For Chip and Jill Isenhart, the answer was clear: Show and tell. The Boulder couple had already created a business, ECOS Communications around the show and tell model, developing educational materials and exhibits for conservation non-profits, wildlife groups, zoos and aquariums. As their two children Jesse, now 12, and Hannah, now 14, grew older, Chip and Jill wanted them to better understand their environmental work, as well as to see firsthand the threats to wildlife and their habitats.
What they had in mind was to contact various environmental groups who could use their expertise and offer their services in exchange for room and board for the entire family. They planned a six-month trip to three diverse places: Kenya, Nepal and China. The family will offer a presentation on their trip, "Unplugging to Plug-In, a Family Adventure," at Casey Middle School on April 25.
Jesse and Hannah reacted to the prospect of the trip just as most kids their age might. "Our son, who loves to travel, was beaming from ear to ear," Chip says. "Our daughter, who was in the eighth grade, looked at us and said, 'I can't leave my friends.'"
The kids were not naifs when it comes to experiencing life in other countries, however. When Hannah and Jesse were younger, the Isenharts lived for a year in Panama while the parents worked for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Since then, the kids have spent an extended spring break in Panama every year, going to school and keeping their Spanish fresh.
In Kenya, they went to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which blends tourism and conservation and the Daraja Academy, a secondary school, where underprivileged girls from all over the country attend. In China, they worked with The Nature Conservancy on education and visitor experience for the country's first private nature reserve. In Nepal, they worked on teaching and interpretive training in the towns of Khandbari and Dhupu.
"I was mad that kids didn't realize that and respect it," she says. "I was like, 'Don't you know people are struggling and would die for this opportunity?'"
As a seventh-grader, Hannah started her own business called, "Hanimals," in which she photographed stuffed animals such as grizzly bears in the habitat where real grizzlies roam. She made the images into greeting cards and calendars and sold them at several local stores, giving the proceeds to Polar Bear International.
In China, she explained the business to BeiBei, the daughter of their Chinese translator, who started a similar business using stuffed pandas.
For Chip and Jill, having the kids on the trip came with a bonus beyond their companionship -- it broke down barriers.
"We had no idea how much having them in a tow (made us) immediately welcome everywhere," Jill says. "We were not introduced as consultants, we were introduced as a family -- here's the work this family will be doing. A lot of people had families of their own. It gave us sort of a common ground."
Last year, Sony's peculiar move to beef up its entry-level NEX left us puzzled, and generally unimpressed. The NEX-F3 was a fine mirrorless camera by most accounts, but its larger footprint left us hoping for a next-gen offering more in line with its predecessor, the NEX-C3 -- a tried-and-true shooter that many Engadget staffers still turn to for review photos and trade shows, thanks to its consistent performance and light weight. We were quite relieved, then, to see that this year's device represented a return to the 2011 design, with a few very compelling additions, to boot.
Like last year's model and even the C3, the Sony NEX-3N packs a 16.1-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor. The chip is physically larger than what you'll find in a Micro Four Thirds camera, and it's comparable in size to the sensors that ship in many full-size DSLRs. That imager is the key to the 3N's success -- it enables the camera to offer DSLR-like performance in a body that's much smaller, and even less expensive. Speaking of which, the 3N kit carries an MSRP of $500, though you may be able to find it for a bit less, including the 16-50mm retractable zoom lens -- we'll touch on that a bit more after the break.
Another fresh addition is the built-in, pop-up flash, which, believe it or not, is a first for Sony's starter NEX. Of course, adding in a strobe without boosting the body size doesn't come without compromise -- there's no proprietary mount up top, which means an external mic is out of the question. This may be slightly disconcerting to video shooters, especially considering that the camera's stereo microphones are mounted on the top of the camera rather than on the front, flanking the lens. That configuration makes the 3N a fine fit for narration but a less-than-stellar option for conducting interviews in noisy environments. We would be willing to look past this oversight had Sony included a microphone input, but alas, there's no such port present.
Sony opted to shift port positioning a bit this year. The only I/O options can be accessed by lifting a door on the left side of the camera, behind which you'll find HDMI and micro-USB connectors, along with an SD card slot. Previously, the removable storage could only be accessed from the bottom of the camera, which often meant unscrewing a tripod mount before popping in a new card, so this left-hand slot is much appreciated. The battery door remains on the bottom of the camera, but the 3N can be charged using a USB adapter, so unless you want to swap cells for a long shoot, your power pack can stay in place.
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