Field trip highlights

I took my geology students on a field trip Saturday. On the way to the college, I noticed this huge column of smoke rising from inside Detroit. That was at 7:30 AM. When I returned at 5:00 PM, the smoke was still rising. It's been years since I've seen a fire that big and that lasted that long. It turned out to be a bakery fire. WXYZ reports.




Highland Park Fire at old Sanders Headquarters

Fortunately, the plant was abandoned and the operations moved elsewhere, so all the people who wanted bumpy cakes could still get one.

As for what my students and I saw on the field trip proper, here's a video of an exhibit at the MSU Museum, our second stop of the day.

On Earth Day, take time to celebrate Silent Spring's 50th anniversary

Fifty years have passed since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the book many credit with sparking the environmental movement. The book has deep connections to Michigan State University, from the late MSU ornithologist George Wallace's research that was featured prominently in the book to the establishment of the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at MSU and a legacy of environmental science being conducted today.

My students and I saw those robins on display, along with other exhibits. I hope that made an impression on them. It did on me.