lxt, members can get 30 ceu's for $11.10. That's the cost of 30 stamps, used to send in 30 answer sheets from the tests in the magazines that come free to each member. Help, a good pizza costs more than that, so what are you talking about?
not cheap enough; you want em free, here they are: For those of you who have railed against certification because it was a "money grab", and the grievous expense of ceu's: First of all, I always thought you had a very weak case. And now, you have no case at all:
http://on-line-seminars.com
.75 ceu's for skimming an article (or not ) and posting a comment. It can't get any easier than that, folks.
"attending the meetings/shows, etc... gets old when you hear & read the same thing,"
Yeah I agree the same thing gets old, but i went to nashville and heard a lot of new things; got my $'s worth out of it; here are some of them:
Tuning in to Trees in Nashville
“A growing tree is like a symphony: All the instruments in harmony”. Legendary educator T. T. Kozlowski spent his semesters conducting the symphonic masterpiece that is a healthy tree. Composed of roots wiggling in the dirt and leaves waving in the wind, all woven together by a myriad array of cells saturated in sugars and juices, the tree is nourished by sunshine and sent forth into earth and sky, propelled by subtle signals from chemical transmitters.
The Southern Chapter made some beautiful music called the ISA Conference in Nashville, Tennessee in 2005. Like a Kozlowskian seminar on tree physiology, or the feeling that you get from a song, the cool runnings of this conference came out of the complex interplay between all the instruments: organizing committees writing out the score, volunteers sustaining the harmony that brought people from all over the world together to celebrate the growing of healthy trees, arboriculture. It was a rewarding experience; thanks to all who played a part. Here are some snapshots:
For some it started on Saturday, when Jim Urban carried in a bunch of city dirt—pardon me, urban soil—and dished out his understanding of the ways to work with this fundamental phenomenon well enough to grow trees. Inside we defined the terms and reviewed the science and wiggled dirtworms to judge the soil’s content. Outside we saw firsthand the human-disrupted soil profiles and witnessed the results: strong trees in good earth, weak trees in mixed-up soil.
The final day of the conference featured the Society of Commercial Arboriculture’s field session look at decay detection devices. Participants got a good look at everything from rubber hammers to radar, demonstrated by the professionals that manufacture and market them. Chris Duley’s devices were his eyes. Based on Schwarze’s book Fungal Strategies of Wood Decay in Trees, Duley’s version of Visual Tree Assessment looks for symptoms of fungal activity. His book on the subject sold out the first day at the ISA booth on the trade show floor.
Concurrently Wednesday afternoon was a strong slate of educational sessions sponsored by AREA. From Virginia Tech came a study on deep planting, which documented the therapeutic benefits of the diagnostic process of RCE—root collar examination. From Georgia came an example of GPS in the classroom; a very popular class build around landscape tree surveys by students. The survey highlighted county landmark trees, helping citizens identify their cultural connection. Since employers want enthusiasm, independence, interpersonal skills, technological innovation, this course readied the students for more real-world success after school. Future classes will bring the program to elementary schools, with a grant to teach GPS to 5th graders.
Also from Virginia Tech came a study on the effects of rootball type and season on transplanting on growth of sugar maple and red oak There the fall-planted trees started sooner, but the spring-planted trees caught up. Watering twice a week proved more important that anything else. Next came Jochen Pfisterer from Germany, with an ambitious effort to classify trees according to their architecture, and specifying pruning strategies according to these innate growth habits. Pfisterer showed some remarkable examples of restoring tree crowns based on his system. His book needs to be translated into English; anyone out there sprechen Deutsch?
From Arizona came a study that showed the benefits of organic mulch straight out of the chipper box over other, more popular types of mulch. Finally, Keith Woeste of the USFS shared a forensic case study in which he was able to nail the rustler of a black walnut tree based on its DNA. You can see the whole story at
http://www.ncrs.fs.fed.us/4157/
Inside and out, this was a fantastic conference. Thank you ISASC for tuning us in, and see you all in Minneapolis!
now I dont feel bad for missing that domain myself. took me 4 minutes to do the section rewrite when the exam came around to my part of the country again.
