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Strategic plan targets invasive species
The Superior Daily Telegram (11/17)
Douglas County’s Land Conservation Committee is forwarding a plan to the county board that takes aim at invasive species.
Mich. Clean Marina Program: Public-private partners work together to improve water quality
Grand Rapids Environmental News Examiner (11/9)
Partners from the public and private sector in Michigan are working together in a voluntary program to improve the quality of the Great Lakes.
Researchers seek funding for wind test site in Lake Michigan
Grand Rapids Environmental News Examiner (11/7)
In a recent article in The Muskegon Chronicle, it was reported that researchers at Grand Valley State University’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC) cited a lack of year-around data (on wind platform testing) needed by prospective development companies.
COMMENTARY: Senate needs to pass clean energy act to help Michigan
The Grand Rapids Press (10/26)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was absolutely correct with his recent proclamation about the current condition of the Great Lakes State: "The State of Michigan," Reid declared from the Senate Floor, with a copy Time Magazine in his hand, "is in trouble."
First Nation women 'walk the environmental talk'
WeNews (10/23)
Tomorrow's global day of climate activism aims for media and political attention. First Nation women have another way. Since 2003, they've walked the shoreline of a Great Lake or major river, meditating on the needs of an unborn generation.
City making big push for water school
The Business Journal (10/23)
The push is on to convince the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that the best location for its new School of Freshwater Sciences is near the university’s existing Great Lakes Water Institute on East Greenfield Avenue.
What's going on in your neighborhood this month? Meet other people and learn together at recreational and educational events! Our new dynamic calendar is updated daily with current educational events.
by Lorado Taft
The Fountain of the Great Lakes depicts five female figures grouped together so that water flows from their shells in the same way it passes through the Great Lake system. Superior, at the top, and Michigan empty their water into the basin held by Huron, who sends her stream on to Erie. Ontario receives water and gazes off as it flows into the ocean. Completed in 1913, the fountain sits in the south wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The idea for a Great Lakes fountain came from a remark made by architect Daniel Burnham at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. Burnham chided the sculptors assembled to ornament the fairgrounds for not "making anything" of the great natural resources in the west, especially the Great Lakes.
The Fountain of the Great Lakes is one of the best known works of Lorado Taft, an Illinois native who was educated at the University of Illinois and later at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Among his other noted sculptures are the Fountain of Time at the University of Chicago and a statue of Chief Black Hawk, which reaches a height of 50 feet and sits on a promontory overlooking the Rock River near Oregon, Illinois.
More about Lorado Taft, University of Illinois Archives
More historical photos of the fountain
Graphic: The Fountain of the Great Lakes, south wing of the Art Institute of Chicago; Lorado Taft's home in Elmwood, Illinois.