Zion Canyon Field Institute Sets Second Season of Lecture Series

Michael Plyler, director of Zion Canyon Field Institute (ZCFI), is pleased to announce the schedule for their annual lecture series’ second season. This is a free lecture series open to the public.

This year’s lectures, five in all, will be held in the newly completed Canyon Community Center in Springdale. All lectures will start at 7:30 pm.

October 10, 2007 Author Mitch Tobin, 36, is an award-winning journalist and one of the West’s leading writers on the environment. From 2001 to 2006, Tobin covered water, wildlife, wildfires, and other natural resource issues for the Arizona Daily Star, the morning newspaper in Tucson. In 2006, he was named one of eight fellows of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, sponsor of the nation’s oldest writing fellowship for U.S. journalists. This year’s competition attracted nearly 300 applicants.

Mr. Tobin will be discussing his forthcoming book entitled “Legislating Noah’s Ark.” In this work the author uses the American Southwest as his measuring stick for evaluating both the successes and shortcomings of the Endangered Species Act, the nation’s most powerful and controversial environmental law.

November 2, 2007 ZCFI will be hosting Mr. Kevin Abbey, former Director of the Center for Road and Gravel Studies at Penn State University’s Institutes of the Environment. His lecture will be entitled “Where the Rubber Makes the Road.” Mr. Abbey will discuss his former organization’s adoption of an innovative new process in road-building. Utilizing used tires as road base insures the durability of roads while eliminating the need for disposal of those same tires. The disposal of used tires has been an environmental nightmare for years.

December 7, 2007 Photographer Bruce Hucko will present “Time Among the Ancients: Photographing Rock Art and Ruins on the Colorado Plateau.” Mr. Hucko has traveled extensively through the Southwest recording dwellings, structures, and rock art panels of the Ancestral Puebloans and Fremont cultures for his new book (Impact Photographics/Canyonlands Natural History Association). Join us for beautiful photographs, photographic tips and techniques, and Hucko's own commentary on landscape photography and these fascinating, ancient cultures.

January 5, 2008 Geologist and author Wayne Ranney presents “Carving Grand Canyon.” Although studied for almost 150 years, geologists still do not have a single, accepted theory for how the Grand Canyon or the Colorado River were formed. It's not for lack of trying however - many theories have been proposed from John Wesley Powell to the present. Join Wayne Ranney, accomplished geologist and trail guide, as he explains in layman's terms the geologic processes and sequence of events responsible for the incomparable beauty that is the Grand Canyon. Wayne will sign copies of his latest book, "Carving Grand Canyon", after the lecture. "Carving Grand Canyon" won Honorable Mention at the 2006 National Outdoor Book Awards.

February 8, 2008 Christa Sadler presents “Life in Stone: The Long and Extraordinary History of Life in our Backyard.” Join paleontologist and author Christa Sadler on a visual journey throughout our region to meet some of the creatures that swam, slithered stomped, and soared their way through our ancient history. Ms. Sadler will also bring her extensive collection of fossils to enjoy before and after the show.

For information about the lecture series or to sign up for ZCFI classes, please call Michael Plyler @ 435-772-3264