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Ohio Northern University civil and environmental engineering professor Bryan Boulanger's childhood fascination with the night sky during family camping trips out west led to crucial work years later in service to night sky preservation. Those efforts have resulted in his receiving the International Dark-Sky Association's 2022 Nocturnal Habitat Protection Award.
"Bryan is passionate about using engineering and education to protect nocturnal habitats and has spent much of the last decade working to do that," the IDA states on its awards page. "What began as a single project with Yellowstone National Park to help them better understand their exterior lighting has since evolved into projects with 28 other partners across the U.S. and Canada," the IDA notes. "His contributions have led to 11.7 million acres of designated dark sky places, with another 4.4 million acres pending."
Much of this work has also been conducted by Ohio Northern University students, who are continuing to assist Boulanger as his night sky protection efforts evolve. This semester he is working with two undergraduate student researchers and leveraging students in his elective course offering to lay the framework and develop the data for what will be a first-of-its-kind national night sky scorecard. Using publicly accessible satellite imagery, they're examining the amount of light released from every U.S. county, comparing it to the population, and giving each a ranking. It'll be another way of increasing awareness about light pollution and helping those who are wanting to reduce it.
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"I think this work to me has always been about legacy," says Boulanger. "When I stop doing this, what's going to be left behind? My kids are getting older but I still have a 5-year-old and so someday I want her to be able to go someplace and actually see a naturally dark sky. I take them places now in hopes that they'll remember what it's like. I'm hopeful. This is about legacy for me and wanting to leave something a little better off than when I started."
Read the full story to learn more details about Boulanger's night sky preservation journey.
