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Education Outreach

The education outreach efforts at the Survey serve an ever-expanding audience with new and innovative programs. Many different components go into the making of a successful education outreach effort, including presentations by staff as members of the Survey Speakers Bureau, development of new educational materials for middle and high school teachers and students, and teacher training in the use of those materials. Over 200 presentations covering topics from ants to zebra mussels were given this fiscal year to diverse audiences from kindergartners to senior citizens. The educational liaison at the Survey gave more than 60 presentations to a wide range of audiences.

New educational materials focused on high school students and were developed in conjunction with the CTAP (Critical Trends Assessment Project) Phase II, PLAN-IT (Pairing Learners and Nature with Innovative Technology) Project. The goal of PLAN-IT is to create sets of scientific protocols that focus on forests, streams, wetlands, prairies/grasslands, riparian zones, and soils that will enable high school students (and other volunteers) to collect valid scientific data. These data can then be analyzed by Survey scientists and incorporated into the biennial critical trends reports on the state of the Illinois environment. To accomplish this task, new curricular materials must be developed to provide students with the necessary knowledge and skills to implement these protocols. Thus, two new sets of curricular materials on prairies and wetlands were produced, and activities on forests and streams were revised and expanded. A curricular writing team, with Survey scientist Dr. Michael Jeffords as advisor, developed the curricular materials, while another team of Survey scientists produced the scientific protocols for the various landscape types. This is a unique program and is under close scrutiny by other states that hope to implement similar programs if Illinois succeeds in its endeavor.

As in years past, a major focus of education outreach is teacher training. This becomes particularly critical with regard to PLAN-IT. Teachers were trained in how to provide students with necessary data-gathering skills and in how to conduct the scientific protocols so the data their students collect are a valid product. Workshops were conducted across the state, culminating in a week-long training session at Lorado Taft Campus of Northern Illinois University. Here Survey scientists, PLAN-IT team members, Illinois Department of Natural Resources scientists, and AmeriCorps volunteers cooperated in training 75 high school teachers in ForestWatch, RiverWatch, PrairieWatch, and WetlandsWatch curricula.

New educational materials produced included a video and accompanying study guide entitled "Illinois: A Study in Diversity." These materials are designed to acquaint students with the biodiversity of Illinois. In addition, the poster "Macroinvertebrates of Still and Flowing Waters" was produced. This large black-and-white poster, with line drawings of many typical stream and wetland organisms, is designed to supplement the CTAP materials and also to stand alone in a classroom setting.

Other outreach efforts at the Survey include a weekly radio broadcast on WILL public radio called "Illinois Naturalist," and significant contributions to The Illinois Steward magazine. In addition, the traveling exhibit "Biodiversity in Illinois" was recreated and spent time in several locations in Illinois.

The Survey places special emphasis on its diverse education outreach efforts and will continue to do so as the audience continues to broaden and the need for effective natural resources materials suitable for many audiences continues to grow.

Collections

Scientific collections can be likened to a library of natural history data, with carefully preserved specimens instead of books and other documents. Each specimen consists not only of the plant or animal but also of a record of the date, locality, habitat, and often other data about the organism. Because the environment is changing due to natural events and human activities, the collections serve as irreplaceable historical records of our natural heritage. Understanding the distribution, ecology, and conservation of our living natural resources depends on these records. The specimens also prove indispensable for identifying organisms for other governmental agencies and for the public. Many species look very similar, so distinguishing a beneficial insect from a pest, or an endangered plant from a common weed, can be difficult without comparative material. Specimens are a useful tool for teaching about the diversity of life. Finally, collections form the basis for our research programs in systematics, whereby we strive to understand the evolutionary patterns and processes responsible for the biodiversity of our state and the world beyond.

The collections at the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), established in 1858, are among the oldest in North America. They contain over 7,700,000 individual items and continue to grow, with over 112,000 specimens added this year through staff activities and gifts from researchers at other institutions. All major groups of organisms are represented. Our particular strengths are in insects, fishes, mollusks, crustaceans, annelids, amphibians and reptiles, vascular plants, and fungi. Though most of the specimens are from Illinois, organisms do not respect political boundaries, and the Survey's collections contain plants and animals from throughout North America and from other parts of the world.

The collections are actively used by our staff and many others. More than 360 people visited the collections this year. These included scientists, students, representatives of other governmental agencies and private companies, and the public. Most were from Illinois, but some came from as far away as Ethiopia and Australia. Among our visitors were two students from a Champaign school who used the collection to prepare for the Science Olympiad and placed first in the region. Like books in a library, specimens are also loaned to qualified researchers. This year over 15,000 specimens were sent to more than 120 scientists throughout the United States and in 12 other countries. In addition, we responded to more than 150 requests for specimen data.

Making collection data more available to scientists and the general public is a high priority at the Survey. To this end, we are computerizing the specimen data and making them available on the Internet. A major accomplishment this year was completion of data entry for the plant collection, a project that has taken us six years. The entire crustacean, fish, herpetological, mammal, and mollusk collections have also been computerized. Data entry for the annelid and insect collections has been initiated. Due to the overwhelming size (over 6.25 million specimens) of the insect collection, data entry efforts for that collection are concentrating on our strong and ecologically significant collections of aquatic groups. Work to make the computerized data available on-line progressed throughout the year.

As we move toward the next century, collections documenting the diversity of life are growing ever more important. INHS is dedicated to documenting that diversity with collections, making the collections and associated data widely available, and using the collections in research and public service.

INHS Library

Fiscal Year 1997 proved to be a very good year for the Illinois Natural History Survey Library. Beth Wohlgemuth started as the new Assistant Librarian in October 1996. Beth has her Master's degree in library science and a background in horticulture. Beth's many duties at the INHS Library include providing a reference service, bibliographic instruction to patrons, and overseeing the library's extensive exchange program.

The INHS Library was also fortunate to have Lynn Hanson join our team as a library volunteer. Lynn has worked on several projects including evaluating and adding links to the INHS Library Home Page database. This database currently has information on over 250 sites with many more to be added. The Library Home Page continued to be heavily visited and generated several reference queries. The maintenance and improvement of this page will be a top priority for Fiscal Year 1998.

Mirta Guglielmoni, a graduate student at the University of Illinois School of Library and Information Science, worked on an independent study project for our library during the fall semester 1996. Mirta's project involved reviewing several hundred books that were on the shelves but not cataloged as part of the collection. Because of Mirta's efforts, several hundred books were officially incorporated into the collection and are now accessible via the on-line catalog.

The library was granted additional space in late 1996. The library has been in the same space for the last 44 years and this increase was desperately needed. The new space allocation includes two rooms adjacent to the current library. One will be used as shared office space for Erin Knight (Head Librarian) and Beth Wohlgemuth (Assistant Librarian). Next to this office space is a much larger room that will be used for the INHS book collection. The University of Illinois Library will provide new shelving for this space, which will free up a great deal of room in the current library to be used to house the overflowing journal collection.

The collection continued to grow. Over 1,200 books and bound journal volumes were added to the library's holdings. A state biodiversity grant obtained by Librarian Erin Knight in 1995 was extended another year and provided $2,000 worth of funds. More than 40 books were purchased with these funds, greatly enhancing our collection of biodiversity materials. The library continued to participate in the UI Library Approval Plan and received over 110 books valued at $4,586. The cost of these books is paid from general UI Library funds. The approval plan program is one of the many benefits the INHS Library receives by being a UI Departmental Library.

Due to the rising cost of serials, journal cancellations must be made every spring. A journal use study, begun in 1995, has provided valuable data and will continue indefinitely. This study has helped to identify which journals are being used and which may be candidates for cancellation. While several titles were canceled, 18 new subscriptions were set up. Many of these are new exchanges and the rest were purchased.

The library extended its hours for the first time in January 1997. The library remained open until 8:00 p.m. two evenings per week during the spring semester. These extended hours were well-received by the patrons who came to use the library, but the number of visitors was smaller than expected. Extended hours will be addressed again later in 1997.

The UI Library system, which includes the INHS Library, was to switch to a new online catalog system by Data Research Associates (DRA) in the summer of 1997. This transition has been delayed until July 1998. The INHS Library, like other campus libraries, will continue with barcode cleanup and data conversion efforts in order to prepare for the DRA implementation.

Network Office

During FY97, INHS continued development and support of network activities for the Survey and the public with access to electronic information maintained at INHS as well as remote sites on the Internet. The Network Office has connected and now supports approximately 350 computing devices that have access to the Internet via the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus network. Most computers are wired directly to the campus network, but the field stations and staff at temporary remote sites use a dial-up connection. Almost all INHS staff now have e-mail accounts and can communicate electronically both internally and with the outside world.

The Network Office has also worked with the Support Staff Transitional team to pursue on-line administrative applications in conjunction with the university's Administrative Information Systems and Services office. These applications automate daily administrative procedures and provide a vehicle for more efficient processing and reporting than current methods.

The Network Office helped the INHS Publications Office develop the capability to provide an automated way to publish on-line our in-house bi-weekly newsletter Factivities. By developing a staff e-mail distribution list and linking it to the INHS Web site, it is now possible to distribute Factivities to all INHS staff via e-mail. This saves time and money by reducing the generation and distribution of large amounts of paper for each issue.

Survey staff are taking initiative to master new technologies and are now beginning to support their own World Wide Web servers and sites in addition to the centrally managed INHS site. These sites distribute information on the INHS collections as well as other activities at the survey.