7 PM Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at Oak Ridge Civic Center
In honor of National Poetry Month
& Global Environmental Education Week
“Limnologically Speaking…”
Dr. Aurthur Stewart
ABSTRACT:
In this presentation, Art Stewart will offer some limnological
insights into the range of differences among lakes and ponds due to
the compelling influences of geology, climate and human activities.
You’ll learn some new terms, such as whitings, Langmuir circulation,
and relative thermal resistance to mixing, and you’ll learn about
disappearing lakes in the Arctic, and about the Lake Nyos disaster.
You’ll discover that limnology – like poetry, and like many other
areas of science – is really all about interfaces: land and water,
water and air, words and thought, images and sense. In this
presentation, Art Stewart offers a slide-show of various lakes as
examples of diversity – but he also explores some of the deep-rooted
connections between science and poetry, from the perspective of a
limnologist and a poet. You’ll learn not only what makes a lake
work, ecologically speaking —you’ll also come to appreciate the
classical elegance of limnology through some of Stewart’s
limnologically focused poems, from his recent highly regarded book,
Circle, Turtle, Ashes.
Dr. Stewart’s limnology experience started with studies of the
seasonal succession of phytoplankton and the role of recalcitrant
dissolved organic matter in lake productivity; he’s also published on
stream ecology, and the effects of nutrients and pollutants on stream
biota, and has been involved in the fascinating project focused on
reducing ecological risk by re-designing the food web of the K1700
Pond at the East Tennessee Technology Park. But intertwined with his
background as an aquatic ecologist, be prepared for some of his
“science-flavored” poems: his literary work has been published in
scientific magazines, such as Ecotoxicology, the Journal of the
American Medical Association, the Bulletin of the Ecological Society
of America, Chemical and Engineering News, Limnology and Oceanography
Bulletin, and the Phycological Newsletter. He’s also been well
published in a large number of technical journals, as a more
conventional aquatic ecologist.
BIOSKETCH
Arthur J Stewart
Bachelors and masters degrees from Northern Arizona University; Ph.D.,
limnology, from Michigan State University. Post-doc at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (2 years, Environmental Sciences Division, working
on the ecological effects of synfuels in aquatic systems. Three years
as an Assistant Professor, Department of Botany and Microbiology, at
the University of Oklahoma. Then back to ORNL for a long time,
working as a staff scientist and group leader in aquatic
ecotoxicology, then a Senior Scientist and Science leader – mostly,
dealing with contaminant problems and ecological conditions in streams
on and near the Oak Ridge Reservation. A reasonably large number
(about 80) of publications in peer-reviewed technical journals, about
half dealing with the fate and effects of contaminants in aquatic
systems, and about half pure “aquatic ecology” topics, and five or six
odd-balls (mostly “tweeners”).
And creative writing – essays, poetry, and rabble-rousing for the idea
that scientists and artists are not so different, when scratched.
Winner, Wilma Dykeman essay contest, 2009; Tennessee Poetry Prize
winner; poems published in well over a dozen literary magazines and
anthologies, including the Lullwater Review, JAMA, The Sow’s Ear, New
Millennium Writings, and the like; poems published in various
scientific journals and magazines (Chemical and Engineering News;
Ecotoxicology; American Society of Limnology and Oceanography
Bulletin; Ecological Society of America Bulletin, etc.) – and three
books of science-flavored poems and essays:
Rough Ascension and Other Poems of Science
Bushido: The Virtues of Rei and Makoto
Circle, Turtle, Ashes
