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By Nancy Burnett   California is leaping for joy with all the water we received this winter.  Our ponds are full of water just waiting for our amphibian friends. I love visiting my favorite ponds to see what’s going on. In March the Western toads were already gathering. We could hardly drive at night there were so many crossing the road heading to the water.  

By Nancy Burnett, Founder, Shape of Life I just went to a wonderful workshop about plankton. We may as well fess up to the fact that there’s a whole world out there in the ocean that we haven't told you about, yet. Most marine animals that we know and love started out in life looking very different from what they look like as adults.At the beginning of life, they hatch out of eggs that float in the water or are attached to the bottom of the ocean. The tiny larvae feed, grow and change form in the ocean as part of the zooplankton. These fragile, otherworldly creatures swim or drift in the currents for months at a time before settling to the bottom to change into adults.

Let’s Fight for Our Planet!Our last blog by Jane Silberstein revealed the beauty of the coral reefs of Fiji (I wish I had been on that trip!) and how climate change affects those extraordinary reefs.Jane shared how changing ocean chemistry – ocean acidification – makes it more difficult for corals to build their reefs because they can’t absorb the necessary calcium carbonate. It’s our actions over the last 200 years that have changed the ocean: we have released about two trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And about a quarter of that has been absorbed by the oceans.Read more about how you can help slow ocean acidification…

As an interpreter for the Monterey Bay Aquarium I’ve spent 30 plus years reveling in the beauty and diversity of the invertebrates of Monterey Bay.  I’m known affectionately as the “worm lady” to the aquarium guides and staff, due to my love of ocean worms and other invertebrates (I did my Master’s thesis in the mudflats of Elkhorn Slough, our local wetland).  I’ve only dreamed of diving in places like Fiji, but this spring a free space opened up on a 10-day live-aboard scuba diving boat, the NAIA. It was with my good friend, and mentor, Dr. Steve Webster, who was leading a group of 16 people to explore the reefs of Fiji....