KBS this week welcomed W.K. Kellogg III (Bill), the 83-yr-old great-grandson of cereal manufacturer and KBS benefactor W.K. Kellogg.

Bill toured Kellogg Bird Sanctuary on April 29 with his son, Chris, before strolling the Kellogg Estate grounds, and eventually arriving at the W.K. Kellogg Manor House, where he reminisced about his great-grandfather with KBS volunteers before enjoying a dinner held in his honor.

Bill was in town to speak at the dedication of a new historical marker at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek. He lives in Chicago.

Photographs of his visit, taken by KBS volunteer Bill Krasean, are posted on our Facebook page here.

The KBS LTER (Long-term Ecological Research) opened its Agriculture and Ecology Walking Tour for the season on Wednesday, May 1st. This self-guided walking tour lets the public explore the LTER's main experiment research site while enjoying the outdoors.

This tour is open to adults and families. The trail is open from dawn to dusk, May 1 to November 1st.

For more information, please see the KBS LTER website here.

April 22^nd was Earth Day, and we celebrated by attending the Be Spartan Green Awards Ceremony on main campus! Our office achieved Green Certification this year, and we were presented with a certificate during the ceremony for our achievement.

Bird Sanctuary Animal Caretaker Lisa Duke accepting the certificate from Jennifer Battle, Campus Sustainability Director

During the ceremony, we also had the opportunity to hear Dr. Fred Poston speak. Dr. Poston is the former VP of Finance and Operation and is currently the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He is also the man who spearheaded environmental stewardship at MSU! Dr. Poston described some of the early projects that led to the campus sustainability program that is currently in place. It was also interesting to hear how hard the Office of Campus Sustainability has worked to include students, faculty, and staff in all of their projects.

So what does it mean to achieve Green Certification? Green Certification means that we are taking steps to reduce our environmental footprint! Some of the actions we take are easy things you can also do!

In our office, we turn the lights off in rooms that aren’t being used. At the end of the day, we turn off the computers and printer so they don’t continue to use energy all night. The staff here also shares a coffee maker, microwave, and refrigerator instead of each having our own. We have two recycling stations for paper, cardboard, and plastic. When we serve coffee at a program, we bring out reusable mugs instead of Styrofoam cups for visitors to use. The Bird Sanctuary is also a part of Kellogg Biological Station’s Sustainability Committee! The committee strives to make a large impact on the amount of energy and resources consumed across the Biological Station. In other words, the Sanctuary is supportive of moving the entire Biological Station towards being “greener”!

Challenge yourself to find a new action you can take to reduce your environmentally footprint! For more suggestions, check out the Be Spartan Green Take Action page!

Congratulations to Liz Schultheis on winning the 2012-13 Fields Teaching Awards from the MSU Dept. of Plant Biology!

Liz is a KBS graduate student in Plant Biology whose research interests are community ecology and invasion biology. During 2012-13, she was also a fellow with the GK-12 program, which partners KBS graduate students with area elementary and secondary science teachers to enhance the teaching of inquiry-based and environmental science.

The Fields Teaching Award is awarded every spring to an MSU Plant Biology graduate student for excellence in teaching.

KBS faculty members Drs. Phil Robertson and Sieglinde Snapp are featured in "Fertilized World," an article examining commercial fertilizer use around the globe, in the May 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Read the article online here.