Kentucky Organization of Field Stations Field Station Meeting Minutes

Northern Kentucky University & Thomas More CollegeSt. Anne Research and Education Center

& Thomas More Field StationFebruary 13-14, 2015

Attendees: Steering Committee:

President: Stephen Richter Secretary: Dick Durtsche Web/Communications: Andrew BerryMembers-At-Large: Chris Osborne, Luke Dodd

Friday Night – Pizza Dinner: After everyone arrived and checked into their rooms, we took a tour of the St. Anne Convent where a portion of the movie “Rainman” was shot with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. We had a pizza dinner sponsored by the NKU Ecological Stewardship Institute (NKU ESI). Then we had a bon fire with smors and our favorite beverages to allow us all to relax and catch up.

Saturday Morning Field Station Tours:St. Anne Woods & Wetlands Research and Education Center – At shortly after 9 am

we toured the old growth upland woods part of the St. Anne Field Station. There are many beech and oak that create an open understory along with a stream running through the middle of the area. The trail system is expanding with the recent conversion of this land as a conservation easement. Following a tour of the upland woods, we headed down the hill to the wetlands. The wetlands consists of 100 acres of bottomland forest along the Ohio River. Two

sections of the wetlands are bisected by a railroad line, with the south area open to the public and the north area fenced for research activities. The group walked the public trails in the south section, then visited the recently established ephemeral pond system in the north section near the Ohio River. Dick Durtsche gave a summary of the activities that had been taking place at the St. Anne field station over

the past several years. While renovations had not begun, the group also saw the newly acquired Field Station building that is Northern Kentucky University’s first field station. This building is tucked into the corner of the north division of the wetlands. Our tour continued at the Thomas More College Field Station.

Thomas More College Field Station – We arrived at the Thomas More Field Station on the Ohio River at around 11 am. This station is approximately 11 miles east (up river) from the NKU Field Station. Chris Lorenz and Emily Imhof lead the group through the facilities at the station. We started with a visit to the main station which used to be one of the Ohio River Lock and Dam buildings. This building has been outfitted for both classroom work and several

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active research programs. One of these programs is the cultivation of fathead minnows for toxicology work done by Thomas More and the EPA. The other program they had running was an extensive mussel growth study with mussels at all stages of development. For both programs, they have an extensive water filtration system where they pump water directly from the Ohio River and run it through an array of screening tanks and sieves to bring the correct

condition of water to each of the cultivation tanks or artificial stream tanks. Next we visited their recently constructed outdoor pavilion. A great place to see the river and provide instruction to large groups. We finished the tour with a visitation to the dorm and conference center where we held the afternoon meeting.

KOFS Meeting (12:30 am): After lunch sponsored by Thomas More College, we had introductions in the Thomas More Field Station Meeting Room. Chris Lorenz gave a nice photo presentation about the history and activities of the Thomas More Field Station. Stephen gave a brief history of KOFS. We then set out to work in subgroups to brainstorm about ideas for networking among stations within Kentucky and beyond. The subgroups included research, education, and outreach. Each subgroup spent the next hour or so working on their ideas and strategies for implementation. Below are the summaries of each of the findings of the subgroups.

Research Networking Subgroup: Our goal is to establish a clearinghouse for ideas

on research networking across KOFS sites. The Research Networking Committee will take the lead in collecting and encouraging the development of ideas, posting them on the KOFS website.

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We hope to focus attention on big ideas, such as Invasive Species (e.g. Amur honeysuckle, Emerald Ash Borer), Mutualisms (e.g. grasses and fungal endophytes), Emerging Diseases and Vectors (e.g. chytrid, white-nose syndrome), and Biomass Dynamics (e.g. long-term trends in forests).

Key approaches emphasize questions that can take full advantages of similarities and differences across field stations to motivate networking; the strong gradients across Kentucky east to west, north to south, urban to rural; the implications of our species and ecological features in the context of climate change.

We may want to standardize at least some features of weather stations across as many of our field stations as possible, perhaps following what has been accomplished through Mesonet. We could look for funding (NSF?) by linking this initiative to important questions at the regional scale.

The key limiting factors in research networking are finding PI’s who will take the lead in networking initiatives and finding funding to support these initiatives. Regional

institutions may look to NSF RUI funding and NIH R-15 grants; all may want to turn more attention to Education funding, linking front-line research with key education goals like those associated with the Next Generation Science Standards coming on line in STEM K-12 education.

We may want to link our KOFS stations with others beyond the borders of the state where this is appropriate for the questions and approaches.

The Research Networking Committee has developed a call for ideas soon to be posted on the KOFS website that suggests a format for posting well-developed ideas. Ideas much earlier in gestation that may attract interest and further development from collaborators are also encouraged.

Education Networking Subgroup:

Summer course to visit various host stations (2 weeks) Credits handled by individual schools Fee on top of tuition to cover instructor, supplies, travel, etc.

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Focus on ecosystem of field station Undergrad/grad mix

o Grads to teach/lead station activity Reconvene in fall for presentation or project for fall course credit

Next steps: figure out logistics, costs; get “buy in” from universities; funding ideas

Outreach Networking Subgroup:

1. Link into existing programs Elder Hostels – Invite retirees from Elder Hostels to participate in a bus tour

among field stations; teach them science in the field as well as the lab; each field station picks a science subject they want to showcase (ex: current research they are working on)

BioBlitz – (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/projects/bioblitz/) Cornell Great Backyard Bird Count (http://gbbc.birdcount.org/) Pollinator.org (http://www.pollinator.org/) EREN (http://erenweb.org/) Discover Life (http://www.discoverlife.org/) USA National Phenology Network (https://www.usanpn.org/)

2. Create new programs Service Learning courses to train community members to be citizen scientists;

each station could hold workshops on what type of science they specialize in (Ex: water quality, herpetology; botany, etc.)

Community Outreach – Share programs among field stationso Bird House Buildingo Pond Scum Workshops for farmers

Game Among Community Members/Schools around stateo Send in pics of what they see in nature o Link Encyclopedia of Life from KOFS Website and individual station

websites 3. Choose a statewide educational theme

Ex: Conservation of Biodiversity Ex: Environmental Management Restoration

4. Virtual Field Trips (Virtual Tour of Field Stations) Ex: Transdisciplinary programs

o Art Students send in pictures of natureo Use Visual Arts Students to make nature videos

5. Uniform Platform for online Outreach Instagram Scavenger Hunt

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Website Forums Webinars Resource Sharing among stations Semi-annual KOFS newsletter – every station provides information; short articles

on research and events; volunteer opps; job opps Make student research projects available online/ in newsletter KOFS Facebook page run by interns

6. “Ask a Field Station” Program on website and/or Facebook Link with KY Science Center

Wrap up – we discussed all options made by the subgroups and agreed that these were ideas worth pursuing. We concluded at 4:30 pm.

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