Greetings from Douglas Lake!
The 2024 field season has officially come to a close. Hundreds of people — including college students, scientists, artists and families from around the globe — departed our historic campus in northern Michigan with a warm sense of belonging and continuity and a stoked desire to protect and learn from our natural world.
Especially children in our first Nature Day Camp! A few of those budding scientists are pictured on the right. The program’s debut in our second century of operations was a resounding success based on feedback from staff, researchers and lecturers who needed childcare service while living and working at the field station.
Nurtured by nature and looking beneath the surface, the incredible people who joined our UMBS community this year truly became part of this special place that has inspired generations of environmental problem solvers. We are proud of their hard work in the lab and in the field, covering great swaths of habitat and ecosystems and contributing to long-term science knowledge and education. The students and researchers and children, no doubt, will do their part to move the needle on building a more sustainable planet from wherever they call home.
With the end of field season comes the closure of the dining hall. It’s now undergoing an interior renovation — one of several projects to revitalize community spaces to increase their flexibility for use in both research and education and enhance the on-campus living and learning experience. The dormitory lounge, Alumni Room, a research classroom focused on genomics and the director’s cabin living room were completed over the summer. The dining hall project will continue into the fall as well as updated artwork to honor UMBS history and alumni. Thanks to our generous donors, we have been able to respond to what students and researchers have asked for and, at the same time, prepare transitional, flexible spaces that we’ll need as we take the field station to year-round operations.
Over the last several weeks I welcomed a few distinguished guests to the Pellston campus.
Phil Roos, the director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), toured the field station. Roos wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “It was inspiring to see the station's mission in action—to advance environmental field research, bring students together in scientific discovery, and provide essential insights to sustain ecosystems locally and globally.” (Read his full Tweet.) I value our shared commitment to Michigan’s natural resources and look forward to working with him on efforts to find solutions to critical environmental challenges.
Shana Weber, the University of Michigan’s first associate vice president for campus sustainability, traveled to our remote field research station. I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to show her on Aug. 29 how UMBS is ready to go carbon neutral and lead by example as a showcase for sustainable living and infrastructure for both the University and northern Michigan communities. We also discussed how we can build connection on living and learning labs and research programming across campuses.
Dr. Timothy McKay, associate dean for undergraduate education in the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Physics, Astronomy and Education, also joined me at the Biological Station. The heart of our discussion centered on how we can envision, expand and increase educational programming at UMBS — especially dreaming about what “semesters up north” could look like for U-M undergraduates.
We’re actively recruiting new scientists to bring their programs to UMBS. This month alone five researchers from Michigan State University came up north to explore potential new research sites and collaborations. I was happy to give them a tour and am excited for future collaboration.
Further creating connections, I had the opportunity to visit the University of Minnesota Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories, nestled near the headwaters of the Mississippi River, in August along with several UMBS staff members as part of an exchange program funded by the Organization of Biological Field Stations. It was a huge success. Read the UMBS news story to appreciate all of the knowledge shared and things learned by spending meaningful time with our doppelgängers.
Thank you to the U-M Alumni Association for inviting me to speak at Camp Michigania in Boyne City on Sunday, Sept. 8. It was my pleasure to introduce Wolverine alumni and retirees to the important work happening at our field station located only an hour away from their beautiful spot along Walloon Lake. The crowd of about 40 people was engaged and asked great questions about our research and teaching. They also took pride in the conservation success of the adorable piping plovers.
Speaking of the more than 30 years of work based at UMBS to save Great Lakes Piping Plovers from the brink of extinction, 2024 was another record-breaking season for the iconic shorebird species. This year’s total of 81 nesting pairs was the most since the birds were listed as endangered in 1985. The captive-rearing center at UMBS reared and released 17 chicks into the wild. Kudos to the unified effort of dedicated conservationists, volunteers and community members who are driving the recovery.
We have two profiles for you to read this month focusing on people you should know.
One is a Q&A with Kendall Ash, a UMBS alumna who we hired to serve as a field technician for the 2024 season. Read the UMBS news story detailing Ash’s hands-on work helping visiting researchers from around the world set up and run projects, ranging from ant colonies to bumble bees.
The other profile is our feature story this month about Jasper Mitchell. His student success story — from Microbiology in northern Michigan to the Michigan Marching Band — made me smile for many reasons. Read it and let me know if the “most powerful thing” he learned from his time at UMBS resonates with you. He excelled in the science of things and making friends, but his life lesson regarding change and trying new things is something we can all absorb, no matter our age or stage of career. Way to go, Jasper!
If you’re interested in helping us create research and creative opportunities next year or farther into the future, please give to our undergraduate research programming or help us take our infrastructure year-round. We’d love to have students spend a fall or winter semester at the field station. (Right now, we offer four-week spring and summer terms.) Instead of a semester abroad, think of it as a semester up north. To support our effort to upgrade campus and be able to offer year-round educational programming (i.e. expand to cold-weather seasons), consider a donation to the Biological Station Discretionary Fund.
Over the next few months if you’re curious about environmental information such as how much snow is on the ground in Pellston or the air quality, visit the UMBS Community Resources page we created to directly connect the public with our data.
I’ll end with something that was popular with the readers of this newsletter at the end of the spring term. This time we curated a photo gallery of nearly 100 moments from the summer term at the University of Michigan Biological Station along Douglas Lake. View highlights from our community in northern Michigan full of class field work, students, scientists, research projects, fun games, dancing, and what we learned from guest speakers in the second and final half of the 2024 Summer Lecture Series.
View the full September newsletter here.
Sincerely,
Dr. Aimée Classen
UMBS Director
