Jen McGuinness who blogs at Frau Zinnie wrote an excellent blog post about the rain garden presentation Dr. Mike Dietz of UConn Extension presented at the Master Gardener Symposium in March. In Jen’s words: MANCHESTER, Conn. – With April showers imminent, you’ll soon be reminded of how much stormwater leaves your property. Water rushing through […]
Climate Adaptation & Resiliency
Advancing Adaptation and Resilience in a Changing Climate
A Climate Adaptation Academy for Connecticut
Modeled after CLEAR’s highly successful Land Use Academy, we are embarking on a new forum for land use officials and other interested professionals, a Climate Adaptation Academy (CAA). The CAA, sponsored by Connecticut Sea Grant and CLEAR, will serve as an outreach arm of the recently announced Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation. We […]
Environmentally Friendly Lunches
by Sherry Gray – Extension Instructor Nutrition Educator, EFNEP Supervisor Foods and Nutrition They’re Healthy & Affordable With a little thought and preparation, it’s not hard to pack an eco−friendly lunch from home. You’ll end up with less waste and a healthier lunch. You don’t need to spend a fortune on expensive lunch containers. Pack […]
A New Focus on Communities & Climate Change: CIRCA 2014
January saw the announcement of a new institute at UConn dedicated to providing answers and assistance to the state’s communities as they struggle to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Connecticut Institute for Resiliency and Climate Adaptation, or CIRCA, is a partnership of UConn and CT DEEP, and its creation is in direct response […]
Pest Forecasts Come to Connecticut
It hurts when codling moths riddle your apples, powdery mildew blasts your grapes, or anthracnose takes over your turf. But it’s really nettlesome when growers or groundskeepers mere miles away get off without a snag. Blame it on the weather: on a multitude of variables that we barely notice. Sophisticated weather stations can pick up […]
LID versus Green Infrastructure
If you deal with stormwater issues or land use planning, chances are you have heard the phrase “green infrastructure” mentioned a lot recently. It is rapidly replacing “Low Impact Development” (LID) as the phrase du jour in the stormwater biz. But before we all go willingly adopting this into our lexicon, we must first ask some pertinent […]
Connecting Sustainable Woodland Management and High School Technical Arts Programs: An Initiative Creating Educational Opportunities for Local Wood Utilization
-Article by Tom Worthley, Extension Forestry- During a conversation in 2010 between myself and a teacher from the industrial arts department at Haddam-Killingworth High School, the suggestion was made that the School District could continually grow, harvest and process a portion of the annual lumber needs for the shop class from part of of 150 […]
Where in Connecticut?
Connecticut (and the rest of the world for that matter) looks so different from above than from the ground. I spend a good deal of time looking at aerial imagery of Connecticut including different color combinations, times of year (leaves or no leaves) and different years to see change. There are many places that I […]
Snow Removal Tips
Photo and Article: West Virginia Extension Stay safe from slips and strains by following these recommendations for safe and effective snow removal. Shovel all sidewalks adjacent to your property to the bare pavement. This includes any sidewalks outside your fence lines and to the sides/rear of your property. Clear a path at least 36 inches […]
Squirrel Issues
Until recently, Etienne Benson, an assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of History and Sociology of Science, consciously chose to investigate a creature that may be considered less exotic, and is certainly smaller for his latest publication. “I wanted to write about something a bit closer to home, about things we see and […]
Road Salt Use in Connecticut: Balancing Safety & Water Quality
This conference is being organized by the NEMO Program, an outreach program of the UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research. Additional support provided by the Connecticut Institute for Water Resources Friday March 28, 2014 8:30 am – 3:00 pm UConn Student Union REGISTER Chloride use in winter deicing has been steadily increasing. […]
NOAA and Sea Grant Announce Projects for $1.4M Coastal Storm Awareness Program
SILVER SPRING, MD, JANUARY 16, 2014 – Connecticut Sea Grant, New Jersey Sea Grant, and New York Sea Grant have awarded funds totaling $1.4 million to support ten social science research projects to improve community understanding and response to coastal storm hazard information as part of NOAA Sea Grant’s Coastal Storm Awareness Program. Despite the […]
Keep Your Butts Off Our Beaches
Recently a columnist in a local Southeastern Connecticut newspaper wrote about the things that bug him when driving. It included the usual gripes that we all have—people driving slowly in the passing lane, failure to use turn signals, merging on the highway with little consideration of the traffic already on the highway, able-bodied people parking […]
Nigerian Visitors
Dr. YA Umar and Dr. DB Maikaje from the Nigerian Defense Academy (it is similar to West Point) traveled to the UConn Extension office in Haddam last week. They took our Geospatial Training Program’s 3-day Geographic Information System (GIS) training course with Cary Chadwick and Emily Wilson. Dr. Umar and Dr. Maikaje are both epidemiologists in the […]
10 Water Conservation Tips
Even with yesterday’s rain, it will take a while for water levels to catch up. There are many small steps we can all take to conserve water in our homes. UConn Extension has these ten tips for your lawn and garden. Take shorter showers Run dishwashers and washing machines with full loads Use water only […]
Will Halloween Be Ruined Again?
“Dad, is Halloween going to be cancelled again this year because of the weather?” It’s not a pleasant thought for kids dreaming of bags full of candy. Well, we are approaching the end of October, and for those of us who have been in Connecticut for the past few years, it seems appropriate to discuss […]
Smartphones and GPS
by David Dickson Smartphones are the swiss army knife of the digital world. They have replaced countless single-function gadgets from calculators to cameras to pagers to, um, phones! But for mapping geeks, one of the gadgets they have not quite been able to shake is the handheld GPS unit—at least until now. The Geospatial Training Program […]
Learning Sustainability with Extension Forestry Program
Tom Worthley of UConn Extension’s Forestry Program spent Tuesday, October 1st at Crescent Lake in Southington teaching agricultural education students from Southington High School about forestry management. Crescent Lake has experienced problems with the invasive insect emerald ash borer. Worthley felled a damaged ash tree on Tuesday and used a portable sawmill to make lumber. […]
Praying Mantis
As summer winds down, pay close attention to your garden and other areas of woods and open space – you might see a Praying Mantis. Our Tolland County Extension office has had a lot of praying mantis in the gardens this year. Three more egg cases were found earlier this fall. Each case takes about […]
Cloud Watching
I am amazed at just how often I check the sky to see what the weather will be for the next while. I know some people check the weather channel or local news channels to see what the weather people are forecasting, but I look to the sky. After so many decades of turning my […]
Rain Got You In A Depression? Put It In One!
With historic amounts of rain falling on our state this month, it is easy to get a little down. It puts a damper on beach days, picnics, and hikes. Not to make things worse, but did you also know that as all that rain runs off roofs, parking lots, driveways, and roads and into storm drains […]
Mulch Molds – What is Growing on my Mulch?
What is growing on my mulch? This is a common question UConn Extension is asked at the UConn Home and Garden Education Center and in our county Master Gardener offices. People are perplexed when they find a yellow foamy mass that looks like the neighbor’s dog vomited in their flower garden. Or when their nice […]
Be on the Lookout for Giant Hogweed, an Invasive Plant in Connecticut
UConn and the Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group (CIPWG) are asking state residents to be on the lookout for Giant Hogweed, which typically blooms during July. Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) is an invasive, non-native plant from Eurasia that was first identified in Connecticut in 2001. This Federal Noxious weed has now been confirmed in 25 towns in […]
Survival 101: The Science of Survival
On June 1st, The Middlesex county 4-H Advisory Committee presented Survival 101 – The Science of Survival. This high energy and action packed workshop day included 10 different survival workshops focusing on the science and technology behind survival skills. The workshops included: Shelter Engineering, Fire Building, Survival Communication, Wild Game and Fishing, Wilderness and Survival […]
Dealing in Imagery
By Emily Wilson, UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research and CT ECO My extra desk has seen a steady stream of boxes – little and big ones, brown and black ones, even an iPad box (no iPad included). One had old maps crumpled up to protect its contents. Some have been dropped off […]
Using GPS for Monitoring and Mapping Land Trust Holdings
By Cary Chadwick (updated 9/2025) On May 3, CLEAR’s Geospatial Training Program (GTP) and the Connecticut Land Conservation Council held its second session of a training course called “Using GPS for Monitoring and Mapping Land Trust Holdings.” The one-day course is designed to teach participants how to use a handheld GPS receiver to map property […]
They’re Back: 17-Year Cicadas To Swarm East Coast
Right on schedule, millions of 17-year cicadas will emerge from underground and bring their distinctive mating song to the East Coast. Colossal numbers of cicadas, unhurriedly growing underground since 1996, are about to emerge along much of the East Coast to begin passionately singing and mating as their remarkable life cycle restarts.This year heralds the […]
A Watershed Moment
By Michael Dietz (updated 9/2025) Many of us have heard about watershed protection efforts. Perhaps you live in a drinking water supply watershed. Poor Willy Wonka was wrongly accused of poisoning the watershed of his brown river (it turned out to be chocolate). But what is a watershed, really? In physical terms, a watershed is […]
State Sees High Level of Beach Erosion After Powerful Storms
Channel 3 Eyewitness News interviewing local residents and UConn’s Joel Stocker (updated 9/2025) The Connecticut shoreline is eroding at rates not seen in our lifetime, and the devastation was sped up by powerful storms like Irene and Sandy. In some spots, five years of erosion was accomplished in just three months, and for the first […]
When It Comes To Climate Change – Money Talks
By Bruce Hyde (updated 9/2025) It is generally accepted by climate scientists that New England will experience a trend of increasing intensity and frequency of storms resulting in an increase in flooding and coastal erosion. Recent storms have raised our collective awareness of the damage, both fiscal and physical, that these storms can cause. Consider […]
Impacts of Hurricane Sandy to Connecticut Shoreline
By Juliana Barrett UConn’s Connecticut Sea Grant Program (CTSG) and Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) hosted a discussion of Hurricane Sandy impacts to Connecticut’s beaches and dunes on November 20, 2012. Several municipalities and private beach associations attended and provided insights into local shoreline changes. Many areas along the eastern part of […]