The adorable female calf is the second black rhino born this year at the reserve, but it is too early to tell if the calves will make good candidates to be returned to protected areas of the wild. The first rhino to be born at Port Lympne arrived on January 5 to first­time mother Kisima and weighed about 32kg. His mother, grandmother and great grandmother were all born at the reserve and still live there.

What can be inferred about Port Lympne Reserve?

When the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) began last Friday, Steve and Janet Kistler of Hart County, Kentucky, joined in. They’ve done so every year since the now-global tradition began 25 years ago.

For Moira Dalibor, who teaches math at a school, this was the first count. She led a group of students and parents to an arboretum (植物园) for an exercise in data-gathering. They were among hundreds of thousands of people around the world counting and recording over four days. Last year, about 385,000 people from 192 countries took part in the GBBC.

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This is how it works: Participants watch birds, whether that means looking out of the window for 15 minutes or taking a longer trip to a nature area. Organizers recommend the Merlin bird ID app to distinguish birds by size, shape, song or other characteristics. Many participants also carry field guides and binoculars (双筒望远镜) along with their phones. They then enter the findings into the eBird app. Those numbers help researchers track the ups and downs of various species, which then help determine the direction of conservation efforts.

Dalibor prepared her classes with information about local species and practiced with the Merlin app. The kids recorded bird sightings with pencils and drawing boards, and parent volunteers entered those numbers on phones.

Turning soil, pulling weeds, and harvesting cabbage sound like tough work for middle and high school kids. And at first it is, says Abby Jaramillo, who with another teacher started Urban Sprouts, a school garden program at four low-income schools. The program aims to help students develop science skills, environmental awareness, and healthy lifestyles.

Jaramillo’s students live in neighborhoods where fresh food and green space are not easy to find and fast food restaurants outnumber grocery stores. “The kids literally come to school with bags of snacks and large bottles of soft drinks,” she says. “They come to us thinking vegetables are awful, dirt is awful, insects are awful.” Though some are initially scared of the insects and turned off by the dirt, most are eager to try something new.

Urban Sprouts’ classes, at two middle schools and two high schools, include hands-on experiments such as soil testing, flower-and-seed dissection, tastings of fresh or dried produce, and work in the garden. Several times a year, students cook the vegetables they grow, and they occasionally make salads for their entire schools.

Program evaluations show that kids eat more vegetables as a result of the classes. “We have students who say they went home and talked to their parents and now they’re eating differently,” Jaramillo says.

She adds that the program’s benefits go beyond nutrition. Some students get so interested in gardening that they bring home seeds to start their own vegetable gardens. Besides, working in the garden seems to have a calming effect on Jaramillo’s special education students, many of whom have emotional control issues. “They get outside,” she says, “and they feel successful.”