My dear students: as always, volunteering at an event related to our coursework is always one way to notch some extra credit for the semester.

The Illinois Climbers Association is holding a fundraiser screening of a pretty wild documentary on rock climbing at Yosemite National Park over the years.

Friday Nov 4th

Doors: 5pm

Movie: 7pm

$12, Guyon Auditorium, Morris Library on campus

You’ll be able to find a bunch of our class’s themes from throughout the semester woven into the film.  Also, Saturday hosts extra-credit-eligible volunteer opportunities for supporting a climbing competition at Holy Boulders, if you prefer a more active kind of extra credit.

–Dr. Park

Emerald Ash Borer Community Preparedness Workshops in Southern Illinois.

Recent discoveries of Emerald Ash Borer in Perry and Williamson counties underscore the need for communities to be proactive against Emerald Ash Borer (EAB).

The University of Illinois Extension is offering the following programs for local officials, municipalities, park districts, arborists, and others impacted by the recent Emerald Ash Borer findings. The programs will be held at the following locations:

Thursday, November 13
Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center
8588 Rte 148 Marion, IL 62959
From 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.Thursday, November 13
Perry County Government Building Conference Room
3764 State Rte 13/127
Pinckneyville, IL 62274
From: 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.Friday, November 14
Shawnee National Forest
50 Highway 145 South Harrisburg, IL 62946
From 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Workshop participants will learn about emerald ash borer, why it is a threat to our natural forests and urban trees, regulatory implications of the recent discoveries, and how to create a community action plan to manage ash trees on city-owned and private property. This workshop will discuss how to take inventory of all ash trees within a community in order to develop budget needs should large-scale ash tree removal become necessary.

The program is FREE, but reservations are required by November 12. To register call University of Illinois Extension, Jackson county at: 618-687-1727 or register online at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/fjprw/

FYI, a volunteer cleanup event at Garden of the Gods plus Leave No Trace educational activities this weekend.

“Garden of the Gods trail cleanup is Saturday”

August 21, 2014

Join SIU Carbondale’s Touch of Nature Environmental Center staff on Saturday, Aug. 23, at the Garden of the Gods Recreation Center for a trail cleanup day.

Touch of Nature is partnering with “Leave No Trace for Outdoor Ethics” for the event, which teaches people how to enjoy the outdoors responsibly. A carpool will leave the Student Center parking lot at 7:30 a.m.; the cleanup is from 9 a.m. to noon. Those interested in participating will meet in the main observation area parking lot. An information booth will be available from 1 to 5 p.m., and the Subaru/Leave No Trace traveling trainers will hold a program from 6 to 7 p.m.

Participants should dress comfortably, bring water and a picnic lunch. For more information, contact the Touch of Nature Environmental Center at 453-1121. (pasted from: http://news.siu.edu/2014/08/082114SIUToday-GardenoftheGods.html )

Also, additional information related to broader activities at Garden of the Gods this weekend: “Shawnee National Forest to Hold Leave No Trace Event”, see:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/shawnee/news-events/?cid=STELPRD3813667

Paul Restivo

Hey all!

Illinois was selected as a pilot state to test drive some new concepts in getting copies of Project Learning Tree, a national level environmental ed curriculum, into the hands of users. As facilitators, Linda Hauser and I will be leading two different workshops. One will focus on K-8 educators while the other will be geared towards early childhood.

The date, time, location, etc. have been set for the K-8 workshop. More details can be found via the attached flyer. Please help us spread the word on this great event! We will have a full list of environmental ed workshops we will offer as part of our outreach series by mid-January 2015. For now, getting a jump start with this one to help spread the word.

Thanks and let myself or Linda know if you have any questions!

Amanda

	Amanda G. Patrick Public Affairs Officer
	Shawnee National Forest
	p: 618-253-1031 f: 618-253-1060 apatrick
	50 Highway 145 South Harrisburg, IL 62946 Stay Connected! www.fs.fed.us www.fs.fed.us/shawnee
	Caring for the land and serving people.

This electronic message contains information generated by the USDA solely for the intended recipients. Any unauthorized interception of this message or the use or disclosure of the information it contains may violate the law and subject the violator to civil or criminal penalties. If you believe you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.

EEAI_Shawnee NF PLT K-8 Ed Workshop – February 21, 2015.pdf

We run an outdoor education program called Nature’s Classroom during the fall and spring, and are currently looking for instructors. Our season runs from Sept. 24-Oct. 24, and could be a 1 month internship in Outdoor Education. Any information you could provide would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to your response, and hope that we might be able to help an SIU student gain some working knowledge of outdoor education.

Sincerely,

David Irick
Ministry Intern
DuBois Center
618.787.2202
program@DuBoisCenter.org
twitterfacebook

Nature’s ClassroomInternship Details

Internship Details

How quickly she blazed through the M.S. Forestry program…

Download her thesis seminar here!

Godspeed to you in your bright future, Mrs. Baird.

Thank you,

LOGAN PARK, PH.D.
Faculty, Forest Recreation and Park Management

COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES
MAIL CODE 4411
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
1205 LINCOLN DRIVE
CARBONDALE, ILLINOIS 62901

Logan.Park@siu.edu
P: 618-453-7476, 540-315-7205
http://Logan-Park.org/

​We have several open positions at The Field Museum that we’re trying to fill soon. We have everything from temporary part-time, part-time, to full-time gigs. Please spread the word! All positions can be found at: http://fieldmuseum.org/about/employment.

Mighty Acorns Partnership Coordinator/Urban Conservation Educator:
supports and provides coordination and leadership for the Chicago Wilderness Mighty Acorns Partnership and will directly support The Field Museum’s Calumet Mighty Acorns program in the Calumet Region. This will be a full time position.

Green Ambassadors Supervisor: will support the day-to-day implementation of the Green Ambassadors program in the spring, summer, and fall 2014. It is a part-time position.

Program Coordinator, Millennium Reserve: will help shepherd to completion priority projects through the coordination and facilitation among the various Millennium Reserve partners.

Thanks for spreading the word.

Sincerely,

Alison Paul

__._,_.

Join with the Shawnee National Forest (NF) in celebrating the arrival of spring as Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack has proclaimed May 18^th – 24^th, 2014 as “National Wildflowers Week.”  Warmer weather has officially arrived to the region, and with it comes a multitude of native wildflowers around the Shawnee. For outdoor enthusiasts looking to connect with nature, the springtime setting provides not only a wonderful backdrop for doing so but also offers some exciting places to visit that are complimented by the beautiful colors that only spring can provide.

Needing help deciding which locales to visit to see the beauty that springtime provides? If so, the U.S. Forest Service offers an online wildflower map with hundreds of locations on national forests for prime wildflower viewing, making it easier than ever to enjoy America’s great outdoors. The wildflower map includes wildflower viewing areas on National Forest System lands and can be referenced by specific states, individual national forests and geographic regions. Four of these areas are highlighted on the Shawnee NF.

For many rural communities, the tourist revenue generated by thousands of wildflower festivals and events held each year helps support local economies. According to recent research, viewing and photographing wildflowers and trees is the fastest growing nature-based outdoor activity.

If you are seeking advice on where to view wildflowers locally on the Shawnee, front desk personnel at one of our three offices, located in Harrisburg, Vienna and Jonesboro, can provide excellent hiking recommendations along with other helpful tips to aid you on your outing. A wildflower themed Connecting Families with the Forest display is also available at the Harrisburg office. All offices are open Monday through Friday; 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. CST.

The map is part of the agency’s Celebrating Wildflowerswebsite which includes more than 10,000 plant images and information about the aesthetic, recreational, biological, medicinal, and economic values of native plants. Feature sections focus on the role of pollinators, overviews of flower types, and spotlights rare and interesting plant communities. An ethnobotany page also highlights how people of particular cultures and regions make use of indigenous plants. Educational activities for kids and resources for teachers are available too.

Below are the wildflower areas located on the Shawnee National Forest that are identified on the newly released map:

Bell Smith Springs Recreation Area

Bell Smith Springs Recreation Area is a popular destination for wildflower enthusiasts, hikers and picnickers. There are a couple of interesting trails that traverse the area, allowing visitors to experience a wide variety of natural communities and marvelous geological settings, such as sandstone cliffs, a sandstone canyon, a natural bridge and a gentle stream flowing across a sandstone escarpment. Natural communities include sandstone glades, sandstone cliffs, sandstone boulders, xeric, dry, dry-mesic and mesic upland forests.

LaRue-Pine Hills

LaRue Pine Hills’ unique characteristics dictate and support a rich biodiversity. It covers about 4.5 square miles (3,547 acres) and contains 14 natural communities including forests, swamps, ponds, wetlands, hill prairie, limestone barrens and striking geologic features. LaRue Pine Hills supports nearly 1,200 species of vascular plants and as such is one of the country’s most diverse areas.

Pounds Hollow Ecological Area

Pounds Hollow is a popular destination for wildflower enthusiasts, hikers, picnickers and folks who enjoy swimming and relaxing on a beach. There are two interesting trails that traverse the area, allowing visitors to experience a wide variety of natural communities and marvelous geological settings, such as sandstone glades and cliffs and a sandstone canyon with a gentle stream flowing through the canyon and into Pounds Hollow Lake.

Simpson Township Barrens

Simpson Township Barrens is a unique ecological area containing several native plant communities such as limestone barrens, seeps, dry and dry-mesic upland forest and an intermittent creek drainage. The topography of the area supports a rich diversity of plant life as well. The limestone barrens communities are characterized by very dry, calcium rich soils that support a flora more commonly encountered on the tall grass prairies found north of the Shawnee National Forest.

Administered by the USDA Forest Service, the Shawnee National Forest is one of 155 national forests nationwide. As the only national forest in Illinois, the Shawnee offers numerous avenues for connecting with the natural world through its 280,000 acres of varied landscape. Whether your interests lie more in outdoor recreational activities, such as hiking or camping, or include learning about the unique natural and cultural heritage of southern Illinois, the fields, forests and streams of the Shawnee welcome you. To discover more about the Shawnee National Forest, visit http://www.fs.usda.gov/shawnee and follow us on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/shawneenf.

The U.S. Forest Service is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a mission of sustaining the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The Forest Service’s Eastern Region includes twenty states in the Midwest and East, stretching from Maine, to Maryland, to Missouri, to Minnesota. There are 17 national forests and one national tallgrass prairie in the Eastern Region. For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov/R9.

The U.S. Forest Service manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation’s clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live. For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov/.

Shawnee National Forest Announces Invasive Species Events in Support of Illinois Invasive Species Awareness Month

HARRISBURG, Ill. (APRIL 21, 2014) – On Thursday, May 8^th, 2014 at 6:00 p.m., the Shawnee National Forest will host an Invasive Species Presentation. The event will be held at the Crab Orchard Visitor Center located in Marion, Illinois. Matthew Lechner, Shawnee National Forest, and Karla Gage, River to River Cooperative Weed Management Coordinator with Crab Orchard Wildlife Management Area, will be the hosts for the presentation.

On Wednesday, May 21^st, 2014 at 3:30 p.m., the Shawnee National Forest will host an Invasive Species Workshop for Educators. The event will be held at Mississippi Bluffs Ranger District in Jonesboro, Illinois.  Karla Gage, River to River Cooperative Weed Management Coordinator, will be the host for the presentation.

Both events are being held as part of Illinois Invasive Species Awareness Month. To learn more about ISAM, including additional events being held around the state, please visit http://www.invasive.org/illinois/. 

Administered by the USDA Forest Service, the Shawnee National Forest is one of 155 national forests nationwide. As the only national forest in Illinois, the Shawnee offers numerous avenues for connecting with the natural world through its 280,000 acres of varied landscape. Whether your interests lie more in outdoor recreational activities, such as hiking or camping, or include learning about the unique natural and cultural heritage of southern Illinois, the fields, forests and streams of the Shawnee welcome you. To discover more about the Shawnee National Forest, visit http://www.fs.usda.gov/shawnee and follow us on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/shawneenf.

The U.S. Forest Service is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a mission of sustaining the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The Forest Service’s Eastern Region includes twenty states in the Midwest and East, stretching from Maine, to Maryland, to Missouri, to Minnesota. There are 17 national forests and one national tallgrass prairie in the Eastern Region. For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov/R9.

The U.S. Forest Service manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation’s clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live. For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov/.

—

Download Link: Fish_Tales_2014_Pounds_Hollow_Lake_Flyer

SHAWNEE NATIONAL FOREST PRESENTS:

FISH TALES
An aquatic education adventure!

 2014 Program

Saturday April 26, 2014 – Meet at Pounds Hollow Lake

Time:  9:00 a.m. – Noon

Directions:  From Route 1, take Pounds Hollow Road 2 miles.  Take a right into Pounds Hollow Recreation area to the day use area. From Route 34, take Karbers Ridge 9 miles and turn left into Pounds Hollow Recreation area to the day use area.

• Sign-in at 9 am, introductions, safety information/facilities information, pole, bait demonstration, catch and release, casting, fishing, break, knot tying and fishing.  PLEASE NOTE:  All activities will be finished by noon.

• Do not forget to wear a hat or cap, sunglasses and sunscreen for protection from the sun.  Also, please wear tennis shoes or good walking shoes – No sandals or flip flops.

•  Fishing Poles and tackle will be provided.

If you would like to preregister, please call Wendy Cowsert at (618) 253-7114, email to wcowsert@fs.fed.us  or fill out and submit this form by April 24th by mail or FAX to:

Wendy Cowsert                                                                      or FAX to (618) 253-1060

USDA Forest Service

50 Hwy 145 South

Harrisburg, IL  62946

• Print Name__________________________________________Age:__________

• Email____________________________________________________________

USDA Forest Service is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

INVASIVE SPECIES PRESENTATION

Hosted at the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge

May 8^th, 2014- 6:00 p.m.

Presented by Karla Gage; River To River Cooperative Weed Management Area (CWMA) in cooperation with the Shawnee National Forest

www.rtrcwma.org                                                www.fs.usda.gov

Download link: CWMA_NNIS May 8

Bring everything you’re intending to use on summer camp to our meeting in Ag 166.  Not done borrowing/renting/buying?  No problem, bring everything you do have.

We will go over skills, equipment use, safety training, etc.

As with the first meeting, this session is mandatory if you intend to go on summer camp.

If you missed the first meeting, it is not good.  We must circle back and get you informed.

Dr. Park

Always a pleasure to catch up on the news on Ashley’s site:
http://theaveragevisitor.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/the-latest-in-public-lands-news-wilderness-national-monuments-and-h-r-1459/

• The Early Bird registration rate of $90.00 for the weekend has been extended until Monday, March 24th.  This fee covers the conference, lodging, meals and entertainment.
• Check-in starts at 2:00pm Thursday, April 3rd.  Opening Circle starts at 4:30pm.
• Highlights of the event include a 50th anniversary of the 1964 Wilderness Act celebration; student-presented workshops; representatives from federal land management agencies and regional outdoor recreation and education programs; an awesome jazz and blues band playing live Friday night; and campfire mentoring.
• Keynote Speaker: Karl Rohnke, one of the founding fathers of team building and the challenge course industry.
• Closing circle takes place at 10:00am on Saturday.
• Touch of Nature staff will be facilitating post-conference activities on Saturday, including high-ropes course programming, rock climbing, and paddling experiences.

 

Want to help yourself excel in Forestry 420: Park and Wildland Management? Fall 2013 service days put on by the Shawnee National Forest’s rockstar trail coordinator Kelly Pearson and her team are a great way to rack up extra points. aggressively.

Project TEXAS sensor head

My research group is pushing hard into custom digital sensing of trails and campsites. Below is a bit of code I developed to measure trail surfaces to millimeter-resolution, about 5 times per second.

The sensor we chose, the MaxBotics HRXL-MaxSonar-WR 7380, automagically corrects for temperature influences.  We can compare this against the laser ranging happening simultaneously and select the most accurate reading for a given trail surface (puddle vs. soil vs. gravel vs. organic matter, etc.).

/*  
    HRXL MaxSonar WR TTY serial communication example sketch
    Ultrasonic rangefinding

    Original bits by Logan Park, Ph.D., in honor of his astonishingly beautiful wife.

    Pretty much everything else is...
    based on: http://www.maxbotix.com/documents/HRXL-MaxSonar-WR_Datasheet.pdf
    and on the Arduino Mega 2560 ADK: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardADK
    and on this handy ASCII chart: http://www.csgnetwork.com/asciiset.html
    and a bunch of posts on the Arduino forums.

    1. Connect pin 5 (tty/serial) of the ranging unit to pin 19 (Serial1 RX) on the Mega 2560. 
    2. Connect pin 6 of the ranging unit to any 5V supply on the Mega 2560.
    3. Connect pin 7 of the ranging unit to any GND on the Mega 2560.
 */

int current_range_reading = -99;

void setup() 
{
  Serial.begin(115200); // Set your computer's serial terminal baud rate to this.
  Serial1.begin(9600); // This is what the MaxBotics TTY sonar output needs.
}

void loop() 
{
  if (Serial1.available() > 5)  // Then at least one complete range, 6 characters long, is stored in the RX buffer.
  {
    int inByte = Serial1.read(); // Examine the first stored character and decide what to do.

    if( inByte == 82 ) // "R" character 
    {
      int thousands = (Serial1.read() - '0') * 1000; // Take and convert each range digit to human-readable integer format.
      int hundreds = (Serial1.read() - '0') * 100;
      int tens = (Serial1.read() - '0') * 10;
      int units = (Serial1.read() - '0') * 1;
      int cr = Serial1.read(); // Don't do anything with this, just clear it out of the buffer with the rest.

      // Assemble the digits into the range integer.
      current_range_reading = thousands + hundreds + tens + units;
      if(current_range_reading == 300) //This is the minimum reading for the HRXL MaxSonar WR 7380, not the actual distance
      {
        Serial.println("too close!");
      }
      else if(current_range_reading == 5000) //This is the max reading for the HRXL MaxSonar WR 7380, not the actual distance
      {
        Serial.println("too far!");
      }
      else
      {
        Serial.print("Range (mm): "); 
        Serial.println(String(current_range_reading));
      } 
    }
    else if( inByte == 13 ) // Carriage Return  character, oops! 
    {
      //Serial.println();
    }
    else if( inByte == -1 ) // Just in case!  This shouldn't happen if Serial1.available() returns true.
    {
      Serial.println("RX buffer empty, wth?");
      return;
    }
  }
  else
  {
    //Serial.print("RX buffer not ready");  // This is very spammy, uncomment at your own risk.
  }
}

My research group is furiously hammering away at some custom field instrumentation. I thought I’d put down a few thoughts on how it’s going. Currently we’re focused on a data-logging laser rangefinder instrument custom built around the Lightware Arduino kit, AL_01. We received two units freighted from South Africa a few weeks ago.

Dr. Park’s Enthusiasm Rating: 9.8/10

Unboxing the units revealed a laser emitter and sensor mounted into a solid block of milled aluminum(?). The construction seems solid–important because these aren’t intended for laboratory use. Fieldwork is what recreation ecology is all about. The emitter and sensor are ribbon-cabled to a laser control shield sized for the Arduino Uno board. Right away we switched to an Arduino Mega board; the Uno’s program memory space is quickly filled by the libraries you need to drive the laser and log its data.

As it turns out, the AL_01 is a pretty capable “pro-sumer” laser rangefinder.  It occupies that space between the el-cheapo $20 parallax (the method, not the brand) rangefinder kits and the $1000+ pro grade gear that, frankly, are harder to wire up and get going.  The 40m advertised ranging worked fine in direct sun.  That was a real worry for us, since our fieldwork happens in all sorts of awful outdoor conditions.  It’s the reason why we decided against hacking a Microsoft Kinect for its ranging + color imagery sensors.

The AL_01 is difficult to aim by hand outdoors, so we stuck a Sparkfun red laser card on the rangefinder’s head unit.  No more problems with that, although the red laser is a higher class laser (IIIA vs. the AL_01’s IM), so we won’t use that in field applications where bystanders could (somehow) possibly get injured.

Since the unit is factory-calibrated, we had to set the EEPROM configuration by hand, just as described in the instructions.  On the UNO, this had us up and running with the laser rangefinder very quickly–with one gotcha.  In the EEPROM settings menu (transmit “e” over serial/teminal connection to open the config menu), the settings addresses are presented as two digits (e.g., “10”) but are indexed as four digits long each. So, you have to type “0010” when you mean “10”.  Similarly with the EEPROM values assigned to each setting, though in this case the values are 15 total digits.  So, you have to enter “000000000000130” if you intend to save “130” as the EEPROM value.  This caused some confusion, but once we figured it out, we were good to go.

Dealing with Tracy Portman at Lightware via email has been wonderful.  The responses are fast, within 24 hours, and detailed without getting in too deep.  Initially when we placed the order, I had

reservations; they transact through Paypal and we got a friendly and polite note saying the order had been received, but that delivery would be delayed some time due to a strike among transit workers (used to ship packages).  My first thought was, ‘ah, crud, I’ve been scammed.  I’ll never see that thousand dollars again.’  (Paypal is notorious about tying up funds when in dispute.)  However, the units arrived soon enough in good order, carefully packed in bubble wrap, instructions included with a hand-noted calibration chart (nice!!).  No complaints at all.

Anyway, we ran out of program space on the Uno (32K ain’t what it used to be), so we switched it to the Mega board and… nothing.  Looks like we need to reconfigure the SPI settings for the laser controller and the SD card to play nicely with each other and with the Mega.  We’ll keep you posted.  😉

Welcome to the site.  I’ll be throwing publications, announcements, photos and videos, and much more on the site.  Stay tuned as we go!