Beautiful Butterflies and Mysterious Moths:
The Lepidoptera Around Us
Join Steve Sass and Amanda Smith for an evening presentation about the amazing adaptions of butterflies and moths in celebration of Pollinator Week! They will highlight their popular Great American Indiana Nature Lepidoptera Project (GAINLP) and provide tips on butterfly and moth viewing and information about their importance in the ecosystem including as pollinators.
Steve Sass and Amanda Smith are the co-founders of Indiana Nature LLC, which includes the educational initiative indiananature.net, and its corresponding social media outreach as well as the Ecometrid brand. Their popular Facebook Group “IN Nature” contains the Great American Indiana Nature (GAIN) projects, which have engaged thousands of Hoosiers to collaboratively build a database of moth, butterfly, tree, and wildflower populations in the state. Steve and Amanda have collectively served in numerous capacities for Indiana environmental organizations, including land trusts and Audubon Societies, and native plant societies for several decades.
Amanda resides in Hamilton County, where she is the Superintendent of Natural Resources and Education for Hamilton County Parks, while Steve is a small business owner in South Bend. One of their most recent collaborations has been co-authoring a new Natural Resources Management Plan for the city of South Bend Venues Parks & Arts department.
Upcoming Programs
Dunes Learning Center is part of the Association of Nature Center Administrators (ANCA), made up of environmental education centers throughout the country. Since most programs are virtual right now, you can join great virtual workshops from many different places! Check out the many program offerings in the ANCA Program Exchange by clicking the button at right!
Dunes Learning Center events are supported by our 2021 Corporate Event Sponsors, including ArcelorMittal-Cleveland Cliffs, Cardno, Franklin Pest Solutions, Friends of Indiana Dunes, Keramida Inc., Lakeshore Public Media, Mark J. Mihalo Family Dentistry, NIPSCO, J.F. Pelkey - Attorney at Law, Pratt Industries, and Wickcraft Boardwalks.
