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Love Your Mother! Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day. This beautiful mining bee (Andrena dunningi), was enjoying the sun, warm temperatures, and willow flowers at a local park.
Heather Holm
Happy Earth Day. This beautiful mining bee (Andrena dunningi), was enjoying the sun, warm temperatures, and willow flowers at a local park.

Earth day is time to pause and embrace nature--and also to take stock of the health of the planet.

We hear about prescient observations from the woman who galvanized modern environmentalism--Rachel Carson--as told by living history performer and naturalist Colleen Webster.

Plus, biologist and pollinator educator Heather Holm tells us why cultivating native plants in our yards ... attracts native insects … and plays such a vital role in our ecosystem:

“Everything that builds upon that foundation whether it’s birds or predatory mammals, if we were to pull out that bottom card, whether it’s native insects or native plants, then the whole house of cards would collapse.”

Links: Natural History Society of Maryland event; Heather Holm Instagram, books and posters, Colleen Webster Living History Performances, Chesapeake Bay Native Plant Center, Forever Maryland.

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'