Charcoal

• Dexter Hamilton, Coulee Outdoor Founder explains, “The Smokeless Fire Pit Gas Conversion (patent pending) is a direct response to customers asking for products that are safe on their wood decks and safe during fire bans (considering the uptick of forest fires across the globe).
• While some of the leading competitors suggest burning solid fuel (firewood) on wood decks, we know that is simply not safe - there is no refuting it.
• Gas Conversion for Safe Use on Wood Decks and During Fire Bans: One of the standout features of this innovative fire pit is its ability to convert to propane, ensuring safe use even during fire bans or on wood decks.
• Unmatched Accessories: The only smokeless fire pit on the market with a series of accessories that all stack together for seamless use and storability.

• With an anticipated EPA range rating of 300 miles(1), DC fast charging capability and a neo-rugged design, the Prologue is ready to take on adventures around town and outside the city limits.
• Honda will offer Prologue in both single-motor (front-wheel-drive) and dual-motor (all-wheel-drive) configurations with three trim levels - EX, Touring and Elite.
• To further build the Honda EV brand identity, Prologue debuts with a newly designed Honda name badge in a stylized typeface that captures the modern and clean design of Prologue.
• (1) Anticipated combined (city/highway) 300-mile EPA driving range rating for Prologue EX 2WD configuration with a full charge based on internal testing.

• As a visual artist and educator, I know how important it is to encourage your child to think and behave like an artist.
• But this is not necessarily about drawing or painting in a particular way.
• The habits of an artist include the ability to generate ideas, trust in creative processes, be comfortable with ambiguity, take risks and embrace failure.

How to think and behave like an artist

• You can encourage children to develop the habits of an artist by providing opportunities for them to take creative risks and use problem finding skills.
• Problem finding skills are identifying unforeseen problems using critical and analytic thinking.
• Here are three art activities to try in the holidays – or any time – to build these skills.

1. Blind contour drawing

• In blind contour drawing you don’t look at the paper while you draw and once your drawing implement touches the paper, you don’t lift it off until you are done.
• Look closely at your subject and slowly draw what you see, looking for lines and contours to draw in and around them.
• This is a gentle way of extending creative potential of drawing.

2. Make your own brushes

• Another similar activity is making brushes or “mark-making tools” as I like to call them.
• You can use a range of materials from outside or even the recycling bin: a few sticks, masking tape and some string.
• Tie a bunch of twigs and leaves or feathers together and bind them to the top of a stick.
• This helps children to become comfortable with that idea of testing, experimenting and creating your way through an issue.

3. Change your medium and your size

• Willow charcoal – made from burnt willow branches – is an excellent medium for experimenting with and enables children to “draw big”.
• Children can use the tip of it to draw lines, or use the side of the stick to create wide shapes and shades.
• Get some large pieces of paper and encourage your child to draw as big as they can to create huge gestural drawings with the charcoal.
• This encourages kids to move out of their comfort zone (and beyond A4 paper).

• Yet human activities in the current era, sometimes called the “Anthropocene”, are reshaping patterns of fire across the planet.
• In our new research, published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, we used satellite data to create global maps of where and how fires are burning.
• Our international team found strong evidence fires are burning in unexpected places, at unusual times and in rarely observed ways.

Here’s how fire patterns are changing

• Satellite data provide evidence of changes in fire patterns at a global scale.
• An increase in fire size and the frequency of large fires has recently been observed in forests and woodlands of the western United States.
• In Australia, satellite records show the frequency of very large forest fires has increased over the past four decades.

Changes in fire affect air, land and water

• Changes in fire patterns are modifying water cycles, too.
• In the western United States, fires are reaching higher elevations and having strong impacts on snow and water availability.
• New studies are revealing how the air, land and water that support life on Earth are connected by fires.

Humans are responsible for the changes

• A pattern of extreme fire weather outside of natural climate variation is already emerging in North America, southern Europe and the Amazon basin.
• Humans modify fire regimes by changing land use for agricultural, forestry and urban purposes.
• Humans have transported plants and animals across the globe, resulting in novel mixes of species that modify fuels and fire regimes.

Using knowledge and practice of fire to achieve sustainability goals

The pace and scale of these changes represent challenges to humanity, but knowledge and practice of fire can help to achieve sustainability goals. This includes:
• David Bowman receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Natural Hazards Research Australia, and NSW Department of Planning and Environment.
• Grant Williamson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Natural Hazards Research Australia, and NSW Department of Planning and Environment.