Join us on November 11th as Dr. KathiJo Jankowski presents: Life on Wisconsin's West Coast: Upper Mississippi River Ecology

Greetings once again my fellow nerdlings!! It is with the utmost enthusiasm I bring to you our November USS speaker: personal friend, college classmate, and ultimate frisbee teammate of mine... Dr. KathiJo Jankowski!!! She is coming from the western reaches of our fine state to discuss the importance of the links between water quality and climate change for the Upper Mississippi.

Wisconsin is surrounded by Great Lakes, but America's Great River traces nearly 150 miles of its western border. The Upper Mississippi River forms the economic and ecological heart of the Upper Midwest, providing recreation, navigation and drinking water to millions of people in the basin and homes for diverse species of fish and wildlife. While pressures in the basin continue to threaten water quality, climate change is adding an extra layer of complexity to our ability to protect and manage the river. Come hear about how water quality and climate change are linked and what we are doing about it!

Kathi Jo Jankowski is the Principal Investigator for the Water Quality Component of the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program's Long-term Resource Monitoring Element.  She coordinates water quality monitoring and research on the Upper Mississippi in coordination with several federal and state agencies. Her research aims to understand how land use and climate change impact ecosystem processes in large rivers. She is specifically interested in nutrient and carbon cycling, ecosystem metabolism and food web ecology and has worked in freshwater systems from the boreal zone to the tropics. 

So!!! Tell your family!! Tell your friends!! Tell your neighbors!! Come all to the cozy back room of the Sugar Maple on 11/11/19 for some beers and water ecology education!! Hope to see you there!!

Join us October 14th as Dennis Miller presents: What Birds See

Greetings once again!!! Come one and all as we return to the cozy back room of the Sugar Maple for our October talk on Bird Vision!!!

While bird vision is accomplished by the same chemistry and general physiological structure as mammals and other animals, there are many adaptations which support survival in their ecological niches. While we can’t see through bird’s eyes, by using a number of photographic techniques we can at least get some idea of what they might see. This presentation will describe some of these techniques and illustrate the results.

So tell your family, friends and neighbors!!! Come by, grab a beer and let's learn about how our feathered friends see!! Hope to see you there!!

Mr. Miller is a "retired" engineer having spent 35 years working on topics of building environmental control at Johnson Controls. Since retiring he has done work on mobile robots, virtual reality, photography and numbers of other technologies which has been applied to teaching young people in Marquette University's Engineering Outreach Program and adults in the UWM Osher Program and in UWM's Continuing Education for Engineers. His interest in applying photography to understanding what birds see comes from many hours doing nature photography and volunteer activities at the Milwaukee County Park's Wehr Nature Center.