{"id":8355,"date":"2017-11-16T18:54:30","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T18:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=8355"},"modified":"2017-11-19T22:57:07","modified_gmt":"2017-11-19T22:57:07","slug":"gift-expands-marine-aquarium-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2017\/11\/16\/gift-expands-marine-aquarium-facility\/","title":{"rendered":"Gift expands marine aquarium facility for study of biological diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion opens for classes in January 2018, the new building will feature a state-of-the-art marine aquarium\u00a0facility thanks to the generosity of donor Fritz Grimm<\/strong>, who made a substantial gift to fund the project.<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, Associate Professor of Biology William \u201cBill\u201d Capman<\/strong><\/a> created a large multi-tank coral reef aquarium system on campus to inspire interest in biological diversity, to serve as a teaching and research tool, and to provide living specimens for lab demonstrations. In the years since, the aquaria have been integral to Capman\u2019s teaching, making interaction with marine life a unique aspect of Augsburg\u2019s biology laboratory experience, exposing students to biodiversity they would not see elsewhere, and promoting careful stewardship of the world\u2019s ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Capman has been passionate about aquatic life since his childhood. He and Grimm, as fellow members of the Twin Cities Marine Aquarium Society, have known each other for years.<\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>Grimm is the former proprietor of a store selling items for keeping coral, fish, and other sea life, and has assisted Capman in past efforts to care for Augsburg\u2019s aquaria. For Grimm, sponsoring Augsburg\u2019s marine environments is a way to support quality work already underway and build on it for the future. Grimm\u2019s gift is enabling Augsburg to significantly expand its marine facilities to include a 350 gallon coral reef aquarium and six additional 60-90 gallon tanks housing additional diverse organisms, along with a research lab for studying coral biology and captive breeding of coral reef fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rely on places like this to inspire people,\u201d Grimm said of Augsburg\u2019s marine aquarium expansion. \u201cHow should people know they need to care about seahorses and coral without ever seeing them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Grimm is concerned by the known degradation of natural environments, pointing to the fact that a significant portion of the world\u2019s coral are becoming more susceptible to disease and are dying due to increases in water temperature and pollution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anyone is going to inspire the future generation to do something about it, it will be Bill,\u201d Grimm said.<\/p>\n

\n

[Top Image]:<\/strong><\/em> During a presentation to the Minnesota Aquarium Society, Bill Capman<\/strong> demonstrates how he creates artificial reef structures for new aquaria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion opens for classes in January 2018, the new building will feature a state-of-the-art marine aquarium\u00a0facility thanks to the generosity of donor Fritz Grimm, who made a substantial gift to fund the project. Twenty years ago, Associate Professor of Biology William \u201cBill\u201d Capman created <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,73],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-8355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-news","category-auggies-connect","tag-fall-winter-2017"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8355"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8535,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355\/revisions\/8535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}