Thursday, January 28, 2016

Earth materials in buildings--don't take'm for granite [from the archive]

Earth materials in buildings--don't take'm for granite

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Teachers and learners alike value opportunities for field observation. There’s just something about seeing things in the wild that’s hard to replicate in a classroom. Teaching Shakespeare? See a play. Teaching ornithology? Step outside.

Teaching geology in east central Illinois?

“We’re working under a real handicap here,” says Eileen Herrstrom. “Nearly all of our rock is covered by 300-foot deep glacial deposits.”

Herrstrom, who has been teaching bread-and-butter undergraduate courses in the U of I Department of Geology for 20 years, also curates the Department’s collections, which give students direct access to rocks and minerals. These collections were formerly housed in the Natural History Building, but were moved to Davenport Hall the on the main quad in summer 2014. That’s where they are likely to stay now, since that’s where the classes that use them are held.

I’m naturally curious about such things, but was motivated to seek out Herrstrom when I learned that she and colleague Jackie Wittmer had created a new display especially to feature the earth materials used in buildings on the quad. One important purpose of the display, says Herrstrom, is “to show people that there is geology around us every day, since the buildings we inhabit are made with earth materials.”

Herrstrom replaces a sample of limestone in the display.
The display is actually pretty modest in size; it’s a wood and glass case about the size of a large bookcase, with just four shelves. But in that small space lives a field trip, one that you can take yourself. The upper three shelves display specimens of natural building stone accompanied by explanatory text. (The materials are like those used in campus buildings, but not actually taken from them.) There’s granite similar to what is used in the steps of Noyes Lab, marble of the sort found in Lincoln Hall, sandstone like that on the outer walls of Altgeld Hall, and more.

On the wall beside the display hangs a map indicating where such materials would typically come from for buildings in this area, along with the names and ages of the rock formations from which they are taken. Some of these sites are as close as Indiana, where our limestone comes from, while others are more distant; slate used here, for example, comes from New England.

One choice Herrstrom made that may surprise some people is to include synthetic building materials in the display along with the natural building stones. But those contain geological materials too. As she pointed out, “The chief ingredient in brick is clay, which we have in Illinois, and in the past quite a bit of brick was made locally.” Similarly, concrete and asphalt both contain materials that come from Illinois quarries.

You can start your exploration of building materials used on the UI campus at a blog created by Herrstrom at http://publish.illinois.edu/quad-geology/.  From the home page, be sure to click through to more detailed descriptions and photos.

And by all means, if you’re regularly on campus, or you have occasion to visit, swing by the first floor of Davenport Hall and see the “Geology of the Quad” exhibit. From there it’s only a short way to the second floor, where the Department of Geology’s more extensive teaching collections are on display and available for anyone to see whenever the building is open. Look for them in rooms 223 and 224.




Then get out and identify those stones in the wild—on buildings of the quad and elsewhere.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Wild moments from 2015

Wild moments from 2015

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As regular listeners know, I take great pleasure in observing wildlife, whether I’m out for the specific purpose of doing that, or I’m just going from one place to another in the course of a normal day. As you also know, I enjoy looking into questions that arise from my observations, and sharing my findings. In today’s commentary I look back at some things I saw for the first time in 2015 and tell what I learned in my follow up investigations.

On the last day of a field trip to Costa Rica in March, I was walking with co-leader Laura Haber and a student across a treetop footbridge in the cloud forest when we encountered a small troop of howler monkeys headed in the opposite direction. The monkeys waited higher up in the trees while we passed, and then climbed down to use the bridge themselves. Why swing through the branches when you can take the bridge?

[Photos by author.]

In early May I was tallying birds with my friend Greg Lambeth for the annual Illinois spring bird count. On a country road north of Mahomet we came upon a red fox carrying a mouthful of voles, which are small rodents that are high on the foxes menu. Why didn’t he just eat them? Red fox pairs form lifelong bonds, and they live together through much of the year. During the weeks they have pups that are too young to be left alone in the den, the male partner brings back food for both his mate and the little ones.

As I walked through the prairie restoration at Meadowbrook Park in Urbana in June, I witnessed the ferocity with which red-winged blackbirds defend their territory--even against intruders many times their size. In this case, a blackbird was standing atop the head of a white-tailed deer and pecking it, while the deer tried to keep browsing as though nothing was the matter. Why was the bird so exercised about the deer? Perhaps he understood what scientists have only documented in recent years, which is that under the cover of darkness deer eat the nestlings of grassland birds, including red-winged blackbirds.

One morning in July, I had stopped to photograph turtles at the Second Street Basin in Champaign when something moving among the flowers nearby caught my attention. It was colored black and yellow like a bumblebee, but it seemed closer in size to a hummingbird--and it flew like one, too. I had “discovered” a type of moth that was totally new to me, a snowberry clearwing. What’s more, I discovered it right in the middle of town, thanks to the fact that the City has used native plants to landscape the basin.

As I passed through the same spot on my way home from work one evening in September, I stopped to photograph a very cooperative green heron stalking fish along the banks of the pond. Having no success that way, the heron picked up a crabapple in its bill and walked to the top of a flat rock where it could lean out over the water. Then it dropped the crabapple in and watched, thirty seconds or so in one place, then the same in another. I scratched my head in wonder, until I remembered what green herons and I have in common; we both fish using lures. Sadly, for the heron, the fish weren’t biting that evening, at least not on crabapples. Things worked out better for me though, since he was posing so nicely pictures.





Thursday, January 14, 2016

2016 is the year for rooftop solar in Champaign County

2016 is the year for rooftop solar in Champaign County

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I’ve got a confession to make. I’m sometimes very, very slow to act on my good intentions--especially when my good intentions involve home improvement.

To wit. In the past, I’ve written about projects by local people to reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuel at home through combinations of efficiency, conservation and solar power.  I’ve sung the praises of new homes, such as the passive houses built in Urbana by the Ecological Construction Laboratory, and the Equinox House, where Ty and Deb Newell enjoy a solar powered retirement. I’ve celebrated retrofit projects, too, like Phil Krein’s DIY solar installation, and Scott Willenbrock’s net-zero-energy retrofit of his family’s 1929 colonial-style house in Champaign.

But I’ve taken only a few steps on this path myself: mostly small ones, like investing in energy efficient lighting and appliances, along with one slightly bigger one, hiring an energy performance contractor to improve the weather sealing and insulation of my house. And really, that’s like having the holes in your pockets mended so you stop losing money through them—who wouldn’t?

I’ve hesitated in the process of taking two other big steps, though. One is to replace an aging—okay, ancient—furnace, as well as a slightly younger air-conditioner. I’ve gotten an estimate for that, so progress. The other is to install a solar system on the roof.

That’s going to happen in 2016, though, thanks to a program that makes solar power straightforward and economical. It’s called “Solar Urbana-Champaign,” and it’s available for homes, farms and small businesses in Champaign County. The program is an outgrowth of the City of Urbana’s Climate Action Plan and it’s sponsored by the City, the Midwest Renewable Energy Association, Illinois Green Economy Network and the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

It secures a big discount in the price for rooftop solar by bringing consumers together to buy as a group from a contractor selected through a competitive bidding process. In this case a St. Louis company, StraightUp Solar, was chosen, and they’re partnering on the work with the local company, New Prairie Construction.

How much of a discount are we talking about here? It’s difficult to quantify across the board, but the price I’m looking at is about 30 percent lower than an estimate I got for the same system last summer. And it’s more than low enough to be offset by the value of the electricity the panels produce while they’re still under warranty.

The feasibility and cost of rooftop solar varies according to a number of factors, including the age and exposure of the roof in question, shading, etc., so the best way to know whether it makes sense for you is to get a site assessment. And even before that, people interested in “Solar Urbana-Champaign” are encouraged to attend one of the information sessions that are being held by program sponsors.

You can see a schedule for those sessions below. And, please, rest assured I have no personal stake in “Solar Urbana-Champaign.” I’m excited about it because it makes the choice to act on my good intentions so easy.  

Date: Thursday, 1/14
Time: 7pm
Location: Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
2101 S Prospect Ave. Champaign, IL 61820

Date: Thursday, 1/21
Time: 6pm
Location: Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center
202 S. Broadway, Urbana, IL 61801

Date:  Monday, 1/25
Time: 7pm
Location: Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
500 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801

Date:  Thursday, 1/28
Time: 1-3pm with additional information from the USDA about solar for farms
Location: Champaign County Farm Bureau
801 North Country Fair Drive, Champaign, IL 61821

Date:  Thursday, 1/28
Time: 6pm
Location: Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign
309 W Green St., Urbana, IL 61801

Date:  Tuesday, 2/2
Time: 7pm
Location: Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
500 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801

Date: Thursday, 2/4
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Tolono Public Library
111 E Main St, Tolono, IL 61880

Date: Sunday, 2/7
Time: 10:45am
Location: First Presbyterian Church of Urbana
602 W Green St, Urbana, IL 61801

Date:  Thursday, 2/24
Time: 5-7pm with additional information from the USDA about solar for farms
Location: Champaign County Farm Bureau
801 North Country Fair Drive, Champaign, IL 61821

Date:  Thursday, 2/25
Time: 6pm
Location: Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign
309 W Green St., Urbana, IL 61801

Date: Monday, 2/29
Time: 6pm
Location: Common Ground Food Co-op
300 S. Broadway Suite 166, Urbana, IL 61801

Date: Tuesday, 3/8
Time: 6pm
Location: Common Ground Food Co-op
300 S. Broadway Suite 166, Urbana, IL 61801

Date: Monday, 3/14
Time: 6pm
Location: Champaign Public Library – Robeson Pavilion Room C
200 W. Green St, Champaign, IL

Thursday, January 07, 2016

Cook County research provides perspective on coyotes [from the archive]


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When was the last time you saw a coyote? Such a question would have seemed ridiculous to most residents of east central Illinois in the not-too-distant past. But in recent years these adaptable carnivores seem to have filled in every niche available in the landscape that we humans have developed.

Unfortunately, news stories about coyotes often give voice to sensational misperceptions about them at the expense of providing information that would help people make sense of them as neighbors.

The best place I know to go for answers to questions about coyotes is the Cook County Coyote Project, the largest study of urban coyotes in the world. Scientists with the project, headed by professor Stan Gehrt of The Ohio State University, have been gathering information about coyote behavior in the Chicago metropolitan area by a variety of methods for nearly 15 years now.

One of the most important things they offer is perspective on the threat that coyotes pose to humans. They point out that although Cook County is home to large populations of both people and coyotes no case of a coyote biting a human has been documented there. The researchers compare this to the number of dog bites reported annually in Cook County, which ranges from two to three thousand. The point is not that coyotes pose no threat to people, but that from a broad perspective, bites by domestic dogs present a far greater risk.

The researchers in Chicago have found that most urban coyotes are able to live among people without drawing much attention to themselves. Of the 446 animals they have tracked using radio collars, only 14 have been deemed nuisances by the local community. The trouble with these individuals typically began after they became habituated to human settings through food made available by people, whether it was intended for the coyotes or not.

Studies of what coyotes in Cook County eat suggest they play a positive role in urban ecosystems, where the shortage of predators otherwise favors undesirably large populations of some too-familiar creatures. Coyotes feed heavily on rabbits, mice, and other small rodents, and so help to keep their populations in check. Coyotes also help to slow population growth among white-tailed deer by taking fawns, and help to limit numbers of Canada geese by feeding on their eggs.

The Cook County researchers note that the greatest controversy over the presence of coyotes in an area is often generated by the fact that they kill free-ranging domestic cats, either for food or for the purpose of eliminating a competing predator. Where people stand on this issue is typically determined by whether they value cats being able to roam or the health of songbird populations, but I’m not going to go down that road today.

Whether people like them or not, coyotes are among us to stay. We can best coexist with them by recognizing the need to remove individuals that present an immediate threat, and enjoying opportunities to appreciate the rest of them.

On the Web: The Cook County Coyote Project
http://www.urbancoyoteresearch.com/index.htm

The Cook County Coyote Project offers the following steps for avoiding conflict with coyotes:

1. Do not feed the coyotes.

Intentional feeding, such as bait stations in yards or parks, should be avoided. However, many people unintentionally feed coyotes by leaving pet food or garbage out at night or having large bird feeders. Coyotes are usually not interested in bird food, but bird feeders often attract rodents, especially squirrels, which then attract coyotes. Although coyotes seem to have a natural inclination to avoid human-related food, this can change when prey populations are low, or if the coyotes are young and haven’t yet learned to hunt effectively.

2. Do not let pets run loose.

If coyotes live nearby, do not let pets run loose, especially domestic cats. When hiking in urban parks, keep dogs on leashes.

3. Do not run from a coyote.

When you encounter a coyote, shout or throw something in its direction.

4. Repellents or fencing may help.

Some repellents may work in keeping coyotes out of small areas such as yards, although these have not been tested thoroughly for coyotes. Repellents may involve remotely activated lights or sound-making devices. Fencing may keep coyotes out of a yard, particularly if it is more than 4 feet in height with a roll bar across the top.

5. Report aggressive, fearless coyotes immediately.

When a coyote fails to exhibit fear of humans or acts aggressively by barking or growling in the yard or playground, the animal must be reported as soon as possible to the appropriate officials — usually an animal control officer or police officer.