Joey Santore isn’t your typical plant expert, but his colorful style and depth of knowledge have proved popular. We go for a stroll through Wolf Road Prairie, an 80-acre nature preserve in Chicago’s western suburbs.

It’s been a rough few decades for the rusty patched bumblebee. Once widespread in Illinois and throughout much of the U.S., the species has lost nearly 90% of its population over the past 20 years.

Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, talks about the area’s shrinking and disappearing beaches this year, and why it matters.

As they set out to learn more about kids’ affinity for nature, a group of psychologists had a strong idea about what they would find. As it turned out, their assumptions were wrong. “We were incredibly surprised,” said the lead author of the study.

The discovery comes about a month after an alligator in the Humboldt Park Lagoon captured the attention of the city for about a week before the alligator was captured by a gator hunter who was flown in from Florida.

Most of the costs arose from city workers putting up and removing barricades to keep people away from the lagoon in Humboldt Park after the male reptile was first spotted there last month.

A new study offers a framework cities can use to begin measuring the mental health benefits of nature, while helping municipal planners and policymakers integrate nature into their projects. 

Jeanne Nolan shows us how to harvest red onions, garlic, scallions and edible weeds from our organic garden at WTTW.

The massive art project that got the attention of students across the globe is part of an educational initiative aimed at preserving oceans and the people who live closest to them.

Save a horse, ride a bike. That’s the message some Chicago animal welfare advocates are looking to send by sponsoring one of the pedicabs that shuttles riders along Michigan Avenue.

As a heat wave moved across the Chicago area last week, polar and grizzly bears stayed cool at the zoo with fruit-filled blocks of ice weighing 300 pounds.

The festival had been scheduled for Aug. 23-24 at Montrose Beach, where a pair of endangered piping plovers established a nest this spring. 

The 4-foot, 18-pound American alligator will stay alone for 90 days to make sure he is illness-free, and then join other gators, says St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park Director John Brueggen.

The 151-year-old zoo will continue to offer free admission for the next 30-plus years after agreeing to an extended contract with the city.

You’re not crazy. A local expert says people are seeing “substantially more flashing activity in the evening.” He tells us why there are so many of our favorite summertime bug – and why they light up.

The alligator had a good run as day after day the people hunting for him in a Chicago lagoon came up empty, but in the end he was no match for an expert the city shipped in from Florida.