Calendar

Apr. 18:
Leopold Center open 12:00-4:30pm

Apr. 27:
Leopold Center begins regular open hours

May 1:
Aldo Leopold and the Age of Consequences

May 2:
Trees to Trillium

May 9:
Birding the IBA

May 16:
Your Land, Your Vision

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

The Outlook eNewsletter

April 2009

Tour the Shack with Leopold's Biographer!

On May 1, Dr. Curt Meine will give a tour and discussion at the Shack. Join us for this special event, and ask the expert something you've always wondered about Leopold!
Program: Aldo Leopold in an Age of Consequences. We live in what some have described as "the age of consequences"-a time when the impacts of long-term economic, social, and environmental trends are converging in powerful and sobering ways. Although there is no exact precedent to the predicament we find ourselves in, there are ample lessons from history that can help us to orient ourselves as we seek new paths to a sustainable future. What can we learn from Aldo Leopold's efforts to grapple with the complexities of conservation and social change?
Learn more about the tour or register today.

Meet Our New Tour Guides!

When we begin regular public hours on Monday, April 27, we will be welcoming a number of new faces to our crew! On Saturday, March 28th, we began the training process for an extremely talented, diverse group of people that will help us lead guided tours of the Leopold Shack and Farm, and Aldo Leopold Legacy Center. Meet our guides and read about what has attracted them to join our team.

You Decide the Next Outlook Cover!

Vote for your favorite image, and the winner will be used on the cover of the Summer 2009 issue of Outlook! The issue will focus on the themes of agriculture and sustainable food systems. There are five choices for cover photo submitted by members and friends of the foundation. Vote today! Voting will be open until Monday, April 20.

Leopold Education Project Conference Announces Keynotes

Join us in June for the 2009 Leopold Education Project National Conference here at the Leopold Center! We have just confirmed our keynote speakers, Gary Paul Nabhan and Jim Wilson! We hope you will consider joining us for a very special educational experience this summer. The conference will be held on June 26th and 27th with optional pre-conference workshops on June 25th. You can register online today (and don't miss our early bird rate until May 15!). This conference will offer new skills to develop and lead conservation and environmental education projects in your home communities, using Leopold's thoughts and words to connect people and community and nature. Join us!

Yale Centennial a Success!

On April 3, Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies held a symposium of scholars, practitioners, students, and members of the public to commemorate Leopold's 1909 graduation from the Yale Forest School. Speakers including Bill McKibben, Wes Jackson, Peter Brown, Steven Kellert, Gus Speth, Gene Likens, Jed Purdy, Susan Flader, Curt Meine, and many others gathered together in Yale's newest green building, Kroon Hall, and together they addressed the question: What advice would Leopold give to the graduating class of 2009? Answers ran the spectrum from local foods to getting children outdoors to the impending death of environmentalism as we know it. Read more about the gathering here and look for a feature about the celebration in our next issue of Outlook magazine.

Become a Recurring Donor

Give to ALF in a new way! Help us reduce staffing costs, postage and paper by joining our monthly Recurring Donor Program. You will be able to make monthly donations on your credit or debit card, eliminating the need for renewal notices. Here’s how it works: a recurring contribution of $10 or more is billed to your credit or debit card each month. At the end of the year, we will send an acknowledgement for all contributions during the year for your tax records. Your contributions will continue until you ask us to make a change. If 80% of our current membership took advantage of this option we would save more than $10,000 annually, money that we can put directly into programs that connect people to nature and promote land health. Sign up on our website or get more information by contacting membership associate Jennifer Anstett today.

Notes From the Field

We had two great Introduction to Prescribed Fire courses through the Woodland School this spring. A total of 42 landowners, Natural Resources Conservation Service staff, and volunteers attended the classes. Combined, the land these individuals own or manage totalled more than 5,500 acres! The course covered fire ecology, fire behavior, equipment, and techniques. The second class marked a new partnership between ALF and the Taliesin Preserve in Spring Green. Field exercises were held on a remnant prairie on Taliesin's property, and field walks toured adjacent private lands to look at how neighbors are working together to build a restored prairie cooridor in the bluffs outside of Spring Green. The interactive class structure allowed participants to built networks with others in the class and several even met their neighbors for the first time! Learn more about classes offered by the Woodland School.

Visitation is Growing and so are our Programs

Since opening in April 2007, visitation at the Leopold Center has nearly doubled—over 5,000 visitors took part in on-site programming last year. They represented 16 foreign countries, and 49 states in our nation. We expect visitation to continue growing in coming years, and to meet that demand, we are expanding both our guided and self-guided visit options for the public. Look for our new self-guided audio tour about the green features of the Leopold Center to be released later this spring as a free podcast. The tour will also be accessible by renting a mini mp3 player from the visitor desk. The tour is being developed and produced with support from a grant from the National Association for Interpretation, Region Five. We will also have new signage on display in the exhibit hall that highlights the stories behind some of the essays in A Sand County Almanac.