Four substantial, student-led sustainability projects are gaining momentum on campus, thanks to financial support from the new Planet Blue Student Innovation Fund. Three of the four, focused on reusable takeout food containers, a sustainable food kiosk and a U-M campus farm, were developed by students at SNRE. Announced by President Mary Sue Coleman last fall as part of her larger campus sustainability address, the Planet Blue Student Innovation Fund offers grants of up to $50,000 annually for projects that reduce the university's environmental footprint and/or promote a culture of sustainability on campus.
Out of 10 Michigan Society Postdoctoral Fellows selected university wide this year, two—Kimberley Kinder and Elizabeth Pringle—are affiliated with the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Each is finishing their first of three years as an assistant professor and using funding from the Fellows program to pursue research projects.
Marie Lynn Miranda began her term as dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment Jan. 1. Dean Miranda has devoted much of her professional career to research directed at improving the health status of disadvantaged populations, particularly children. To inaugurate her tenure, she sent the following email to faculty, students and staff Jan. 1.
More than 3,000 gallons of Huron River water were trucked to the University of Michigan campus recently to create 150 mini-Hurons that are used to study how environmental changes affect freshwater habitats like rivers and streams. The artificial streams are called flumes, and U-M's new $1 million "Flume Room" is in the basement of the Dana Building, home to the School of Natural Resources and Environment. The U-M flume lab is the largest facility of its kind in North America, and possibly the world.
Scientists recently discovered nitrogen that falls from the atmosphere in acid rain can influence large tracts of sugar maples in North America. The atmospheric nitrogen in acid rain can affect forest ecosystems by acidifying soils and causing nutrient imbalances. Sugar maples in northeastern North America are especially vulnerable. Vast maple areas have been affected by this acidification process, which depletes soil calcium in already calcium-poor soils such as those of the Eastern United States.
Research by David Jude, a research scientist at SNRE, is featured in a cable documentary exploring invasive species in the Great Lakes. Jude's work with Gobies is mentioned in the new series "Silent Invaders," created and being aired by Pursuit Channel TV, a cable channel for outdoor enthusiasts.
Ning served as a teaching assistant during the 6th Academy of Conservation Training in Nanjing.
North American forests appear to have a greater capacity to soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas than researchers had previously anticipated. As a result, they could help slow the pace of human-caused climate warming more than most scientists had thought, a U-M ecologist and his colleagues have concluded. The results of a 12-year study at an experimental forest in northeastern Wisconsin challenge several long-held assumptions about how future forests will respond to the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide blamed for human-caused climate change, said University of Michigan microbial ecologist Donald Zak, lead author of a paper published online this week in Ecology Letters.
SNRE Professor and Interim Dean Dave Allan provided an update on his Great Lakes Environmental Assessment and Mapping Project during a plenary address Thursday, Oct. 12 as part of the Seventh Annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference.
Several University of Michigan researchers will be among the speakers at next week's Great Lakes Week in Detroit, a gathering of several organizations concerned with preserving and restoring the health of the Great Lakes. The week's events will include meetings of the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Commission and the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition's Great Lakes Restoration Conference. The events will take place at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel and Wayne State University.