HOMAGE TO HUBBLE

If you'd prefer to gaze at stars during daylight hours, the Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County is holding a special exhibit of photographs taken by the Hubble Telescope!  The two-month exhibit is curated by a Penn State student and can be found on the museum's first floor during weekend operating hours. Click the link below for more details!

AAUW USED BOOK SALE IS BACK!

After a two-year break due to COVID-19, the State College branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) will be holding its Used Book Sale at the Penn State Ag Arena on October 9 - 12th (Saturday - Tuesday) from 9:00 am - 8:00 pm each day!  If you'll be in the area that weekend, mark your calendar now!  Then go find some great deals and support a very worthy fundraiser!

AAUW-State College advocates for women and girls in education, leadership, and equity and is one of our community partners and sponsors.  AAUW helps Science Outreach at Penn State by providing STEM scholarships for Science-U day camps to girls in Centre County and supports our spring event, ENVISION: STEM Career Day for Young Women!  Click the link below for more information. 

FALL PLANS FOR POLLINATORS

With September being recognized as National Honey Month, it's a good time to think about the pollinators and birds in our local gardens! There are several resources available to learn about pollinators and pollination.

The Arboretum at Penn State recently has completed its new pollinator and bird garden. This garden area includes over 390 plant species and features a wild honey bee hotel to provide a habitat for these important insects!

If you would like to do some fall planting to invite more pollinators to your own garden, the Penn State Extension website has a list of plants that Master Gardeners found to be very popular with honey bees, wasps, flies, and other pollinators.  Pollinators are responsible for plant pollinations that provide many nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables to our families! Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, pollinator populations have been declining each year.  Providing pollinators with habitats and plants that attract them, can help reduce this negative trend.

For young children to start learning about insects and birds, our Virtual Science Festival contains several hands-on activities from Shaver's Creek Environmental Center that are designed to engage and educate! For example, check out the Butterfly Coloring Book to learn about these colorful pollinators or a video on making a Bird Feeder.  

We hope your family enjoys the opportunity to help increase the abundance of pollinators in your neighborhood!

BIOLUMINESCENT FUNGI

As a follow-up to last month's article about wild mushrooms in Pennsylvania, a citizen scientist emailed us photos of fungi that glowed at night!  This bioluminescent fungi was found growing on wood from a fallen tree.  Most likely the glowing was mycelia from Honey Mushrooms (Armilaria mellea).

Mycelium is a network of fungal threads that  often grow underground, but can also thrive in other places such as rotting tree trunks. A single fungal spore can develop into a mycelium and then produce other mushrooms (fruiting bodies).  The mycelium from honey mushrooms commonly causes a white root rot in trees and can luminesce when actively growing.

Thank you to Levi for sharing these amazing photos! If anyone finds other interesting observances in nature, we'd love to see and share your photos too! Please send them to us at outreach@science.psu.edu.