NEWS & EVENTS
Events
Wild Things Conference on February 7, 2009 - Presenters Wanted!
News
Habitat Hootenanny
POC presentation at the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting
2008 Workshop Pictures
March Newsletter
Habitat Hootenanny 2008
On October 19th a Habitat Hootenanny was held in honor of the volunteer monitors and stewards of Chicago Wilderness. This year, the potluck took place at the Chicago Botanic Garden, in the Children’s Garden just across from our lovely prairies. Over 80 people attended the event, filled with great food, fun games and tours, and volunteer awards to boot.
Out of 194 amazing POC volunteers this season, 18 were selected to be honored for their outstanding achievements. Check out their awards below!
Lori Artiomow – New Frontiers in Wisconsin POC
Christa & Kevin Collins, Leon Halloran & Roger Hotham – Keeping and Enhancing a Sense of Place
Evan and Paula Craig – Most Adventurous Monitoring
Cynthia Gehrie – Amazing Attention to Detail
Frank Keller – Excellence in Botany
Mary Jo Murphy – Meticulosity and Best Directions
Barbara Reed-Turner – Life-long Learning Award
Jen Roberts and Phyllis Sullivan – Facing Down Monotony in the Name of Conservation
Mike Rzepka – Newcomer Flexibility at Midewin
Ann Shanks—Rained Out but Not Deterred
Bill Sullivan – Notable Newbie Award
Steve Thomas – Outback Award
Bill Wallin – Long-term Stamina and Reliability
(Posted on 11/24/2008)
Wild Things Conference - Presenters Wanted!
Wild Things Conference on February 7, 2009
Call for Presenters, deadline October 20, 2008
Save the date — February 7 — for the third biennial Wild Things conference, a gathering of this region’s nature conservation community, at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
You’re invited to consider making a presentation — or recommend others to do so. Can you think of someone in our community who has shown inspiring leadership and who we can learn something important from? Perhaps a good way of attracting volunteers, or a technique to make restoration or monitoring more effective? This doesn’t have to be a 40-minute presentation; sessions can be divided among two to four people. Or have you heard a great speaker that we all could benefit from? Please see our call for presentations and nominations for details at http://www.habitatproject.org/wildthings2009; the deadline to respond for presentations is October 20th, 2008.
Can you help ensure that the conference information gets to your organization's newsletter editor, webmaster, or listserve operator? If you would like to be one of the main contacts for sharing and distributing Wild Things conference information, please let us know by contacting Ryan White, Audubon field representative at 4ryanwhite@gmail.com.
The keynote speaker for Wild Things 2009 is Doug Ladd, Director of Conservation Science, Missouri Field Office of The Nature Conservancy. He will share reflections — inspirational, humorous and a little philosophical — from his many years of experience in natural areas management in our region.
More information will be posted on the website in the coming months at http://www.habitatproject.org/wildthings2009
(Posted on 10/2/2008)
POC presentation at the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting
POC was one of several programs featured at the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting held in Milwaukee, August 3-5. At the symposium “ Citizen Science in Ecology: The Intersection of Research and Education”, POC coordinator Susanne Masi presented our program. This presentation was co-authored by last year’s research assistant, Ann Kelly. Susanne discussed the Volunteer Data Validation Survey POC did in 2004-5 and the results of the Focus Group held this spring. It is a program all volunteers of POC can be proud of! Take a look at the powerpoint by clicking on the link: Please do not use any of the material or photos from this presentation without checking first with Susanne (smasi@chicagobotanic.org).
"Citizen Science in Ecology: The Intersection of Research and Education” PDF
(Posted on 8/20/2008)
2008 Workshop Pictures
RA Ann Kelly discusses threat assessment at Volo Bog
Ann Kelly demonstrates GPS unit usage at CBG
Volunteers measure population length at CBG with Susanne Masi
RA Rachel Goad explains population measurement at CBG
Susanne Masi helps volunteers to determine population size at CBG
RA Dani Drekich explains pacing exercise at CBG
March Newsletter
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, "In the Spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."
Does a POC plant monitor’s fancy also turn to thoughts of early bloomers? Considering the amount of snow we’ve shoveled and how many times we heard about the wind-chill factor, we would say “Yes”!
The POC Staff has been busy meeting with the land managers, restoration ecologists and volunteer coordinators of our beloved six county area of northeastern Illinois to insure a great year of monitoring at Plants of Concern. We just had our last meeting and will now work to process and use all the information we received. Work will begin to input the monitoring assignments for 2008, and we’ll let you all know when this is completed. We’re happy to report that we’ll be monitoring several new sites and species. This is exciting news for us and hope that you all “keep your eyes peeled when out in the field” (a new POC motto?) for newly occurring species.
With all this information we are now updating our monitored species list. We’ll be notifying you of bloom times, and of course will start out with our early bloomers. If we were in southern Illinois, we’d be looking for Hepatica nobilis var obtusa as early as March 13! After this winter, that may be enough to make some of us want to move to the warmer climes of southern Illinois!
Lastly, we burst a few buttons when we received the spring issue of “Brush Piles” with an article about POC written by our very own Eileen Sutter – first page publicity! Thanks, Eileen!
Keep “monitoring” the website for further updates and information as we move closer to the monitoring season!
(Posted on 3/3/2008)
