Rose Houk

There are a lot of ways to go solar, including joining a solar co-op. The basic idea is that there’s power – and financial incentive – in numbers. Cooperative purchasing programs can lower the cost of solar panels and other equipment by offering bulk discounts to groups of home and business owners.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department is on the lookout for thousands of acres of habitat for one of the most endangered animals in North America: the black-footed ferret. Ideally, it would be an area of healthy grassland with a substantial population of prairie dogs, the ferret’s main food source.

Of thirty known bumble bee species in the western U.S., the bombus occidentalis – the western bumble bee - is among the most common. But their numbers are drastically declining.

Over the last two decades, these yellow-and-black furred insects have experienced a 90% drop in abundance across the West. That’s according to research by Jonathan Koch , an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Logan, Utah. His data adds to a growing body of research with the same alarming findings.

Blowholes are commonly associated with ocean coastlines, but they exist in the desert too. One of the most well-known of these is at Wupatki Pueblo near Flagstaff.

Blowholes are essentially small openings in the earth where air blows out or gets sucked in, acting as a natural fan of sorts. Researchers in northern Arizona believe the Wupatki blowhole is connected to an extensive underground system of fractures.

It measures a few inches across and has been enclosed in a masonry box so visitors can lean over for a blast of cold air on a hot summer day.

A series of rubbled hills runs alongside Highway 89 about thirty miles north of Flagstaff. They look fairly unremarkable, but really, they’re remnants of mines that once produced pozzolan.

Pozzolans are a class of silica- and aluminum-rich materials commonly derived from explosive volcanic deposits. The early Romans knew of their value, incorporating them into aqueducts and buildings. The word pozzolan comes from a town in Italy.