National Park Association of Queensland Activities Vegetation Management Group

Saturday 14th March 2020

Location: Jolly’ s Lookout carpark, D’Aguilar National Park

Leader: Angus McElnea (0429854446 or gus mcelnea@hotmail.com)

Get your hands dirty! Come and spend a couple of hours to help with lantana(a type of flowering plant) control and revegetation(植被再造) work in the Boombana and Jolly’s Lookout areas of D’Aguilar National Park, west of Brisbane.

Wynnum North Boardwalk

Sunday 15th March 2020

Location: Wynnum North Boardwalk Leader: Jocelyn Dixon (0733788486)

Fee: $5(members) $10(non-members)

Join with us to view the water and bush birds of this area. A track from Wynnum North Road leads to a secret place for viewing a diverse mix of birds walking around in water. From there we will take a short walk to the Mangrove Boardwalk.

May Long Weekend Camp

Saturday 2nd May to Monday 4th May 2020 Leader: Tony Parsons (0433224544)

Join us for a long weekend in Border Rangers National Park, camping at Sheep Station Creek campground. Spend the days exploring the national park, and evenings around the campfire. We will have the chance to view Mt Warning from the Pinnacle at sunrise and sunset. Bring your family and stay for the weekend or come down for a day. It will be enjoyable.

Central West Qld National Parks

Saturday 29th August to Sunday 6th September 2020 Leader: Wendy Bell(0733002473)

Exciting opportunity to visit and explore at least six national parks in the comfort of a big coach and be accommodated, rather than camping. Basic cost of the tour is $3, 400 per person. Total cost includes all transport, all meals, and activity fees.

The bus stops in the Dutch city of Utrecht are as beautiful as they are practical. Now, 316 bus stops feature a green roof that adds some life to the city, while also storing rainwater, catching dust, and providing some much needed shade during the warmer months. This project is good for the honey bee population that is attracted to the plants on the roof. To keep up this successful ecosystem, municipal（市政的）workers drive around in electric cars, taking care of the mini gardens.

Another one of the biggest benefits to come out of these green stops is the improved air quality. Smoking, cars, and bacteria all contribute to polluting the air we breathe. These eco-friendly public spaces act as an air purifier for city people, though humans aren’t the only group that benefit from them.

Utrecht has also made great efforts towards moving their transportation system away from gas-guzzling（高耗油的）buses. The city replaced 10 gas-guzzling buses with electric powered buses and plans to have only CO₂ inactive buses on the road by 2028.

The buses have a system that records the driver’s efficiency and rider’s comfort levels. Drivers can win prizes based on how safe and comfortable the ride was. The city is also one of the most bicycle-friendly places in the world. Roads have been redesigned for cyclists’ convenience and there is a new state-of-the-art 6,000 space bicycle parking area that is located beneath Utrecht’s central train station.

Utrecht offers prize money to keep citizens energized and motivated to live greener lives. There are even prize money for people to transform their roofs into green roofs too. Achieving the goals of an eco-friendlier city takes cooperation and Utrecht is leading the way to protect our environment.

Mercury(水星) is the closest planet to the sun. It is a planet slightly larger than the Earth’s moon. It is covered in craters. Some craters have ice in them, even though the planet is hot. Sunlight never touches some parts because of the planet’s special position. Without air, there are great temperature differences between the coldest and hottest parts. Mercury days are so long that there are big differences between temperatures on the daylight side and the night side.

Mercury was created billions of years ago, when big rocks ran into each other. After these accidents, the planet was frequently visited by meteorites (流星) for several hundred million years. There were also many volcanic eruptions. As the planet cooled, the thin, rocky outside shell reduced in diameter(直径) by about 3 kilometers.

The Caloris Basin is one of the largest craters on Mercury. This big crater is 1, 300 kilometers wide and was formed when a large rock, about 100 kilometers across, knocked into the surface. Beethoven, another large crater, is 643 kilometers across.

The cliffs on Mercury are up to 2 kilometers high and hundreds of kilometers long. The cliffs were formed when the thin surface fell apart, as volcanic activity slowed down and Mercury became cooler.

One Mercury day lasts about 59 Earth days. Mercury takes about 88 Earth days to have a complete year, instead of the 365 days that we have on the Earth. Mercury speeds around the sun so that there are three Mercury days every two Mercury years! Mercury has a strange relationship with the Earth. Every 117 days, when Mercury is closest to the Earth, it always has the same side facing us.

Mariner 10 is the only spacecraft to visit Mercury. It made three visits to Mercury in, the 1970s, taking photos of many cliffs and craters. Although the first three visits answered many questions, they have raised others.

Cattle manure(粪肥) has become one of the world’s greatest environmental killers, but one Dutch artist is using chemistry to turn it into something that is both eco-friendly and valuable.

In recent years, scientists around the world have made great progress in their attempts to recycle cattle manure, including turning it into natural fertilizer, but Eindhoven designer Jalila Essaidi didn’t think they were efficient enough to solve the global manure problem. So she started on her very own solution, one that approached animal waste as a valuable material that could be processed into useful products.

She started by separating the waste, with the dry manure used to get pure cellulose(纤维素) from the grass that cows eat. From the wet manure, she got acids used to create a natural liquid plastic which was used to make fiber that are later turned into fabric(material used for making clothes).

This new material was named Mestic, from mest, the Dutch word for manure. Essaidi claim that it has the same function as plastic from fossil fuels, but is bio-degradable(可生物降解的). Better yet, the degradability can be dealt with in the lab, making it possible to create materials that last for different periods of time depending on their purpose. “This is not the first time that scientists have been looking for ways to solve the manure problem, but it is the first time that manure is being considered as a valuable resource.” the Dutch designer said.

Last year, Jalila Essaldi partnered with the city of Eindhoven to produce a fashion show using Mestic-based fabrics. Her Mestic collection was so impressive that clothing giant H&M awarded her the Global Change Award and a $1million prize. And cow manure is just the beginning of Jalila Essaldi’s experiments with animal waste. “After cows, we’ll deal with pigs and other animals,” she said.