Events

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Many of our bats are becoming endangered and people can take simple steps to help!

The Good Bat Neighbor (GBN) Program helps inform about the plight of bats and how to protect and restore their habitat right in your own backyard.

Learn how to create a Bat Garden with native plants, and improve habitat with actions as easy as reducing Artificial Light at Night (ALAN).

Bats have a uphill battle-habitat loss, pesticide use, a deadly infection spread by humans... Yet they help us so much-they eat disease- causing insects, protect crops from agricultural pests, and fertilize everywhere thy go.  Won't you give them a helping hand, too?

Bio: Jen Woronecki-Ellis has been passionate about helping wildlife since her first bird rescue when she was three.  She started on habitat restoration when she founded Juniper 's NatureScaping in 2006, with a focus on birds and pollinators, and began to incorporate bats with her graduate studies while she pursued a Master's in Biology through Project Dragonfly at Miami University Ohio in partnership with the Chicago Zoological Society.

Jen created the Good Bat Neighbor citizen conservation program and has presented at the annual Midwest Bat Working Group conference in Missouri and the Wild Things conference in Illinois, as well as meetings of local non-profit organizations in Northwest Indiana... she has also made a number of nature documentaries, including work for the Ohio Bat Working Group.

When she's not busy producing bat  education and outreach materials, and connecting with bat rehabbers and organizations around the world, she enjoys birding with her spouse in and around the Indiana Dunes.

Food and drinks will be provided.

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This program looks at how ecologically and economically important oaks are, how they came to be so common, and the problems they now face. As for the problems we can help them if we apply ourselves!

Spencer Cortwright earned his bachelor's degree in biology from Washington University in St. Louis and his Ph.D. from Indiana University in Bloomington. After further training as post-doctoral researcher at the University of Michigan, Spencer became a Professor of Biology at Indiana University Northwest. He spent over a quarter of a century studying amphibian population ecology and during that time slowly transformed himself into a plant ecologist focusing on ecological restoration of natural areas. He teaches classes in ecology, restoration, zoology, and diversity of life.

Food and drinks will be provided.