UToledo Stranahan Arboretum

**NEW PAPER**

What do The University of Toledo students think about the UToledo Stranahan Arboretum?

The answer is abundantly clear.

Read the paper here: https://share.google/D4XmWCZeptRBPsKR7

We're so proud of the 4 undergraduate students who conducted the research presented in this new peer-reviewed paper published today in Interdisciplinary Journal of Environmental and Science Education!

In the UToledo College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, students don't just get to see research, they do the research, and they launch their careers with peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Happy World Turtle Day to all!

Special catch!

One highlight from this week's research expo was catching a Green Heron in one of our nets. These guys are in the same family as the Great Blue Herons we see all around the Toledo area (the ones that look Pterodactyls flying over), but Green Herons are much smaller and much less abundant.

We've had a pair breeding at the Arboretum for at least the past three springs. Tadpoles are one of their favorite foods and our ponds have tons of tadpoles because we don't have fish. They sit quietly on the shore, on a log, or in shallow water and spear their prey with that long heavy bill on the end of a long and very fast neck.

This is the first time we've caught one and we unfortunately couldn't band the bird because we don't have bands big enough for herons. But it was quite a thrill to see up close before letting this cute critters get back to hunting.

Research Expo!

This week, we hosted more than 100 high school students and their teachers from Rogers High School, Notre Dame Academy, and St. John's High School for 3 days of demonstrating some of the cool research done by faculty and students in the The University of Toledo Department of Environmental Sciences.

Students learned about ornithology, herpetology, geophysics, groundwater sampling, and invertebrates. This is the kind of that James Holloway - UToledo President promises every student that comes to UT. One high school student said, "I didn't know you could study animals in college. Now I know what I want to do."

This year, we had more help from more faculty, staff, and students than in past years, and that helped everything go smoothly. We had Wendy Jaquillard, Steve Murphy, and Sandy Stewart from the Environmental Sciences staff; Jamie Martin-Hayden, Jeanine Refsnider, and Henry Streby from Environmental Sciences faculty; William Taylor from Biology faculty; and a bunch of graduate and undergraduate students from Environmental Sciences.

UToledo College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Happy 100th Birthday to Sir David Attenborough, the voice of nature for generations.

Syrup for UTMC friends

Dr. Streby dislocated his elbow a few months ago (long story) and he's been making a lot of visits to UTMC Orthopedics. Maria (Nurse Practitioner) and Dylan (Medical Assistant) are two of the kindest people you could meet. Today, they got the best thank you we have to offer; some Arboretum Maple Syrup!

UToledo Health

Cleanup time

It was a long and very messy spring with boil-overs and spills during syrup processing and all of our other Foraging projects. So, while the graduates are walking across the stage today, Dr. Streby is cleaning up to prepare for our upcoming High School Research Expo days, where we will hopefully attract more students to walk across that stage in a few years.

As a wise band called Semisonic once said, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end."

Buckeyes and horse-chestnuts are starting to pop! The nuts of these trees are full of several toxins and should not be ingested. However, they all also contain saponins, and with a little preparation can be made into an eco-freindly laundry detergent.

Saponins are surfactants (compounds that break the tension between liquids and solids). The one in most detergents is Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate, which is also biodegradable, but is toxic to wetland critters in higher concentrations.

Two of these pics are from today (the buckeyes) and the horse-chestnut pic is from last year becuase they flower a couple of weeks later.