THIS IS BIG! GLAS Education is proud to announce that our Dark Skies Office is fully staffed! Danielle Eng visited Williams Bay and officially accepted the position of Dark Skies Office Coordinator. Danielle recently received her Masters’ degree from the O’Neil School of Public and Environmental Affairs at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. She joins the GLAS staff officially on June 14th as GLAS kicks off a FULL summer of programs including six interns, two of whom will be working with Danielle to officially launch the office.
The mission of the Dark Skies Office is to provide consistent and knowledgeable leadership, resources, and outreach efforts to improve the dark skies status of the Geneva Lake community through the direct engagement of businesses, citizens, students, and municipalities.
The first goal of the Dark Skies Office will be to conduct a public survey of the Geneva Lake community. This survey will allow the Dark Skies Office to assess the awareness of dark skies and create an effect marketing strategy to implement positive changes in the area.
Along with two students from the University of Chicago, the Dark Skies Office will conduct this survey and further the progress of the LENSS project. The Lake Shore Environmental Night Sky Sensor project is a student driven endeavor to develop custom sky quality meters to record the sky brightness over Geneva Lake every night. The combination of this data and community outreach will be a big first step for the Dark Skies Office and its mission.
Thanks to Yerkes and the distance from any large city many assume that Geneva Lake has a beautiful clear night sky. While the viewing is drastically better than anywhere in Chicago or Milwaukee it is a far cry from where we would like it to be. Through this office GLAS will be able to act together with the community and create a lasting change in the quality of our night sky.
Everyone at GLAS could not be happier to have Danielle joining our team to bring the Dark Skies Office to life!
Interested in learning more? Send us a message at contact@glaseducation.org
