SEEES Speaker Series
GoShoals | 11:25 am | September 1, 2010 | Announcements
Cornell University is sponsoring the Sustainable Earth, Energy, and Environmental Systems (SEEES) speaker series for Fall 2010, featuring all new topics and speakers. The theme for this year is: the interwoven challenge of energy, climate, and the environment in the human and natural world. The series is designed especially for college freshmen and sophomores, but we are extending the invitation to all area college and high school students, and surrounding communities. No registration is required. The series is co-sponsored by the Cornell Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future.
The series meets Monday nights, every other week, 7:30-8:45pm in 101 Phillips Hall on the Cornell Campus (TCAT #10, Sage Hall bus stop), and starts on Monday August 30th.
For more information: Louise P. McGarry (lpm3@cornell.edu or 607-342-0628)
2010 Sustainable Earth, Energy, and Environmental Systems (SEEES)
exploring the interwoven challenge of
energy, climate, and the environment
in the human and natural world.
PRIMERS: Energy, Society, Climate, and Life Systems
Aug 30: Carbon Energy and Society
Sep 13: New Energy Opportunities and Challenges
Sep 27: Changing Climates and Life Systems
THE CHALLENGE: Intersection of Energy and Ecosystems
Oct 4: Terrestrial – Marcellus Shale Case Study
Oct 18: Marine – Energy and the Marine Environment
ENGAGING the CHALLENGE: Intersection of Science and Society
Nov 01: Role and Response of Policy and Business
Nov 15: The Nature of Science and Science in the Media
RESPONDING to the CHALLENGE: Student Projects
(SEEES first-year writing seminar students)
Nov 20: (Saturday) Natural History at Noon – Museum of the Earth
TAKING ACTION
Nov 29: Cornell: Energy and the Environment
The Shoals Experience
GoShoals | 3:14 pm | August 31, 2010 | Announcements
Molly Smith ’12, a natural resources major at Cornell, is no stranger to Shoals. She is the granddaughter of the lab’s founding director, John Kingsbury, and has traveled to Appledore with her parents — who met there decades ago — all her life. But this summer, for the first time, she arrived on the island as a student. “Before, I was an observer but now I’m a participant, but both experiences have been invaluable,” Smith said… Read More!
The beautifully brutal life of gulls
GoShoals | 1:10 pm | August 23, 2010 | Announcements
From Carl Zimmer: This week I’m on the Island of Science Writing. Today we wandered rocky coves with Tufts University biologist Julie Ellis, an expert on gulls. She showed us how to catch and band juvenile herring gulls–and how to recognize the matted remains of juvenile herring gulls coughed up by their great black-backed gulls predators. Life here is pretty, and yet not so pretty. But always interesting for writing about… Read More, Read Carl’s older post on science writing, or visit the 2009 science writing blog.
I Am Cornell
GoShoals | 2:27 pm | August 16, 2010 | Announcements
To those of you still out on the island now… or SML alumni… post an I Am Cornell picture and send us a link?
(Ken Stuart)
Gull Chicks
GoShoals | 2:16 pm | | Announcements
Here’s a very cute video with a gull chick breaking out of its egg – a learning moment for Shoals students.
(Thanks Amy Warren!)
Animal Behavior Society 2010 Film Festival
GoShoals | 10:01 am | August 10, 2010 | Announcements
Signals for Survival, produced by Marc Dantzker & David Brown, won a competition at the Animal Behavior Society’s 2010 Film Festival. Footage was taken on Appledore Island, our favorite gull nesting colony! Signals for Survival is a documentary on the communication systems used by Great Black–backed Gulls and Herring gulls. Here’s the Amazon link and the Society’s website.
Shoals class experiment analyzes seaweed harvested
GoShoals | 10:47 am | August 3, 2010 | Announcements
As part of a year-long experiment on Appledore Island, six miles off the southern Maine coast, students and instructors cut rockweed, a brown seaweed (Ascophyllum nodosum) that anchors to the rocks where the ocean meets the island. Some strands were shorn at their holdfasts on the rocks, others were cut at 16 inches, and yet others were left to grow as controls… Read More!
Shoals in CALS News
GoShoals | 9:34 am | July 26, 2010 | Announcements
On June 30, student interns at the Shoals Marine Lab activated 15 new solar panels, bringing the remote marine facility another step closer to energy independence. The panels, purchased through grant and donor funds, will generate electricity for Cornell’s teaching island… Read More or View Photos.
Ecology of Animal Behavior: In the News
GoShoals | 9:55 am | July 20, 2010 | Announcements
After the bird walk, the students spread out along the island’s shoreline to measure the length of rockweed, a brown algae growing on the rocks. The students were tackling the question of whether they thought the rockweed would be longer low on the rocks, where it spends more time completely submerged as the tide rises, or higher up in their habitat range. In small teams, the students measured five plants for length and bushiness in each area. Later, the class would collate the data and determine whether the findings supported their theories for which area is more conducive to longer growth.
Read more or check out the Ecology of Animal Behavior course page.
Photo & article by Krishna Ramanujan.
Gulls at the Isles of Shoals
GoShoals | 3:02 pm | July 5, 2010 | Announcements
Here’s an incredible set of photographs of gulls at the Isles of Shoals, complete with captions, from Rye Reflections:
Even though I grew up in the Seacoast and was familiar with the sight and sound of gulls, I had never truly experienced gulls until seeing them during breeding season on Appledore Island. They take over the island, nesting everywhere. And they are very protective of their nests and chicks, so that visitors are well-advised to carry a gull stick to hold overhead, to serve as a target for the gull instead of the top of your head… Read More.
Photo by Jim Cerny.