Strange Sanctuary Old Factories Offer New Hope for Wildlife


Visitors are flocking to see the new life emerging in brown industrial lands now morphing into vibrant ecosystems as nature reclaims idle factories, mines, docks, landfills, rail spurs, warehouses and parking lots. The unfolding rehabilitation is getting help from the likes of Julie Craves, a research supervisor at the University of Michigan- Dearborn, who monitors eight vacant properties that the Ford Motor Company has remade as wildlife habitat. Not every industrial


site within the 48-mile-long Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge will be reclaimed. But, says Craves, “I have come to really love this juxtaposition of the hyper-ur- ban with resilient nature.” She notes how strategic plantings have attracted songbirds and raptors. More than 300 species


of migratory birds rest, nest and feed here.


Spurred by a need to manage


thousands of idle acres, corporations like BP, Gulf Oil, Bridgestone and U.S. Steel have undertaken similar projects. One of the more unlikely is Denver’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. When the arsenal, which produced nerve gas and other chemical weapons for the U.S. Army, closed in 1992, its 27 square miles were one of the nation’s most poi- sonous landscapes. Today, “We’ve restored the habitat back to short-grass prairie, the way it looked in the late 1800s,” says Sherry James, visitor services


manager for the refuge. The star of the new staging area is a self-


sustaining, growing bison herd. Source: eMagazine.com


better instructional techniques. The most effective learning, the


Virtual Ivy E-colleges Do Work


A recent study by the U.S. Depart- ment of Education (ED) has found that many types of online education for a college degree are better at raising student achievement than face-to- face teaching is. The big difference, researchers report, is the time spent on task, or flexibility in absorbing content. Able to set their own pace, students often study longer or visual- ize a problem differently; concur- rently, professors are forced to design


study concluded, occurs when a school combines e-learning with classroom teaching. Yet for many students, online learning is what they can afford in time or money. The hope is that the e-college trend may help burst the bubble of rising tuition costs, which now aver- age more than $25,000 a year for a degree in a private, bricks- and-mortar institution. In the past decade, the number of university students worldwide is up by nearly half to 153


million. The need to have a leg


up in the global knowledge economy is reportedly prompting ED plans to cre- ate free, online courses for the nation’s 1,200 community colleges—which teach nearly half of our undergrads—to make it easier for them to learn basic job skills.


Source: The Christian Science Monitor


Multiple Faiths Many Americans Mix


Western, Eastern, New Age Beliefs


The latest poll by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that one-third of Americans attend religious services at more than one place, while a quarter of us sometimes attend religious services of a faith differ- ent from our own. Sixty percent attend at churches or houses of worship; other locations include houses, schools, restaurants, hotels, parks and campgrounds. Some 38 percent attend at least once a week and 34 percent once or twice a month or a few times a year; 27 percent say they seldom or never attend religious services. Although the United States is


an overwhelmingly Christian coun- try, between 23 and 26 percent of the adults polled also say they believe in a tenet of Eastern or New Age spirituality: reincarnation; yoga as a spiritual practice; spiritual energy located in physical things; or astrology. Nearly three in 10 say they have felt in touch with some- one who has died. In 2009, half of Americans


polled said they have had “a reli- gious or mystical experience, that is a moment of religious or spiritual awakening.” In 1962, only 22 per- cent reported having had such an experience.


Source: PewForum.org


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