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Great Gray Owls topic of March 18 Audubon Talk; New Location for Audubon Meetings Announced POCATELLO – Noted ornithologist Leon Powers will deliver the slideshow and talk “Dead Owls Flying” about Great Gray Owls at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 18, at the Portneuf Valley Audubon Society monthly meeting.

The meeting will be held in a new location --- the Idaho State University Plant Science Auditorium located in the ISU Plant Science Building (which is Building 69 on ISU maps). Normally, meetings are held in the Idaho Museum of Natural History Classroom, but construction is taking place in the Museum Building and the classroom is unavailable. Directions to the new meeting spot are listed below.

The meeting is free and open to the public.

Dr. Leon Powers will give a talk that will illustrate the mystical allure of the Great Gray Owl through some highlights of his two-decade study of the rare owls in the Donnelly-McCall area. The presentation will include a couple brief readings from his recent book on great grays, and an explanation for his changing its original title, "Quest for the Gray Ghost" to its current "Dead Owls Flying.” For interested folks, copies of his book will be available for signing following the presentation.

Leon was a biology professor at Northwest Nazarene University for over 30 years, and is now semi-retired, teaching only a biannual, week-long Birds of Prey class, and otherwise enjoying writing about his many years of wildlife watching. He has written two books: the first, "A Hawk in the Sun" recounts his Ph.D. studies at ISU of the nesting behavior of the Ferruginous Hawk. His second book, "Dead Owls Flying" appeared in 2008. Leon is also a periodic contributor to "Boys' Life,” the magazine for Boy Scouts of America in which he is "Doc Hawk", their nature/wildlife writer.

The Plant Sciences Auditorium is located off of the ISU Biological Sciences and Nursing Building parking lot across the street from the Portneuf Regional Medical Center on Memorial Drive (15th Avenue). The Plant Sciences Building sits separate from the Biological Sciences and Nursing Buildings.

POCATELLO – The Idaho State University Department of Physics will host a regional Science Olympiad on the ISU campus on Saturday, March 13.

Seventh through ninth grade students from throughout Southeast Idaho will represent their schools and communities and compete in teams in a variety of science competitions.

Schools with winning teams will receive cash awards totaling $500 to support science education courtesy of the J.R. Simplot Company. Winning teams will be encouraged to compete in the state competition in Nampa on April 10.  The Idaho champion team will be invited to compete in the National Science Olympiad at Indiana University in May.

The Science Olympiad is a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of science education, increasing student interest in science, and providing recognition for outstanding achievement by both students and teachers.

At least a dozen teams from Eagle Rock Junior High, Franklin Middle School, Hawthorn Middle School and White Pine Charter School will be competing.  

Professor Steve Shropshire of the ISU Department of Physics, and ISU faculty and students from the departments of biology, geosciences and physics will serve as judges, along with several scientists and engineers from the Idaho National Laboratory.  

Students will compete with robots and catapults, compete in a forensics challenge, test their knowledge of alternative energy, electric circuits, and astronomy, and compete in several other fun science events.

More information on the Science Olympiad program is available at www.soinc.org.

For more information on the ISU Science Olympiad, contact Steve Shropshire at shropshi@physics.isu.edu, or 282-2212.

March 31 at ISU Goranson Hall

POCATELLO – The Idaho State University Women’s Studies Program will present the lecture “Mormon Families Since World War II” by noted Mormon scholar Jan Shipps at 7:30 p.m. March 31 in Goranson Hall in the ISU Fine Arts Building.

Shipps, an award-winning professor emeritus of history and religious studies in the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) School of Liberal Arts, is a popular lecturer as well as seminar leader. Journalists from both the print and electronic media regularly seek out her observations about Mormonism.  

Although she has never been a Mormon, Shipps is a recognized authority on the Latter-day Saints. In addition to a host of articles and reviews for both popular and scholarly periodicals, she is the author of “Mormonism: the Story of a New Religious Tradition” (1985), a work that continues to be used as a text in religious studies and history courses at many colleges and universities.  Her “Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons” published in 2000 is a combination of intellectual autobiography and essays and articles. The Mormon History Association gave “Sojourner” its “Best Book” award for the year it was published. Her latest edited book, “Religion in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Tension” was published by Alta Mira Press in 2004.

Shipps is now studying modern Mormonism.  The Mellon Fellowship was awarded to her to allow her to finish the research and to write a book about Mormonism since World War II.  She has spent nearly four months in Utah working in the archives of Utah universities and the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has been granted access to the leading members of the LDS Church’s General Authorities.  At present she is actively writing chapters for her book, which has the tentative title: “Mormonism’s Transformation since World War II.”

She was a founding co-editor of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation and for 10 years she served as director of the IUPUI Center for American Studies.

She has been active in a variety of professional organizations.  In addition to leadership activities in state and regional historical and religious studies organizations, she served as the first non-Mormon president of the Mormon History Association.

The Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, “I AM (Here)” by Michael Lee Crook will be held at the John B. Davis Gallery in the Fine Arts Building.  The opening reception is scheduled for Monday, March 15, 2010 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.  The Exhibition will be on display from March 16 – April 2, 2010.  This event is free and open to the public. The John B. Davis Gallery hours are Monday - Friday 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.  The gallery is located in the Fine Arts Building # 11 on the campus of Idaho State University or you can visit us on line at  HYPERLINK "http://www.isu.edu/art/galleries.shtml" \t "_blank" www.isu.edu/art/galleries.shtml. For more information please contact Amy Jo Popa at 282-3341.

Michael Lee Crook grew up on a farm in Star Valley Wyoming.

He met his wife, Emily, in Laramie while attending the University of Wyoming. They have two daughters, ages two and four.  He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wyoming in 2006.  He likes to make art out of everyday objects, using his cabinet building techniques as well as skills he picked up in theater set building and commercial art design.

Crook also uses objects and photographs from his past to make works that gives him a chance to meditate visually about his own life and who he is.  Crook is planning on graduating in May 2010 from Idaho State University with his Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Department of Art and Pre-Architecture. 

What do you think of ISU's plan to replace the master's degree in nursing program with a new doctorate nursing program?

By Yann Ranaivo

yranaivo@journalnet.com

    POCATELLO — Idaho State University is planning to replace its master’s degree in nursing with a relatively new program that allows nurses to earn a doctorate in the field.

    The Doctor of Nursing Practice offers nurses a doctorate-level degree, but places more emphasis on clinical aspects. In contrast, other existing doctorate programs in nursing focus on preparing candidates for research and teaching duties.

    Tina Mladenka, a clinical associate professor of nursing with ISU’s College of Health Professions, is working with other nursing faculty members to bring the so-called DNP to ISU within the next three years.

    “Universities are starting to develop these doctorates in nursing,” she said.

    Mladenka said the shift to the DNP began about five years ago when the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, a nationwide accrediting body for both undergraduate and graduate nursing programs, recommended schools offer more training in advanced practice.

    Currently, a master’s degree qualifies candidates to become an advanced practice registered nurse, the highest rank in the profession.

Once ISU implements the DNP, local nurses who want to focus on clinical work will have a doctorate’s opportunity.

    Though schools across the country are still in the process of introducing the DNP, the AACN is requiring its affiliated nursing programs to replace master’s degree programs by 2015.

    Mladenka said the AACN is pushing for the DNP in part because health care is become more advanced and complex, requiring further education.

By Sean Ellis

sellis@journalnet.com

    POCATELLO — A geoscience professor explained the geology of the Portneuf Valley Aquifer, and why the lower portion is vulnerable to contaminants, during a City Council study session Thursday.

    “The aquifer’s vulnerability is rooted in its geology,” Idaho State University Geology Professor Glenn Thackray told council members. “Our aquifer is a very, very unique aquifer.”

His presentation is part of an effort by Bannock County to protect groundwater in this area.

    As part of its comprehensive plan, Bannock County officials are in the early stages of developing a zoning overlay for the southern part of the Portneuf Valley Aquifer that would include some regulations to protect the aquifer, the sole source of drinking water for about 65,000 people in the Pocatello and Chubbuck area.

    Thackray’s self-described “road show,” which includes a PowerPoint presentation and is being presented to various groups around the community, is an early part of that effort to educate the public on why the aquifer is vulnerable and why it’s prudent to protect it.

    Thackray was careful to point out he’s not advocating any type of rules for the overlay area; he’s just informing people about the unique qualities of the 25-square-mile Portneuf Valley Aquifer.

    Thackray said the geology of the aquifer owes its makeup to the Bonneville Flood, which brought a quantity of water equivalent to what flows in the Amazon River through the Pocatello Valley during a short, but intense period. The flood was extremely large and filled the valley to about where the “I” on the “ISU” sign is on Red Hill.

    It ripped up a lot of large rocks and deposited them in the area, which is why the aquifer’s geology consists of a lot of large boulders, unlike most aquifers, which are made up of sand or pebble grains.

    “This is what our aquifer looks like,” Thackray said, pointing to an old photo of giant boulders in front of an auto dealership in Pocatello.  

    While groundwater moves very slowly through sand and pebble, it moves at a relatively rapid rate through the local boulder-dominated aquifer.

    “It moves about a mile a year, which is very rapid for groundwater,” he said. “When contaminants get into this aquifer, there’s almost no filtering and ... they move very quickly. We have a very vulnerable aquifer because of the geology.”

    The top soil above the aquifer consists of a relatively thin layer, he added, which means water, and contaminants, permeate through to the aquifer rapidly.

    The northern part of the aquifer, which starts about where Red Hill is and runs through Chubbuck, is more gravely and somewhat better protected, Thackray said. But the fast-moving nature of the aquifer means any contaminants introduced into the southern portion of the aquifer would move quickly to other parts.

    Thackray said most of the water that recharges the aquifer comes from the Mink Creek and Gibson Jack areas and comes from melted snow that permeates through the ground to the aquifer.

    He said about 7 billion gallons of water recharges naturally into the aquifer each year, but about 7.8 billion is being pumped out annually by the community.

    Thackray said one of the major issues facing the aquifer from a quality standpoint is nitrates, which come mainly from septic tanks in the southern part of town in areas where city sewer service is not available.

    “The treatment to remove nitrates is very expensive and very involved,” Thackray said. “If we get to the point where we’re above the legal limits, we would have to deal with that as a city.”

    Another issue is a plume of the solvent TCE (trichloroethylene) that formed in the aquifer in the 1990s after some of it leaked from barrels that were dumped in the old landfill, which isn’t lined like the new one. The good news is the city and county have addressed the problem — albeit at a cost of roughly $5 million — and it shouldn’t be a major issue in the future.  

    “Hopefully, the TCE plume is a problem of the past,” Thackray said.

    Underground fuel storage tanks are another issue, he said, and about 16 percent of the 245 tanks in the area have leaked. Because of newer regulations governing the replacement of these tanks, hopefully that is also a problem of the past, Thackray said.

    Other contamination issues include a plume of the chemical degreaser PCE (perchloroethylene) in the aquifer in the Chubbuck area that resulted in one well being taken off line and another being treated with air-stripping technology at a cost of $1.5 million.

    There is also a plume of the pesticide EDB (ethylene dibromide) in the Fort Hall area in the Snake River Plain Aquifer, which the Portneuf aquifer flows into.

    Thackray was careful to point out the drinking water in Pocatello and Chubbuck is safe.

    “The quality of the water that comes out of the tap in Pocatello is completely within the legal limits,” he said. “It is good.”

    Bannock County Planner Steve Ernst said after technical data about the aquifer that is being collected by experts is fine-tuned, it will be handed over to a broader group consisting of citizens and businesses who will explore the overlay idea further.

Should it be built? Why or why not?

Why or why not?