Month: October 2016

Wellstead Publishes on Forest Policy-Making and Climate Change Adaptation

untitledAdam Wellstead  co-authored an article, “Assisted Tree Migration in North America: Policy Legacies, Enhanced Forest Policy Integration and Climate Change Adaptation,” in the Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research.  The article discusses how forest policy-making can effectively address climate change if the policy-making process shifts to a more integrated approach and the challenges associated with the shift.

Read the abstract here.

Scarlett Helps Try to Locate Haymarket Riot Time Capsule

It all began with the labor movement’s fight for an 8-hour work day.

In Chicago’s Haymarket Square in 1886, a peaceful demonstration turned deadly when a bomb was thrown. In the chaos that followed, panicked police started shooting indiscriminately, killing seven of their own officers and at least four workers.

In the wake of the Haymarket Riot, eight members of the labor movement were arrested. After a questionable trial, seven of the leaders were sentenced to hang. Two sentences were commuted by the governor, and one defendant committed suicide in jail, while four men were hanged. While the public outrage at the violence created a “red scare” in the United States that set back the cause of the eight-hour day, the martyring of innocent labor leaders galvanized union organizers around the world. May Day celebrations around the world still commemorate those executed because of Haymarket.

Now, 130 years later, 21st century technology and a group of determined historians and archaeologists are bringing the historic Haymarket Affair back into people’s awareness. And Michigan Tech industrial archaeologist Tim Scarlett is playing a small part.

In 1892, leaders began erecting a monument to the Haymarket martyrs at their graves in Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, a suburb of Chicago. Before the monument was raised the following year, they buried a time capsule under the cornerstone, containing letters written by the martyrs themselves, family photos, newspaper articles printed at the time and documents from labor unions.

As decades and generations passed, the time capsule was forgotten. Read the full story.

Michigan Technological University sponsors US Forest Service Passport in Time Site

MTU-Professor,-Dr.-LouAnn-Wurst-instructs-members-of-the-PIT-crewIn August 2016, the Hiawatha National Forest partnered with Michigan Technological University sponsored a Passport In Time (PIT) project at the former logging settlement of Coalwood. The site was occupied by Finnish Immigrant families who cut cordwood for the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company between 1900 and 1912.  One goal of the project was to assess the damage caused by recent looting activities.

In an image provided by PIT, Professor LouAnn Wurst instructs members of the PIT Crew.

G.R.A.C.E Project Featured in National GIS Publication

TimetravelerKeweenaw Time Traveler and National Park Service received media attention for their NSF-ITEST GRACE Project collaboration in Directions Magazine, a national GIS periodical.  The article, G.R.A.C.E Project team creates ‘time machine’ with GIS, outlines some of the detail of the summer career education program that brought local high school students to work with the KHNP and the Keweenaw Time Traveler team as paid interns.

 

 

PhD Research Assistantship Opportunity

Energy Conservation PhD Research Assistantships at Michigan Technological University – Drs. Chelsea Schelly and Kathleen Halvorsen seek motivated applicants for two fully funded three-year research assistantship positions available for students pursuing a PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy at Michigan Technological University (MTU).

 Students will be involved in a National Science Foundation Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water (NSF INFEWS) funded interdisciplinary research project.  The project focuses on understanding and seeking ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through conservation of household-scale food, energy, and water. FEW PhD Position Description-1