Plants native to Evanston
speaker series
NASA, Unsplash

It’s A Night Thing: How Dispelling the Dark has Altered our World

About our topic

Artificial lighting has chased away the dark with devastating effect on insects, birds, humans and other species.  Fireflies simply stop blinking rather than compete with lights, giving up their breeding success for our artificial lights. With Ken Walczak of Adler Planetarium and DarkSky Chicago, learn about the dark skies movement, ways to bring back the dark, and if brighter is really safer.  Could Evanston become a dark skies city?

About the speaker

Ken Walczak is the Senior Manager of Far Horizons at the Adler Planetarium - a scientific research and engineering program engaging students, volunteers and the public in hands-on, participatory exploration. He has helped design and implement instruments for light pollution research from the ground and the stratosphere. He has coauthored numerous papers on the subject. He helped lead the designation of the world’s largest Urban Night Sky Place - the Palos Preserves - southwest of Chicago. He owned and lighting and furniture design company, studied photography and filmmaking and is an accomplished science and astronomy communicator. He is also a board member of DarkSky International and helped cofound the local DarkSky Chicago chapter.

Sponsored by Natural Habitat Evanston

We are an all-volunteer community group of about 1,500 members, spreading the word on creating habitat for insects, birds, and other wildlife. We aim to change the culture of lawns: leaving your leaves is the simplest first step; the second step is adding a native shrub or tree to shrink your lawn. We show how to transition from turf with low-cost cardboard methods, which keystone native plants to choose, that insects chewing on leaves is a ‘win’ (don't reach for pesticide), how turning off unnecessary lights saves insects and birds (and human health), and how to make your windows bird-friendly (because if you are going to invite birds to your yard, give them safe passage). We plant a lot of native trees and shrubs, especially at schools, parks and in the 2nd and 5th Wards. We encourage people to think outside the lawn with No Mow May. Our Pollinator Pledge is a central focus of all our outreach and education, and a great way to spread the word to your neighbors.
Natural Habitat Evanston is a program of Climate Action Evanston.