Calendar 

June 25-27:
Leopold Education Project National Conference

June 25-27:
Leopold Center CLOSED TO PUBLIC

July 3 :
Expert Tour-Leopold Center Engineering

July 31:
Expert Tour-Behind the Scenes

The Woodland School

In the coming year, we are offering an array of Woodland School classes to advance your land stewardship practice, from the classics—chainsaw safety, prescribed fire—to new opportunities like birding the Leopold Memorial Reserve with experts. We hope you'll let one pique your curiosity and join us in the field! Register online today for any of our classes!

Support the Work of the Foundation

Become a key partner in helping us spread the land ethic, advance the science of land health, preserve the Leopold shack and farm, and train new leaders for the future of conservation. Join today!

Visiting the Leopold Center

Check out our 2009 tour schedule to decide when you'd like to visit us this summer!

The Outlook eNewsletter

June 2009

New State Trail System Honors Leopold

Forty-two Wisconsin state trails covering 1,728 miles in all regions of the state now bear the name of Aldo Leopold. In 2007, Governor Doyle signed a bill naming the Aldo Leopold Legacy Trail System into law, and it was officially opened at a ribbon cutting ceremony in Madison this year on June 4. The legislation was sponsored by Senator Mark Miller, and was supported by a diverse bi-partisan group in state congress. What's unique about the designation is that the Aldo Leopold Legacy Trail System aims to do more than just put Leopold's name on a plaque at each trailhead. According to the Wisconsin DNR, there are plans to install educational signage along all the trails highlighting local geology, ecology, and wildlife features that will help trail users connect to the land, a goal that is perfectly aligned with Leopold's thinking. In his course objectives for the Wildlife Ecology course he taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Aldo Leopold wrote, "Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear what you will do to it, or with it, and I know many pleasant things it will do to you." The state trail system will help hikers, bikers, and cross country skiers read the landscape as they explore it. Featured speakers at the ribbon-cutting event included Department of Natural Resources Secretary Matt Frank, Tourism Secretary Kelli Trumble, and Aldo Leopold's granddaughter and ALF board member Trish Stevenson. See a DNR video with highlights from the event.
Read more about it in the news:
From the office of Jim Doyle
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel online

National Wildlife Foundation Honors Starker and Luna Leopold

Luna Bergere Leopold and Aldo Starker Leopold will be the most recent inductees into the National Wildlife Federation's Conservation Hall of Fame. This award recognizes individuals who have made a substantial and unique contribution to the field of conservation, have provided leadership and inspiration in the conservation community, and have achieved national recognition for their work. Aldo Leopold was inducted in 1965.

A pioneer in the field of river studies, Luna Leopold had a profound influence on efforts to restore and protect America’s waterways, both large and small. He served for 22 years as chief hydrologist of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water Resources Division, where he made major contributions to our scientific understanding of riparian systems.

Starker Leopold made significant contributions to the field of wildlife ecology and management. Starker Leopold was associated with the National Park Service in an advisory capacity from 1962 until his death in 1983. Under his leadership as chairman of the Special Advisory Board on Wildlife Management of the Department of Interior, the committee produced the Leopold Report which led to important new policies for the National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges.

Preview the Next Outlook Magazine

The next issue of the Outlook hits the presses next week, so it should be coming to members' mailboxes soon! We are delighted to bring you a selection of excellent articles from some of the nation's leading voices on sustainable agriculture and food systems. To get a taste of what's inside, you can preview Buddy's "Letter from the Executive Director" here. Special thanks to Jon Lee of Coon Valley, Wis., for submitting the winning cover photo!
Read more from past issues of Outlook.

Learn From the Experts!

July 3: Leopold Center Engineering with Mike Utzinger
1:00 – 3:00pm.An associate professor in the Department of Architecture at UW-Milwaukee, Mike Utzinger was also one of the chief contributors to the engineering system design of the Leopold Center. He has worked extensively at the Solar Lab at UW- Madison and was very involved with the inclusion of the unique earth tube system in use at the Leopold Center. Mike is currently compiling and reporting on all the data of the Leopold Center’s performance over the last year. Join us for this discussion of engineering system design and performance to date. Register here.

Share your thoughts on the Leopold Center Interpretive Plan!

If you weren’t able to join us for Jen Kobylecky’s brown bag seminar about her visitor study at the Leopold Center, here is your chance to review the presentation and let us know your thoughts. Combined with your feedback, the suggestions offered by visitors in Jen's research will help inform the content of the Leopold Center interpretive plan. An interpretive plan determines everything about how a site conveys educational information to its audiences. One of the first steps of interpretive planning is to gather stakeholder and audience feedback. That's where this survey comes in! The next steps will be to develop content and find funding for implementation, both of which are already underway. Some content was developed for a grant application to the National Endowment for the Humanities submitted this past January, and it will be pilot tested and evaluated by on-site visitors this summer. Jen’s study looked at visitor opinions of the self-guided and guided programs available on the site. If you’ve been to the site before and taken part in either of these programs, we’d really like to hear your opinions also. First, review Jen's research presentation slides, then take our Leopold Center Interpretive Plan Feedback Survey.

Notes From the Field

You can take home a piece of Aldo Leopold's Shack! This spring we began a re-roofing project at the Shack, which is currently about halfway to completion. When Leopold renovated the Shack after he purchased it in 1935, he initially installed a tarp-like roofing. Sometime after his death in 1948, wooden shingles were laid on top of that material. The period of time when A Sand County Almanac was being written (1936-1948) was defined in our Historic Structures Report (PDF, 5MB) as the most historically significant time for Shack, and therefore it becomes the reference point for any maintenance or restoration projects. That means that as part of the shack's restoration, the wooden shingles are being removed and a state of the art material, called bitumen membrane, will replace them. That material will be placed over the old tarp-like roof to preserve it, and will look about the same. We'd like to invite all of our members and e-news subscribers to take home a piece of Shack history. For just a $25 donation, you can own one of the cedar shingles from the Shack roof. Shingles must be picked up on-site at the Leopold Center. Visit today!

Don't Miss the Leopold Education Project Conference!

This is your last chance to join us in Wisconsin for a great summer learning opportunity! The Leopold Education Project (LEP) National Conference is coming to the Leopold Center! June 25-27, come meet other educators, learn about LEP’s curriculum resources, and attend valuable seminars that will give you the skills you need to develop and lead environmental education and conservation projects in your home communities. Sessions will focus on teaching skills, methods for incorporating Aldo Leopold’s thinking into educational programs and discussions, and inspiring success stories of projects that creatively link individuals and their natural communities to benefit both. Click here to register today!