Preserving an Oasis: A Portrait of Humans and Nature

Event Details

Ravenswood Media and the Chicago Academy of Sciences/Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum present the history of the Calumet Region as seen through the lens of the Anthropocene, our current epoch when humans have overwhelmed the Earth’s natural systems. Wolf Lake sits at the epicenter of the Calumet Region, and its challenges over the last 200 years represent important lessons for humanity navigating the Anthropocene. This event will share these lessons with the public through the screening of the short film Wolf Lake: Oasis of Beauty and Serenity, presentations from scientists and environmental historians, and a question-and-answer session. Participants will also learn about plans for a new one-hour documentary about the lake, Wolf Lake Abides.

About the Presenters

David McGowan is an Academy Award–nominated filmmaker. He has traveled the world making films for environmental and conservation organizations. His career extends from filming mountain gorillas in Uganda to filming frogs in Illinois. Not only is he doing what he loves, but he’s also contributing to the issue he feels is the most important—a sustainable natural world.

Philip Willink is president of the board of directors of the Association for the Wolf Lake Initiative. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. From there, he worked at the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, and he is now a fish biologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey (University of Illinois). Willink has conducted research from Wolf Lake to the downtown Chicago River, the bottom of Lake Michigan, the heart of the Amazon, and the jungles of Papua New Guinea. His current focus is bridging the gap between science and policy.

Doug Taron grew up in Massachusetts, where he received his first butterfly net at age six. In 1979 he completed a B.A. in biology from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He migrated to the Chicago area that same year to attend Northwestern University, where in 1984 he received a Ph.D. from the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology. During his graduate studies, Taron began helping to restore Bluff Spring Fen in Elgin, Illinois, as part of the Nature Conservancy’s Volunteer Stewardship Network. Later, while spending 13 years working in the biotechnology industry, he coordinated the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network, a volunteer-based organization monitoring the health of butterfly populations on nature preserves throughout Illinois. In 1997, the Chicago Academy of Sciences hired Taron. He is now chief curator for the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. Hi is active in butterfly conservation and monitoring research in the Midwest.

Philip V. Scarpino received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Missouri–Columbia in 1983. He currently serves as professor of history at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and as director of oral history at the Tobias Leadership Center at IUPUI. His areas of specialization include environmental history, public history, oral history and historic preservation. His books include Great River: An Environmental History of the Upper Mississippi River (1985), Public and Environmental History (coeditor, 2004) and Rivers of the Anthropocene (coeditor, 2017). Most recently he contributed “Public History and Environmental History: Interpreting the Creation of Place Over Time” to Public History: A National Journal of Public History (July 2021).

To register for the event, click on the RSVP button above.

For more information, visit the Peggy Noetbaert Nature Museum’s website or call 773.755.5100.

Some safety protocols remain in effect for special programming at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. A mask and proof of vaccination are required in order to participate. Any guests with medical or sincerely held religious exemptions will be handled on a case-by-case basis and must provide proof of exemption and a negative COVID-19 test. Please click here to see the full list of requirements and guidelines.

This program is presented in conjunction with the Wolf Lake Abides project, which received support from an Indiana Humanities Action Grant.