Gather 'round Chesapeake

It's rare that a well-employed environmental educator risks leaving a strong institution to create an independent, traveling classroom. That's what Tom Wisner, the Chesapeake Bay 'Bard', did. In 1978, his passionate commitment to joining song and the arts to Bay science led him to creative teaching/performing for the next 32 years. The result? First, dozens of Chesapeake songs, some of which now lie in the Smithsonian's Folkways collection. Next, a model for environmental education that creatively joins the arts, literature and history to the sciences that reveal ecological facts. Lastly, the insights that emerge when a person holds true to his/her deepest vision. This book gathers Tom Wisner's writing, from short celebratory poems to analysis of how our cultural ways of thinking about 'nature' results in the destruction of our lands and waters--and what an alternative 'Come Full Circle' way of living might be like. Tom's artwork illustrates the lively text.