01/11/14

Winners 2013 Kids Art Contest

Announcing the Winners of the 2013 Kids’ Art Contest!

Children from countries around the world celebrated frogs and amphibians by drawing, painting, and sculpting remarkable creations. The variety of medium and style was overwhelming and there were 450 entries uploaded! Thank you to all the parents and teachers who aided these children to enter, taught them more about frogs and how they can help them, making this year’s contest another fabulous success! It was very difficult to choose from among all the unique entries. So incredibly creative and inspiring. Please be sure to enter again next year and don’t forget to contact founder, Susan Newman at Frogs Are Green if you would like your Winning Certificate!

The Winners are as follows:

2013 Kids Art Contest – Ages 3-6:

1st Winner: Mia Dmnjanovic, 6 years, Serbia

2nd Winner: Bosco Chung, 5 years, Hong Kong

3rd Winner: Sophia Blanck, 6 years, Macedonia

Honorable Mention:

Dusa, 5 years, Serbia

Charmaine Tsang Pui Ting, 5 years, Hong Kong

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2013 Kids Art Contest – Ages 7-9:

1st Winner: Matthew L, 8 years, Creative Minds Art Studio, Portland, Oregon, USA

2nd Winner (and Winner of BEST ENVIRONMENTAL): Tiffany Li, 9 years, USA

3rd Winner: Karina Gnatova, 9 years, Estonia

Honorable Mention:

Charmaine Yuxin Wong, 8 years, Singapore

Nadine Leevand Balezin, 9 years, Estonia

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2013 Kids Art Contest – Ages 10-12:

1st Winner: Beata Lastovko, 10 years, Estonia

2nd Winner: Jelizaveta Jerina, 11 years, Estonia

3rd Winner: Jekaterina Poljakova, 10 years, Estonia

Honorable Mention:

Alisa Jerina, 13 years, Estonia (Had to include this beautiful image, even though Alisa is 13)

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2013 Kids Art Contest – Best Black and White

Valentinas Skalandis, 11 years, Kaunas Art, Lithuania

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2013 Kids Art Contest – Best 3D

Sami, 11 years, USA

01/11/14

Winners 2013 Backyard Frogs Contest

In Jersey City backyards, it’s unlikely you’d find any frogs, but it’s wonderful to know that frog lovers all over DO!

The Winners of the 2013 Backyard Frogs Photography Contest.

1st Place: Wes Deyton, (Wesrule2601, Flickr) with this peeper.

2nd Place: Olivia Brand

3rd Place: Koover Schmidt

Honorable Mention: Wes Deyton, (Wesrule2601, Flickr)

01/11/14

Winners 2013 Frogs in the Wild Photography Contest

Thank you to all the frog lovers out there, who celebrate amphibians by photographing them so we can all share your discoveries.

Announcing the Winners of the 2013 Frogs in the Wild contest:

1st Place: Sara Viernum, The Wandering Herpetologist with this Gray Treefrog (Hyla versicolor) from near Montello, Wisconsin.

2nd Place: Paul, with his “resting frog” image.

3rd Place: Geoffrey Giller with his “wood frog.”

Honorable Mention: Angie Schwartz

12/1/13

EcoQube: Bring Nature to Life

Guest blog by Eric Suen and Kevin Liang, Aqua Design Innovations

We could all use a piece of nature that we can enjoy or escape to everyday.

The problem is that most aquariums that we put in our homes are not sustainable ecosystems. They need maintenance like water changes, filter replacements, and the occasional algae scrub.

Aqua Design Innovations, an undergraduate UCSD startup has designed the EcoQube, a compact aquarium that uses plants like basil to keep the water clean.

How does it work? The EcoQube is a recirculating system where the fish produce nutrients for the plants that grow above it. This concept is called aquaponics, a method of sustainable food production that the founders of Aqua Design Innovations, Kevin Liang and Eric Suen, see as the future of organic farming.

The EcoQube comes with a K-12 curriculum about the science behind aquaponics and self sustaining ecosystems. Help Kevin and Eric deliver the EcoQube to homes and classrooms across the country. You can support their Kickstarter campaign here: http://kck.st/1b6GV4m

Our names are Eric and Kevin. We’re UC San Diego students and aquarium geeks who met in high school and instantly became intrigued by planted aquatic ecosystems. As we got older, we realized the bigger challenges humanity as a whole faces in terms of food and water shortages so we decided to use our knowledge of aquariums to deliver the concept of aquaponics and the impact it can have to as many people as possible.

We started out working in various stores. Kevin actually served as a biologist assistant at the Steinhart Aquarium (California Academy of Sciences) where he managed and maintained 100,000 gallon systems as well as serve as the operations manager at Aquatic Central, the largest aquarium specific store in San Francisco. Eric was one of the first employees at Archaea International Corporation (DBA Aqua Forest Aquarium) also based in San Francisco where he focused on sales, customer relations and product user interface development.

(read and see many more pictures and video at their Kickstarter page) http://kck.st/1b6GV4m

11/27/13

Green Friday 2013 – North America’s Frogs 2014 Calendar

On this day before Thanksgiving, I just wanted to say thank you to all the fans that help me spread the awareness. May you all have a safe, happy and healthy holiday season.

On Friday, please think Green and not Black! My latest collaboration is with The Wandering Herpetologist and photographer, Sara Viernum with this beautiful 2014 calendar, which you can pick up in the store, right here on this website. 13 beautiful frogs from across North America.

11/17/13

Environmental Attorney and Amphibian Activist Talk Issues on Techno Granny Radio

Two weeks ago I was asked to talk about environmental issues on the Techno Granny’s radio show along with Tamar Cerafici, an environmental attorney based in New Hampshire. This show covered many topics under the title “10 Plus Technologies that will help you go green and conserve the environment.”

Some things we discussed:

Why frogs are threatened with extinction and the number of issues they’re facing
How industries such as paper mills are polluting the water which is affecting frogs and possibly humans
Why we should always use FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) certified paper
Can technology really help you go green? Can an attorney really be an environmental advocate?
Working in the cloud and how this technology is saving the environment, such as Dropbox, Google docs, iCloud and Evernote, because you can use and access from anywhere
How to have a paperless office and how courtrooms are embracing this new technology

11/4/2013 – Link to Techno Granny Radio Show – Environmental Attorney, 1 Activist, 10 Green Technologies

Tomorrow morning (11.18.2013) we will meet for round 2! Tamar and I will join the broadcast again at 10 am EST, after the Techno Granny (Joanne Quinn-Smith) received so many comments asking us to talk about additional topics.

Some of the topics to be discussed:

The effect pesticides have on the environment (pollution): water, animals, soil, humans
Atrazine: The 21st Century’s DDT (Roundup)
Chlorothalonil is the most commonly used synthetic fungicide in the USA, commonly applied to peanuts, tomatoes and potatoes. (what are we eating?)
Alternatives to using Pesticides, Green Farming?
Organizations talking about this and trying to spread awareness. (Save the Frogs, National Pesticide Information Center, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Environmental Protection Agency and Frogs Are Green)

Resources for more information:

http://npic.orst.edu/envir/

http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/Issues/Pesticides.cfm

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/ecosystem/

http://savethefrogs.org