>> Man: This week on "Friends and Neighbors".

>> Woman 1: Here at the Shedd Aquarium we have Magellanic penguins and Rockhopper penguins.

Magellanic penguins, they are the bigger ones with the white C on their head and the white bands across the front.

And then the Rockhoppers are the smaller ones with the little yellow tuft of feathers.

>> Woman 2: Anybody can play.

We want everyone from tots on, we have actually, we have 75 year old men that are on the ice that skate with our draft program.

Once it's in your blood, it's hard to get out.

>> Man 2: Welcome to the Century of Progress Architectural Historic District, located here in Beverly Shores, Indiana.

This is made up of five houses that were brought over from Chicago.

They were built in the 1933, Chicago World's Fair, and then they were brought over here by real estate developer, Robert Bartlett in an attempt to draw people to his new development, Beverly Shores.

(upbeat music) >> Woman 3: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can, is important to me.

Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Man 3: I have a very strong connection to other students.

Everyone makes an effort to help each other.

I'll remember the feeling of being here, the feeling that I was a part of a family.

>> Woman 4: Shopping for fruits and vegetables in the Strack and Van produce department is a feast for the senses.

With produce picked at the peak of freshness.

From apples and avocados, to pineapples and peppers, treat yourself to the best quality fruits and vegetables.

Find them at your local Strack and Van Til store.

>> Welcome to "Friends and Neighbors", the Lakeshore PBS program that explores what it means to live in Northwest Indiana.

Celebrating the idea that behind all the good things in the region, are good people making it happen.

I'm your host, Jeff Casey, Managing Director of the Towle Theater in Hammond, Indiana.

Every year nearly 2 million people visit the Shedd Aquarium for the exotic and aquatic animals that inhabit one of Chicago's biggest attractions.

"Friends and Neighbors" wanted to get to know the people that care for its inhabitants.

Lana Gonzalez gave us up close and personal look at what it's like to work with penguins on a daily basis.

(upbeat music) >> Lana: So here at the Shedd aquarium we have two species of penguins.

We have Magellanic penguins and Rockhopper penguins.

Magellanic penguins, they are the bigger ones with the white C on their head and the white bands across the front.

And then the Rockhoppers are the smaller ones, with the little yellow tuft of feathers.

Here's a Magellanic right here.

And then we also have some birds that look a little different, they're silvery gray.

Those are our four Magellanic penguin chicks that were hatched out last year, so they will look silvery gray until they go through their first molt, which is when they're, all their old feathers come out and all their new feathers grow in when they're about a year old.

So out in their natural habitat, Magellanic penguins are found along the coast of South America, Chile, Argentina, the Falkland Islands.

And then the Rockhoppers are found around the Falkland Islands as well.

Some of them were hatched right here at our exhibit and some of them came from other zoos and aquariums, so we have a variety.

Well, it's a very busy day with the penguins.

We usually will do at least two feeds out here on their exhibit.

And then they'll have various other training sessions throughout the day.

So they might go for penguin encounters or presentations, or on field trips around the aquarium, or outside of the aquarium, just for enrichment, for welfare, for getting exercise and mental stimulation, we try to change up their day and then we also provide enrichment or different, could be toys, different things out on their exhibit to change up their environment as well.

These penguins get a delicious restaurant quality diet of capelin and herring, primarily we can give them a few other types here and there but we make sure everything's restaurant quality and also sustainable because you don't want to take fish away from their counterparts in the wild to be able to feed our birds here.

Right now, we have about 30 pounds of capelin to feed the entire colony, plus probably another 10 to 15 pounds of herring that we'll feed them throughout the day.

The life of a penguin is very interesting.

They have an ever-changing season.

So right now we are going into breeding season, so what that means is the lights that you see above here is what triggers that nesting behavior and breeding behavior.

So the penguins will choose a mate, choose a nest site and then we'll put out nesting materials, so rocks, little hose pieces and lavender for them to build their nest.

And then we're, usually we'll start seeing eggs laid soon and not all eggs are fertile, and not all fertile eggs will develop into chicks but we might have a small handful of chicks depending on the year.

And then we will just monitor those eggs, see if they're fertile, monitor the chicks.

Once they hatch out, we'll let the parents feed them, take care of them, but we just monitor them very closely to make sure that they're growing well.

So a lot of people think penguins are only in the cold weather, or in the snow and the ice, and there's actually 18 different species throughout the world, but they're all just found south of the equator in the Southern hemisphere.

And so they range anywhere from Antarctica, all the way up to the Galapagos islands, so in a warmer climate up there.

What we would think of a personality, they do have very different characteristics and mannerisms.

I try not to have favorites, but I do have some that I have a closer relationship with.

So some of the ones that we hand raised when they came over as eggs, so a few of them, I do have a closer relationship with but all of them are like my children.

But I love them all.

It's really such a privilege to be able to work with them.

There, we have 36 penguins and they're all so different.

Some of them are very interested in having attention from you.

Some are more interested in doing their own thing or socializing with the other birds, but it's really cool to be able to see what we've been able to do with our training, relationship building, and just to make life better for these penguins and provide the best welfare possible.

All the animals here are really ambassadors for their species.

What we want to do is just spark with our guests, you know that compassion, that curiosity and that conservation so it helps them love penguins, and then they look and see, "what can you do to help the penguins that are out in the wild?"

So that's really our goal, is to have these animals be ambassadors for those species.

>> Jeff: To find out more about the penguins at the Shedd Aquarium, visit sheddaquarium.org, stay tuned for more Shedd Aquarium features on future episodes of "Friends and Neighbors."

>> For the past 15 years, the Midwest Training and Ice Center has cultivated youth and junior hockey in the region.

The 34,000 square foot facility also offers a full fledged gymnastics and cheerleading center alongside their ice rink.

No matter your sport of choice, the facility focuses on encouraging discipline, fair competition and having fun.

(upbeat music) >> Eilaen: Midwest was actually formed in June of 2006.

We are a full fledged ice arena and a gymnastic center.

We have hockey, figure skating, gymnastics, trampoline and tumbling and cheerleading going on seven days a week.

Joahim Falt, we had gotten him from Colorado.

He was there coaching and we were looking for a full-time hockey Director and Head Coach for our junior Blackbirds.

>> Heidi gave me a call and asked me if I was available.

I, I was coaching in Colorado before this.

So I've been a head coach junior hockey for 20 years.

Born and raised in Sweden, I played there my whole career.

Then I moved over to Norway and I coached professional in Norway for two and a half years.

Then I went back to Sweden, played a little bit again, and then I went over to United States.

>> Joahim: No, it's a good program, is a great program, it's a great ring.

Everybody needs skill when they youth, and yeah, and then stick with it.

And teaching the kids and have the patient and realist.

And they're really learning the game of hockey because the more skill they have when they're younger is going to stick with them.

You're better, they're going to enjoy the game more.

It's all in the skating, you know, it's like, if, if you're not a good skater it's hard to play the game on the high level.

To be able to play college now, the competition is so high, you have to be, it has to start at the skating.

We have something called open skate.

That's always a good time to come out start putting the gear on and the skates on and feel it.

If there's something you want to do, because one thing with hockey, it's a big time, time commitment.

You can't just come once in a blue moon and skate maybe once a week and think that you really gonna advance.

You have to stick with it.

And especially in the beginning, 2, 3, 4 times a week and put in the time and you will be better.

>> Eilaen: There is no other hockey in the region.

So I think that there's a definite necessary need for hockey in our lives.

It's a great sport, it's not like any other sport, it's one of the hardest sports around.

Anybody can play, we want everyone from tots on.

We have actually, we have 75 year old men that are on the skate, on the ice, that skate with our draft program.

Once it's in your blood, it's hard to get out.

>> Joahim: And we try, and we're always trying to do what's best for the kids here.

It's kind of small hockey community here, but kids grows up here, they starting with the program and they stick with it, usually till they are in the high school age and all our coaches, you know, they're taking time out of the day and come down and helping these kids out, you know, volunteer and you know, it's just great to see they want to do that.

You know, and the, all the coaches here and the staff who works at this rink, we put the kids first you know.

>> Eilaen: It's amazing when they first come here, I always say we have to look over the counter to see them because we can't see them, they're so tiny.

And then I blink my eyes and they're graduating from high school.

And I just don't know where the time goes, it flies just so fast.

>> Joahim: We're trying to teach the kids the game here, the game of hockey, but on top of that, you know, its a life lesson, we're trying to teach them to grow up and be men, you know, one day, you know, they're gonna be fathers they're gonna be married, and they're gonna teach their kids what I taught them.

You know, social media now, you know, you can follow, I got friends all over the world who used to play on, who used to play with me, yeah and that's really cool to follow them and see they grow up, you know.

>> Jeff: To find out when the next open skate session is, or for more information on their programs, check out midwesttrainingandice.com while often challenging, creative collaborations can yield some unique results.

Flute and classical guitar combo, Duo Sequenza and composer Jorge Muñiz, work hand in glove to bring to life a musical representation of the South Shoreline and the varied landscapes in which its tracks weave.

"Friends and Neighbors" captured an interview with a composer and a performance of a composition at Michigan City's historical Barker Mansion.

>> Man 3: Project "Listen Up" challenges musicians to create new audiences for chamber music.

Duo Sequenza saw an opportunity to combine history, and perform contemporary compositions in unconventional settings.

Performed on location at Barker Mansion, the striking building stands proudly in Michigan City and served as the home to John Barker Senior, and family.

The Barkers made their fortune in freight car production, during the boom of railroad development, in the mid 1800s.

The setting makes it easy for the viewer to project themselves back in time when intimate chamber performances were more commonplace.

Composed by Jorge Muñiz, South Shore Suite part one, Prologue, South Bend, Indiana, takes a familiar commute for many of us and filters it through his musical mind, giving us a new perspective on familiar surroundings.

>> Jorge: You know, I come originally from Spain, but I've lived also in other places like New York and Pittsburgh.

And I always look for ways of kind of getting to know better, you know, the area.

So for me this was an opportunity to celebrate Indiana and celebrate this music, history particularly.

So when they approached me about this project I was actually living in Chicago at that point, I was on sabbatical working on an opera.

So I would take the South Shore train quite a bit.

coming back to South Bend, riding the train and, and you know, passing like on Mambaldi, or you know, seeing the lake, seeing the busy streets of Chicago.

All those things kind of inform my composition.

I think the very first idea came through that idea of this constant motion of the train.

You never know when there's that change of the track and moves differently and like, so it's kind of always the same, but it's not the same.

And then from there other ideas came and I'm very visual as a composer.

My starting point.

(chamber music) >> Jorge: That duo of guitar and flute is, is fascinating because it's got the percussiveness that you can get in the guitar, but there is also a lyrical side in the guitar as well, lots of tones, lots of different colors.

Then you have the flute.

It's almost like the voice, is a naturalist for melody and it has so many, also interesting tunes so, this is the thing in these pieces that they kind of go back and forth because the, there's percussiveness in the flute sometimes.

And there is also melody also and lyricism in the, guitar as well.

So it's, it's great to play with both things.

There's a palette of, of techniques and, and sounds that this instrument has, a kind of a language and you need to play with that language.

You don't wanna, you don't wanna try not to put an instrument in an uncomfortable position that is not their natural way of speaking.

Creating the piece comes after understanding what your colors are.

Is our music memorable?

That's I think our goal as composers, two hours for now, do you still have something in your heart?

I can write all the notes, I can do a beautiful work of art with all these dots and things but it means nothing unless the performers play it.

And if performers played it well, and that's the thing, you know, working with Duo Sequenza, they understand what I try to do and they communicate it.

And then they make it theirs, because sometimes performers bring a new angle that you didn't explore before.

It's like, hmm, that's actually even better than what I thought, but that's what performers can do.

And they can make a convincing message to the audience.

So, so, it's very important not to forget that composers are not alone and should never be the end game, but just the beginning of that journey to the audience.

>> Jeff: Find out more about Duo Sequenza, and composer Jorge Muñiz online.

In retrospect, yester-years views of the homes of the future, may seem flawed.

A deeper look reveals that while predicting the future can be a tricky venture, bold and aspirational visions often lead us to a new understanding of our current times.

Such is the case, with the Century of Progress Homes that can be found in Beverly Shores.

(upbeat music) >> Man 3: Welcome to the Century of Progress Architectural Historic District, located here in Beverly Shores, Indiana.

This is made up of five houses that were brought over from Chicago and they were built in the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, which lasted actually two years, into 1934 as well.

And then were brought over here by real estate developer, Robert Bartlett, in an attempt to draw people to his new development, Beverly Shores.

So behind me is the "House of Tomorrow", designed by George Fred Keck.

And it truly was the, the house of tomorrow.

So the point of the World's Fair was really to look towards the future.

What were buildings and homes gonna look like, 10, 20, 30 years down the road, and "House of Tomorrow" did just that.

So it was the first all glass walled house.

George Fred Keck was also an innovator, in terms of passive solar energy.

So if you can imagine an all glass house, almost like a greenhouse.

So when you set up in the World's Fair and built it there, he actually had to do it on the cheap, only use single pane glass.

So you can imagine, on a sunny day it got very hot and he tried to balance that with this revolutionary thing called air conditioning, didn't quite work out, but it really set the tone for future building, and glass curtain systems, to figure out how do we provide this glass wall, with a steel sub substructure, and also condition it, condition the air, heat it and cool it.

Another thing that he looked to the future for was that every house, every family, was going to have an airplane.

So you can see right behind me, this, this long stretch of the first floor was actually the door for the airplane hangar.

You'll be interested to know this is a duodecagon, for those who don't know, that's a 12 sided building.

And Keck got that inspiration from an octagon house in his hometown in Wisconsin.

So that was something that was done in the in the 19th century and he carried that in, but kind of expanded on it and added a few more sides.

So you probably realize that the house is no longer made of glass.

So after it was brought here from the World's Fair, it was lived in all the way up until the 1990s, but has since sat in the state of disrepair.

We have been able to secure it with plywood and new roofing but it does not have its glass.

So currently, right now we're working with the National Park Service to figure out how we're going to restore this building back to its glory.

So we're really looking forward to that partnership, and we're still trying to figure out how to make that happen.

Currently, the estimate is about a $3 million project to bring this house back, and also make it the "House of Tomorrow" again, looking at those innovative technologies, geothermal heating and cooling, cutting edge glass technology.

Again, trying to honor what George Keck started back in the 1930s.

So behind me is the "Wieboldt-Rostone House", typically known as the "Rostone House".

This house experimented with the use of rostone, which was an engineered stone material, by the Rostone Company out of Lafayette, Indiana.

The "Rostone House" answered the question of what a house in the future and going to be made out of.

So it's actually a steel substructure, that are then clad with these engineered stone panels, called rostone .

So the rostone panels are attached to the steel substructure.

The steel structure was actually made by the Indiana Bridge Company, here in Northwest Indiana.

So the "Wieboldt-Rostone House" was sponsored by the Rostone Company out of Lafayette, Indiana.

It was also sponsored by the Wieboldt Furniture Company, out of Chicago and Evanston, and they helped furnish the building for the Chicago World's Fair exhibition.

So the Rostone Company was, was advertising their new manufactured stone materials and that really kind of paved the way for 1950s perma stone, as well as fake stone, that we continue to see on houses today.

So when the "Rostone House" was moved to Beverly Shores, it was obviously exposed to a lot of weathering and the rostone did not hold up well.

The owners at that time actually added a layer of perma stone on top of that, further weighing down and deteriorating the original rostone.

So when we started the restoration process we actually had to remove the perma stone coating, and the workers were actually able to just take their hands and pull it off of the house.

And underneath was the heavily damaged rostone.

So what the rostone panels that you see today are actually completely re-engineered.

But what is really fascinating is the archway around the door is the original rostone.

The lessee took that rostone ground it up and reformed new panels.

So the lessee did that in the interior space as well, with the grand entry and the fireplace, he was able to to take that original rostone that was damaged, ground it up and recast those panels.

The restoration of these houses was an interesting partnership between Indiana Landmarks, the National Park Service and private lessees who stepped up and lend their hands to restoring these important houses.

In-turn they're able to receive a long-term lease to enjoy these houses along Lake Michigan.

>> Jeff: For more information on the Century of Progress Homes, visit indianalandmarks.org.

That wraps another episode of "Friends and Neighbors".

I'm your host, Jeff Casey.

As always we're looking for feedback and suggestions.

Do you have a friend that goes above and beyond to make their community a better place?

A neighbor that has a funky local shop you think we should know about.

Email us at friends@Lakeshorepublicmedia.org.

Maybe next time we'll highlight the unique people, places and experiences that are your Northwest Indiana favorites.

Until then be kind, and celebrate your friends and neighbors.

>> Woman 3: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can, is important to me, life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Man 4: Almost every single professor I've had, I'm on a first name basis.

By building that relationship with faculty I was able to get involved with research.

It's one thing to read about an idea and a book versus physically doing it and seeing the results.

>> Woman 5: Strack and Van Til is your wedding planning partner.

Choose handcrafted designs by the trained floral designers in our floral department, plan a memorable meal for your reception from our delicious catering menu and let our bakery artisans design the wedding cake of your dreams.

Visit strackandvantil.com for details.

>> Man 5: Did You know that you can find all of your favorite Lakeshore PBS shows online?

Visit video.LakeshorePBS.org.

You can stream a large selection of shows, including, "Eye on the arts", "In Studio" and "Friends and Neighbors".

Missed last night's episode?

No problem.

Lakeshore PBS has got you covered, search for your show and find your episode ready to watch at any time.

Visit video.LakeshorePBS.org to stream your favorite local shows.

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