More than 450 free programs are scheduled this summer at parks as a way for Chicagoans to reconnect with the city's arts and culture offerings in their own communities.

Artist Philip Juras spent more than five years visiting prairie remnants in Illinois, capturing the beauty of the state’s signature landscape past and present. An exhibit of his paintings is now on view at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

The latest chapter in the saga of Chicago’s beloved plovers, Monty and Rose, is a sad one, with wildlife officials reporting the couple’s 2021 clutch of eggs has been lost to a skunk attack. Plover monitors are hopeful the couple will build a second nest. 

Spicy popcorn cicadas, anyone? Not so fast, the Food and Drug Administration warns, if you have a shellfish allergy. The insects are related to shrimp and lobster. 

Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found. And the authors said declining oxygen could lead to increased fish kills, algal blooms and methane emissions.

Though it may have been one of the quirkier bills passed by the General Assembly, the designation recognizes the role Illinois played in the development of one of the world’s greatest wonder drugs: penicillin.

To counter a pervasive, if unconscious, bias toward male birds within North American ornithology and hobbyist circles, a group dubbed the Galbatross Project launched Female Bird Day, now in its second year, running Memorial Day weekend.

For three months out of the year, Chicago’s every bit as much of a beach town as Los Angeles or Miami. As we kick off summer 2021, here are some things you might not know about the city’s sandy shore.

Along with the kick off to beach season, a number of other outdoor attractions are opening up in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend.

Surveillance cameras recently captured images of a mylar balloon bumping up against the nesting site of Chicago’s beloved pair of piping plovers. Wildlife advocates have long been critical of such inflatables and the dangers they pose to birds and other animals.

The city’s lakefront beaches will officially open Friday for the first time since 2019, with lifeguards on duty and concessions returning. 

The unusually high volume of seeds falling from trees this spring, especially from the city’s elms, is indicative of drought, said Jeff Brink, senior forester with the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Chicagoans aren’t in the right place or time zone to see Wednesday’s lunar eclipse at its peak. Just when the show gets interesting, the moon will sink from view.

Federal officials have removed the last of the 68 big cats from the private zoo in Oklahoma that had been the center of the “Tiger King” saga.

Virgin Galactic on Saturday made its first rocket-powered flight from New Mexico to the fringe of space in a manned shuttle, as the company forges toward offering tourist flights to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Liam Durnan has been on a yearlong caper, hiking all 350 miles of Cook County forest preserve trails. “When people picture the forest preserve nearest them, most people think of it being the picnic groves,” he said. “They don’t know how big this thing is. It’s just incredible.”