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08.02.2010 - 12.02.2010
Visit of Hoseob Yoon, Distinguished Visiting Practitioner
09.02.2010 19:00 -
20:30
Keynote Address from Visiting Artist Yoon
10.02.2010 14:00 -
16:30
A Day in the Life of an Artist: Yoon
10.02.2010 21:00 -
22:00
SEA Meeting
11.02.2010 14:00 -
20:00
T-Shirt Making with Visiting Artist Yoon
Environmental Protection Agency
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February Break in the Bridge of the Americas – Panama
Written by Christine Del Vecchio, Brandeis '09
A journey to the heart of the rainforest
Mid-February, early morning, found my classmates and me sprawled across benches and the floor in Logan Airport. Waiting for our professor, Glenn Adelson, to arrive, we compared notes on the assigned readings, various vaccinations we had received, and which of the tropical diseases that Glenn had described we were most afraid of catching. We were passing the sleepy minutes prior to checking our bags and beginning our February break in the Bridge of the Americas – Panama.
Glenn was a guest professor at Brandeis teaching a course in restoration ecology. We, the class, were a small group of mostly environmental studies majors. Glenn and the organization he co-directed, Earth Train, had been granted funds to bring our class to Panama for a week to visit ecological restoration sites in the country’s dry and rain forests. For some of our group it was the first time in the tropics; for everyone it was the first time in Panama. At the sight of Glenn pulling up outside the airport we began running around, lugging 50 pound bags to the counter, and sorting out passports and tickets. Finally we were all safely aboard the plane and on our way south.
Read more: February Break in the Bridge of the Americas – Panama
Enter the 'My Favorite Critter' Contest
Written by Bryan McAllister-Grande
Winner spends a day learning the ropes from a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer
Each semester, the Brandeis Forum on Environmental Crisis will sponsor a photo contest open to all members of the campus community. This semester we celebrate the wonder and delight of animal diversity. Enter your best photograph of a “critter” – defined as a non-human mammal, bird, insect, or anything else that’s alive and not a plant, fungus, bacteria in the broad sense, or protozoan. Yes, some of those life forms will be featured in future competitions; this one is about critters.
To enter a photo, simply send a JPG or GIF image to
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with your name. Images should be original digital pictures no smaller than 800 x 550. Multiple entries are permitted. The deadline for entries is February 12, 2010.
The prize for winning this contest is a day spent shadowing/shooting with prize-winning Boston Globe photographerEssdras M. Suarez.
Bringing Back the Checkerspot
Written by Professor Eric Olson
Establishment of a charismatic butterfly (Euphydryas phaeton) and its host plant, the Turtlehead wildflower Chelone glabra, into a Brandeis wetland.
Both wildflowers and butterflies have become less common throughout New England over the last 100 years, especially in city and suburb. Habitat change from Yankee farmer meadow to scrubby forest to woodsy housing development with lawns is probably the largest cause of wildflower declines. Deer – but not their predators the Gray Wolf or mountain lion -- have been on the rebound for years in the region, and deer graze heavily on flowers. Then in 2008 Richard Primack and his students at Boston University reported that climate change has caused mismatches between flowering time and pollinator activity in the Greater Boston area. Primack used Thoreau’s journals to obtain flowering times for scores of plants that lived in Concord over 100 years ago, and found that many species are no longer present. Those that remain are flowering an average of 2 weeks earlier.
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