own red wolf program, apparently in an effort to appease a small group of anti-wolf critics. This would represent the US Fish and Wildlife Service walking away from conserving what is arguably one of the rarest mammal species on the entire planet. To prevent such a tragedy from happening, we need to do everything we can before September to raise the profile of the red wolf (many people in NC don't even know it’s here) and demonstrate public support for keeping the wolves in the wild."

Support the red wolves by joining Roots and Shoots on Thursday!

We finalized the date for our club zoo trip for March 19th, so mark it on your calendars! If you are interested in going, sign up below!
**Remember you have to pay your member dues of $5 to go on the trip.

After the somewhat comical technical difficulties on our end, we had an interesting video chat with Tara Easter, who is a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity in Oregon and holds a B.S. degree in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology from NC State. Her work is centered around endangered species, and she works primarily to try to get animals protected under the Endangered Species Act through petitioning and advocacy. She also assists in tracking the status of currently listed species, as well as researches species with potential to be listed. Her work is extremely important when it comes to the business of poaching and trade of exotic animals between countries. A special shout out to Tara for co-founding the NCSU Roots and Shoots Club!

We had Lisa Mills join us as our guest speaker, who is an Outreach Specialist within the College of Natural Resources. She spoke about her project called Elephants on the Line, which focuses on mitigating human-elephant conflict through community stewardship. This work focuses on Asian elephants, particularly those that occur along the India-Bhutan border where H-E conflict tends to be high. Through this program, many local boys were trained in camera and GPS tracking unit use, and they are the ones who do the community data collection, which is important for a sustainable conservation program abroad. She also spoke briefly about the Maasai Twiga Tracker Teens program that is stationed in Africa and is focused on giraffe conservation. This program allows local teenagers to complete population studies simply by using photography since giraffes have unique patterns, which is similar to humans having unique fingerprints. She does have internships available, so if anyone is interested in her work, contact her at lrmills2@ncsu.edu!

Check out this message from Katie Cupp!

Greetings students!

My name is Katie Cupp, I am a graduate student studying zoology and nonprofit management. I’m getting together a group of 12 students who will be traveling with International Student Volunteers to South Africa! ISV is a non-profit that organizes life-changing volunteer abroad programs for university students. If this opportunity interests you, please contact me as soon as possible so I can reserve one of the 12 spaces for you.

During the first two weeks, our students will be doing volunteer work in conservation. We could be doing things like working hands on with cheetahs, animal habitat mapping, or even educating the locals in sustainable farming techniques.

During the second two weeks, students will travel all throughout South Africa, and even visit the surrounding countries of Swaziland and Mozambique. On the adventure tour, you will have the opportunity to go…

 Snorkeling and scuba diving with whale sharks, dolphins and manta rays in Mozambique

 Cultural tour of a Swazi village in Swaziland

 Exploring local markets, museums and cultural highlights

 Wildlife safaris in national parks, including Kruger National Park

 Moholoholo wildlife sanctuary

 Visiting an elephant sanctuary

 Breathtaking drive along the Panoramic Route to Blyde River Canyon.



There are even other activities that can be added with our optional activities package! This program is a wonderful way to get out of the classroom and have some hands-on educational experiences throughout the 4 weeks, students will be learning all about the communities, ecosystems, and animals with which they are interacting! Furthermore, it gives you an opportunity to do something meaningful with their summer while exploring another culture and country.

I traveled abroad this summer and it was the most amazing experience, I absolutely recommend South Africa to any student looking to volunteer abroad. Please come out to our info meeting or fill out an application to return to me if you are interested in any programs. This program is an amazing opportunity and will fill up fast.

One amazing benefit to ISV is once you are an alumni of the program you can recruit students and travel for FREE in future years. Be sure to check us out if you are interested in nonprofits, volunteering, conservation, or travel. This is an amazing program that can even be done for credit!

Please use group code USA-NC-UL008 when applying.


This video will help show you more about what we do. Our website, isvolunteers.org will give you specific information about each country, as well as a day to day itinerary.





Best,

Katie Cupp

kcupp@ncsu.edu

Thanks to those who came out to volunteer at Wedge Community Garden! We had a great time cleaning the garden beds, picking tomatoes, and pulling up stinkhorns (ew).

Dr. Corinne Kendall gave an outstanding presentation for Roots and Shoots. She is the Assistant Curator of Conservation and manages NC Zoo-based research programs, but has done extensive work in Africa with African Elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, and her speciality: the African Vulture. She described African Vultures as the "Soap of the Savannah," since the vultures remove decaying animals and therefore disease. These vultures are facing a 50% decline in population because they are ingesting poison from animals that were killed by pesticides. The solution? Attach a satellite tracker to the vultures in order to monitor them, find the source of the poison, and hopefully eradicate the problem. The trackers send Dr. Kendall messages with the vultures location, so she is essentially texting vultures. Dr. Corinne Kendall not only receives text messages from vultures, but also works in the NC Zoo, which works with species in North America such as Hellbenders and the Pine Barrens tree frog. Radio transmitters are placed on the tree frogs as backpacks to track them as a representative for all amphibians as their surroundings are burned. Further, Dr. Kendall has been involved in research at the zoo such as studies on body composition of elephants and night-time behavior of elephants.

If you are interested in working with Dr. Corinne Kendall, there are internship opportunities at NC Zoo! Email corinne.kendall@nczoo.org for more information.

This Thursday, we will have Dr. Corinne Kendall from North Carolina Zoo speaking with us about the North Carolina Zoo Conservation program. Dr. Kendall is the Assistant Conservation and Research Curator at the North Carolina Zoo and has done some outstanding research with vultures and hippos!

She received her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University where she studied African vulture biology and conservation. Her passion for conservation and education have taken her all over the world and she has worked with several different organizations including Columbia University, Bronx Zoo, American Museum of Natural History, and Houston Zoo in both teaching and research capacities. Her current position allows her to continue conservation work on vultures in Tanzania, oversee a conservation education program in Uganda, work with undergraduates conducting studies at the zoo, and to continue teaching with Project Dragonfly. 

This is a University Scholar's event! No sign-up is required.

Please RSVP!

Roots and Shoots is hosting a volunteer event at the Wedge Community Garden on October 24th from 12:45-2:15pm! Roots and Shoots' trip last year to Wedge Garden was a huge success and loads of fun. So, let's do it again!

Check out what we did last year!


Please RSVP!

Hey guys!

The Climate Reality Project is hosting the Know Tomorrow event on Friday, October 2nd from 11am-3pm. Roots and Shoots will have a booth featuring the effects climate change has organisms and species. If you can work at the booth, please sign up!

This week we welcome Kabryn Mattison to our meeting. Kabryn is a recent graduate who works with Bali Starling conservation in Indonesia, and she had an amazing undergraduate experience in New Zealand.


Make sure to RSVP!

For our meeting we will have Dr. Beamer from Nash Community College and Jasmine Fuller from the Climate Reality Project for a very dynamic meeting! Make sure to RSVP!
Jasmine Fuller:

Hi! My name is Jasmine, and I'm an organizer for the Climate Reality Project's Know Tomorrow Campaign. This fall, we're organizing students on campuses across the U.S. and globally to let our world leaders know that we demand strong commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions when they go to the U.N. Climate Talks this December in Paris.  

We know that climate change is one of the greatest challenges our planet has ever faced. And even though we didn't cause it, we know it's up to us to solve it. President Obama recently stated that we will be the first generation to truly feel the consequences of climate change, and we are the last generation with the ability to stop it.  

As millenial voters, we can make or break political leaders' chances at election (we've done it before here in North Carolina!), so we know that our voices matter. The fossil fuel industry might have millions to spend to influence politicians, but we've got millions of students speaking out across the world to say that climate action is here to stay. We know that the technological solutions to move toward clean energy exist; now, it's time to make political leaders listen to our collective voice. 

Join Roots and Shoots for our first meeting this year! We will have food!
Thursday, August 27th