The band on the main stage of the Festival is winding down, and we're already contemplating the next annual National Geographic-National Park Service BioBlitz. It's planned for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, a 15,000-acre urban park accessible to Chicagoans via commuter train.
Indiana Dunes boasts 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, plentiful undulating sand dunes, swamps, prairie, and forest land.
According to Carl Sandburg, "Indiana Dunes are to the Midwest what the Grand Canyon is to the West." Costa Dylan, Superintendent of Indiana Dunes, agrees. "Did you know that there are more varieties of orchids at our park than in the state of Florida?" he asks. "I'm looking forward to adapting BioBlitz to our diverse, fragile ecosystem."
We are too. And you're invited.
Photograph by Christopher Light, courtesy National Park Service
POSTED BY EMILY LANDIS AND FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 5:59 PM PDT
What Others Had to Say
Added by Susan of the Dunes on September 10, 2008
I look forward to the bioblitz in the Indiana Dunes! This is a really special place and I hope we can get the public as well as local teachers and students engaged.