Detecting and Experiencing Old Growth Forests in NW Indiana and SW Michigan, Let's Go Exploring! - with Dr. Spencer Cortwright, Professor at IUN
Public Welcome Registration Required Free Event Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking
How can we detect that we are in an old growth forest or one very similar to old growth? How much old growth is left in the eastern half of the U. S.? We will explore the idea of old growth forests. We will visually interpret and visit candidate old growth forests in NW Indiana and SW Michigan!
Spencer Cortwright grew up in Riverside, Illinois—near, but not in, Brookfield Zoo—with the zoo and Cook County Forest Preserves serving as his earliest nature stomping grounds. He earned a biology degree from Washington University in St. Louis, then sharpened his ecological expertise at Indiana University (at the time, not exactly known for football).
Following a postdoctoral stint in ecology research and teaching at the University of Michigan (very much a football powerhouse), Dr. Cortwright joined the faculty at Indiana University Northwest, where he has taught since 1992. He has studied amphibian ecology for more than a quarter-century and restoration ecology for nearly as long, with plenty of overlap between the two. Otherwise, he jokes he’d be far too decrepit to be doing much of anything at all!