The University of Illinois Springfield operates two field stations: the Therkildsen Field Station at Emiquon (TFSE), located within The Nature Conservancy Emiquon Preserve in Fulton County, and the Field Station at Lake Springfield (FSLS). Collectively called the UIS field stations, these facilities provide students with the opportunity to apply concepts learned in the classroom and engage in active learning both inside and outside of formal instruction.
The idea of a field station is not a familiar one to most people. Field stations serve as a home base for researchers and students seeking to understand the surrounding environment and its relationship to the rest of the world. They are also sites of education and outreach and play a vital role in training students. Field studies are how ecologists, geologists and other scientists hone their art; it is the opportunity to put classroom lessons, theories and skills into practice. In their communities, field stations facilitate research, often with the goal of helping to bring change to policies and practices that negatively affect people and the environment.
Both UIS field stations are located on significant fresh waterways. Freshwater, both its quality and its scarcity, continues to represent a major challenge confronting the world. The Emiquon Preserve restoration includes wetland, prairie and bottomland forest systems. Just over the levee from Emiquon is the Illinois River – which has significant economic, cultural and ecological importance to the state. UIS students and faculty have engaged in research examining the prairie restoration and the health of the restored wetland ecosystem.
The FSLS is located on Lake Springfield, which provides a very different setting as a mixed urban and agricultural watershed serving multiple stakeholders and purposes, including drinking water, power plant cooling and recreation. UIS students and faculty have engaged in research focused on cyanobacteria in the water and the presence of both macro- and micro-plastics. At both locations, staff work with a variety of partners to develop research projects, provide opportunities for students and improve the surrounding community.
At the UIS field stations, we believe in connecting students with their local environment through active, experiential learning. We want them to get wet and muddy and be surprised by something they see and learn. Environmental issues should not seem far removed and exotic, but without a connection to your local environment, they might seem that way.
One of my favorite activities to do with student groups – whether fifth-graders, college students or retired continuing education students – is to have them put on waders and walk into the wetland at the Emiquon Preserve. Their goal is to collect macroinvertebrates, mostly insect larvae, that we will sort and look at under the microscope.
There is always at least one person who looks at me like I’m crazy and seems to say, “Walking in water and touching bugs is not what I signed up for.” They always all get out in the water, and there are occasionally shouts – along with plenty of laughter – as those new to waders and mud stumble a bit and get their feet stuck.
Once back on dry land, we show them how to start picking bugs out of their sample and give them a jar to put them in. Soon silence falls over the group as they focus, and all I see are sets of heads bent over sorting trays.
In the lab, we teach them to look at their bugs under a microscope. The fun begins when I start putting their discoveries under the camera on my scope, which is connected to a large flat screen. The cellphones come out, and they start taking selfies with dragonfly nymphs or whatever critter is on the screen. Some of them start going through their samples desperate to find something the group hasn’t seen before. Faces are smiling, and questions are coming from all directions as they want to know everything about the bugs they have found. Even the doubters come around.
Providing these educational and outreach experiences are not the only activities we engage in at the field stations, we also support a variety of research projects, especially those involving UIS students. These opportunities are a just few ways that we can have a larger impact on the surrounding community – connecting people to their local environment and providing experiences “doing” science.
Thomas Rothfus is the director of the UIS Therkildsen Field Station at Emiquon and the UIS Field Station at Lake Springfield. Additional information is available at uis.edu/emiquon and uis.edu/lakespringfield.
This article appears in The state of the state.
