Monday, August 29, 2016

Here we go! Welcome to the fall semester

8:15am and the Perlik Commons of Oberlin College Science Center is humming!  Welcome to all, students and staff -- so happy to see the coffee cart in operation for the school year.  The science library is humming, too, somewhat more quietly. ;-)  Sign up for a study carrel and grab your spot for the semester.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Love your park. NPS turns 100 today!

The National Park Service has been celebrating its centennial all year - today is the day of the NPS founding, August 25, 1916.  Thank you to the NPS founders: Theodore Roosevelt, Horace M. Albright, Stephen Mather, and Woodrow Wilson.  NPS is offering free admission to any of its 412 parks this weekend - so get out there!  The beginning of a new semester isn't the best timing for a park visit, of course.  Enjoy them virtually with Ken Burns The National Parks : America's Best Idea (a Kanopy streaming video).

www.nps.gov/subjects/centennial/birthday-invitation.htm

Friday, August 05, 2016

Citizen Science Projects Celebrate National Park Service Centennial

Five National Park Citizen Science Projects Anyone Can Join: Celebrate the NPS centennial by lending a hand. -- Sierra Club

It's unlikely that anyone on campus will be participating in NPS citizen science projects on the actual centennial date, August 25 - we will be in the midst of new student orientation that day.  But the opportunities for citizen science projects throughout the year are numerous and varied.  Check it out!

Citizen science projects are ongoing worldwide, investigating many different subjects under a whole host of sponsors; see Discover magazine's Top Ten citizen science projects of 2015 for a hint at the diversity of options.  Find more at SciStarter.

Back to the National Park Service centennial - you can visit a lovely National Park within a one hour drive of Oberlin.  It doesn't have the awesome peaks of Glacier or the wildlife of Yellowstone or wild ocean shores of Acadia, but it offers excellent hiking trails and hundreds of acres of beautiful Ohio forest, fields, meadows, wetlands and streams.  Plus the old Ohio-Erie canal towpath for biking and Blossom Music Center, summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra.  Visit the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in every season to appreciate all there it has.