The NAU Review — Celebrating Earth Day and Autism Awareness Month, a mission to Mars’ moons and everything you didn’t know about Eid al Fitr

We know how hard winter was for us. How was it for the trees? How do our forests and their complicated, interconnected, life-giving ecosystems react to the sun, the wind, the drought, the rain, the cold? For Earth Day, creative writing professor Nicole Walker, who authored Sustainability: A Love Story and dozens of articles and essays on nature, reflects on the complicated relationships that exist in a forest ecosystem and how the smallest processes and organisms keep the largest trees—and all the rest of us—alive.

April is Autism Awareness Month, a time to promote acceptance and understanding of the developmental disability that affects one in 36 children in the U.S. To support families with autistic children living on the Navajo Nation, NAU researchers developed Diné Parents Taking Action, a telehealth program that educates parents and increases access to developmental services to improve outcomes for children with autism. The project seeks to raise awareness of the challenges faced by individuals with autism, deliver tailored resources for the communities and promote acceptance and inclusion for all.