SCA crew doing restoration work in Dan Ryan Woods includes some seasoned members Among the Student Conservation Association (SCA) crew working in the Dan Ryan Woods this summer are several seasoned veterans. There’s Joi Funches, 17, a rising senior from the south suburbs. She speaks with the confidence that comes from experience, easily rattling off […]
Earlier this year a report by UIC’s Great Cities Institute for the Alternative Schools Network verified an urban fact of life: joblessness and violence are connected. Thousands of Cook County teens and young adults are out of school, out of work and without a high school diploma that could help qualify them for even basic […]
When we hear the phrase “human environmental impacts,” many of us probably immediately think about climate change and causes of global warming. While those conditions contribute to environmental and ecological change, humans have played a significant role in changing our ecosystems. During a mid-June talk, Alice Brandon, Resource Programming Manager of the Forests Preserves of […]
A model of the student-designed nature art that will be erected in preserves. AFTER: The finished “Rose” sculpture at Forest Preserves of Cook County headquarters in River Forest. OPRF High School students design public art for Preserves OPRF High School art students with Transit Studio artists and teachers. Standing around a table in a large […]
Board member John Atkinson hosted a Friendraiser breakfast at Willis Tower on April 27 to introduce business and civic leaders to the Foundation. Board members, county commissioners Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Debra Shore and Brookfield Zoo President and CEO Stuart Strahl were among those attending. Tom Livingston, board chair and […]
Claire Williams CLAIRE WILLIAMS ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN INTERNATIONAL Claire is president and chief operating officer for Environmental Design International (EDI). She joined the firm as a marketing and sales representative in 1996, following a career in the health care industry. She served as senior vice president of business strategy until early 2015. She leads a firm […]
In the dead of winter, when it’s bone-chilling cold, the ground is frozen and wildlife are burrowed away, that’s when restoration crews are hard at work deep in the Forest Preserves of Cook County. On a recent morning in Spears Woods, a five-person Forest Preserve Leadership Corps crew took turns tossing freshly cut armloads of brush […]
An appreciation for nature led Margaret Tobin of Palos Hills to volunteer in the forest preserves. For Dennis Kankowske, it was “seeing people working in the woods.” After he inquired and found out what they were doing, he was hooked. Tobin and Kankowske are two of the preserves’ top volunteers, amassing hundreds of […]
A member of the Conservation Corps crew assigned to the Ted Stone Preserve. Alexa Molina, a Curie Metro High School senior, is spending six weeks of her summer mulching trails, removing invasive buckthorns and securing logs to create a check dam that will control water runoff in the Ted Stone Forest Preserve. Before she started […]
After everyone set up their tents for the night, there was still plenty of daylight left for tossing a Frisbee across the grassy field, squealing with delight at a peppered moth–or fear over the daddy long-legs–and getting a big pot of chili ready for dinner. It was a perfect day for enjoying everything the Forest […]
