The wonder and uneasy future of wetlands is topic of 2024 Edith Chase Symposium on May 16. This year’s speaker is Denny Taylor, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, will talk about “embracing wetlands” during a lecture titled “Wetlands as Generators of Environmental Stewards.” The event is Thursday, 7 p.m., May 16 in the Kent State University School of Architecture and Environmental Design’s, Cene Lecture Hall, 132 S. Lincoln St., Kent.

Taylor’s areas of expertise are freshwater and marine ecology and science education. He is a trustee of the Alfred W. Couch Organic Farm in Hiram and is passionate about gardening and decreasing human impacts on the natural world.

The symposium continues Friday, May 17, 4 p.m., with the annual Edith Chase Poetry Reading at the Kent State University School of Architecture and Environmental Design’s, Cene Lecture Hall, 132 S. Lincoln St., Kent. Local writers will read original poems on the theme “embracing wetlands.”

The Edith Chase Symposium is a series of annual educational programs to acquaint people who are not specialists with issues of importance in the earth water sciences. The symposium was initiated in 2014 to honor the late Edith Chase, a scientist who contributed her expertise, energy, and outstanding analytic and communication skills to benefit the ecosystems of the city of Kent, the state of Ohio and the Great Lakes Basin. LWV Kent contributes to the symposium. To learn more about the symposium, click here.