U Arizona Gets $2.5M To Study Amazon

What is global warming doing to the Amazon? A group of scientists lead by researchers at the University of Arizona has gotten a $2.5 million grant to look for an answer.

The money for the Partnership for International Research and Education--Amazonia is coming from the National Science Foundation. It includes $1.5 million for student stipends and fellowships. Students in PIRE will do field work in tropical ecology and biogeochemistry in the Amazon and at Brazilian scientific institutions. They will also work in the tropical forest biome at the university's Biosphere 2.

PIRE will draw on several departments at the university, from environmental and atmospheric sciences, to evolutionary biology, anthropology, geosciences and Latin American Studies. The University of Arizona offers a bachelor's of science in environmental science, with concentrations in areas such biology, microbiology, chemistry, soil science and hydrology. The university is also home to the Institute for the Study of the Planet Earth, an interdisciplinary center for environmental and climate change science.

Buffalo Gets $3.1 Million Grant

The University at Buffalo has gotten a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation for its graduate environmental science programs.

The grant will fund the work of 25 doctoral students in its Ecosystem Restoration Through Interdisciplinary Exchange program, known appropriately as ERIE. The interdisciplinary program focuses on the ecosystem of the Great Lakes and incorporates U.S., Canadian and Native American perspectives on it. The latter is appropriate, and not only because of the geography: UB Professor Don Grinde is an environmental historian and a Yamasee Indian.

ERIE students will work with seven different departments in the engineering school and UB's College of Arts and Sciences. The university says they may also may work with UB Law School and at Buffalo State College, Niagara University and several Canadian universities. UB was one of only 20 schools selected for the grant, which comes under the NSF's Integrative Graduate Education Research and Traineeship program.

MIT Grad Students Tackle Transportation

I don't know why we are all waiting for Detroit to bring us more environmentally friendly transportation. It looks as if several graduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have the matter well in hand.

The students, who are master's or Ph.D. candidates in architecture, urban studies and the Smart Cities project at MIT's Media Lab program, have designed an electric, two-passenger car with America's biggest cities in mind. Ho-hum you say? There's more: These City Cars can be folded and stacked together like so many grocery carts, packing eight cars into a curb spot that might accommodate only one Hummer on any other day. (You can see a picture of it here.) And just like a grocery cart, you would take the first one in the stack, use it, and then return it to another stack. There is a lot of smart technology in these cars, like wheel robots that make it possible to do away with traditional, energy-hogging drive-train elements like engine blocks, gear boxes and differentials.

City Cars have, like doctoral degrees, been a long time in coming. The first mention of the project on MIT's Web site goes back to 2004. But apparently a prototype, which is being produced in conjunction with General Motors (which sponsors the Media Lab), is now due out next spring.

Sustainable Design At Western Washington U

Thanks to the folks at WorldChanging for bringing this twist in environmental studies to my attention. It shows just how far college students are taking their eco thinking these days.

Junior-year industrial design students at Western Washington University are turning trash into treasure--literally. Under a program they have dubbed ReMade, they take industrial refuse and transform it into a new product. Like sushi-rolling mats made from old bicycle spokes or switchplates crafted from street signs. The students must make 20 of each of their designs and then offer them for sale. This year, you can find their work at Seattle's Goods for the Planet and the Seattle Art Museum through December 25.

Western Washington, which is based in Bellingham, Wash., has separate departments for environmental studies and environmental science, both through its Huxley College of the Environment. The industrial design department has just teamed up with Huxley to create a new minor in sustainable design. Western Washington also offers a combined major in economics and environmental studies at its College of Business and Economics.

How Green Is Your Campus?

Want to see the best in environmentally friendly interior and exterior design these days? Then take a trip to America's colleges and universities--like Middlebury College in northern Vermont.

It's not just that these buildings are getting high marks from the U.S. Green Building Council for how environmentally friendly they are. They are great examples of architectural inventiveness and great models of how connected a building can be to its surrounding environment.

The Hillcrest Environmental Center is an 1875 farmhouse. Or, rather, was. A recent report by the Associated Press chronicles how the center, which is home to Middlebury's environmental science program, has been reborn with the marks of Vermont, from an old maple sugar tree as ceiling planks to desktops made from sunflower seed shells. Some 40 professors and 90 students a year will find a home here, the college says.

Is $4 million too much to much to spend on sustainability? Middlebury doesn’t seem to think so.

Environmental Studies Beyond The Science

Studying the environment these days doesn't just mean delving into the science behind the changes in our surroundings. There are environmental courses to be found on a wide range of topics, from film studies to public policy.

So it was that this past year Princeton University's Princeton Environmental Institute, Carl Fields Center and its Center for African American Studies joined forces to look at the emerging issue of environmental justice. The central idea in this field is that environmental problems like air and water pollution weigh more heavily on poor communities than rich ones. This past Friday, the Princeton centers held a free screening of the first two parts of Spike Lee's film about the impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, When The Levees Broke; they will screen parts three and four this Friday. On Tuesday, they will host a talk by Majora Carter, the founder of Sustainable South Bronx.

The Princeton Environmental Institute is an interdisciplinary center that coordinates environmental education, research and community outreach by departments in the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities. It offers an undergraduate certificate in environmental studies as well as graduate and postdoctoral training.