Sunday, November 29, 2009

“Groups across Vt. connect to plan for environmental awareness - Times-Argus” plus 4 more

“Groups across Vt. connect to plan for environmental awareness - Times-Argus” plus 4 more

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Groups across Vt. connect to plan for environmental awareness - Times-Argus

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 08:28 AM PST

Groups across Vt. connect to plan for environmental awareness

By JEN BROWN Herald Correspondent - Published: November 29, 2009

This fall members of Vermont's Environmental Literacy Project Steering Committee met for the first time. With our dinners balanced precariously on our laps, we got down to business. During the round of introductions, a few people commented, "I'm not really sure what I'm doing here." But very soon it did become clear — we were there because we were all connected by our concern to increase environmental awareness in this state.

"Everything is Connected: Environmental Literacy for Vermont" is the title of a yearlong, grant-funded project led by the Four Winds Nature Institute in cooperation with Vermont's State-Wide Environmental Education Programs alliance. Everything is connected. It's a simple statement, a cliché. Yet it is a theme that we can't deny, and some of the connections are rather surprising.

Vermont's environmental literacy project continues this winter with a statewide public dialogue process highlighting successful environmental education and communication efforts across all sectors in the state and identifying existing needs and opportunities to increase environmental literacy in Vermont. The goal is to create a roadmap for environmental literacy throughout Vermont, including a pre-K–12 component that meets the requirements of proposed federal legislation, the No Child Left Inside Act of 2009.

Vermont's own Rep. Peter Welch and Sen. Bernard Sanders are cosponsors of the No Child Left Inside Act. Many other states also are working on environmental literacy plans, but they focus only on the pre-K–12 sectors of the states. The Vermont project recognizes that environmental literacy is a lifelong learning process that begins with parents, early childhood professionals, and young children; grows into K–12 formal and informal education; is integrated into higher education, technical education, businesses, government services, and the media; and involves whole communities. In Vermont we see that it really is all connected.

The word "environmental" first brings to mind the obvious connections in nature — the flower and the bee, the steep gorge and the glacier that carved it, the swelling river and the snowcapped mountain peak. Likewise it's easy to think about the connections that we as humans have with the natural world. The paper on which this article is printed originally came from a tree. Your food scraps could become soil for your garden after a few months in the compost bin. When we burn fossil fuels, we get power but we also release emissions to the environment. The connections are endless.

But perhaps most important in this process are our connections with one another as we consider environmental literacy together.

The Environmental Literacy Project Steering Committee has met twice now to plan the course of the project. Sitting around the table at those meetings are individuals from all corners of Vermont and from a broad range of occupations — not just people who work for environmental education organizations, but also people from state agencies, a farm, a school district, a ski resort, an energy company, a planning commission, a private business, a college and a newspaper. The group includes a college student and a research scientist.

The work of the committee began with a simple question, "What does environmental literacy look like in our communities and organizations?" The answers were wide-ranging: everyone on a block sharing one lawn mower, PTO members using real plates and silverware instead of disposable dishes at their meetings, committees at colleges figuring out ways to become carbon neutral, employees telecommuting a couple of days each week, community gardens supplying healthy, local food for all. The more the steering committee shared ideas, the more it became clear that these are things we can all do — whether we work for environmental organizations, government agencies, hospitals, schools or businesses. It really is all connected.

One of the goals of the environmental literacy dialogues is to identify model programs that already exist in our state. On Nov. 4, Vermont's State-Wide Environmental Education Programs alliance hosted a mock run of the statewide dialogue on environmental literacy in order to get feedback on the process. That meeting was held at Saint Michael's College in Colchester, and during it some of the college's faculty and staff described current initiatives there.

The education and biology departments at Saint Michael's have collaborated to create a garden called "Books in Bloom," full of flowers that occur in children's literature.

The entire project began as a collaboration between faculty members Valerie Bang-Jensen and Mark Lubkowitz of the education and biology departments, respectively. Education and biology — or more specifically, children's literature and botany — may not seem like the most likely pairing, but this garden illustrates just how well two disparate subjects can fit together.

More than 40 people participated in that first Environmental Literacy for Vermont dialogue. They all offered examples of an environmentally literate Vermont. One engineer described a project to install pellet stoves for low-income residents. A physician envisioned towns offering safe pedestrian routes to schools to combat childhood obesity and diabetes. A manager of a golf resort talked about his design for an environmentally sensitive course.

That gathering and the two Environmental Literacy for Vermont Steering Committee meetings held this fall mark just the beginning of the planning process. As winter arrives and the Environmental Literacy for Vermont conversations begin in earnest, we shouldn't be surprised to find that just as in nature, connected communities are environmentally sensitive communities.

Jen Brown is the project coordinator for Environmental Literacy for Vermont and a graduate student at Antioch New England University. She lives in Brownsville, and Center Ossipee, N.H., and can be contacted at jen@fourwindsinstitute.org.

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SUNYIT biology degree boosts nanotechnology - Romesentinel.com

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 11:07 AM PST

The path has been cleared for a new bachelor of science degree in biology to be added at SUNYIT in Marcy, announced Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, D-116, Rome.

Gov. David Paterson has signed a "master plan amendment" for the new biology program, Destito said.

SUNYIT will begin offering specialized programs of study in bioinformatics, biotechnology, and life science in the "near future," said the announcement, although a starting date has not yet been determined. Students will be able to be accepted into the programs as freshmen or transfer students, said Destito, adding that it will "provide Mohawk Valley residents with the opportunity to earn a four-year biology degree at a public institution close to home."

The program is "another example of how SUNYIT is working to prepare its students for the New Economy careers of tomorrow," Paterson said in a statement calling the program "a strategic expansion at SUNYIT."

The program will "complement SUNYIT's well-known nursing program and will be an attractive option for prospective and current students," Paterson said. It also will complement SUNYIT's nanotechnology plans through its partnership with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University at Albany, Destito said.

The biology program approval will enable SUNYIT to "expand its role in growing and sustaining a talented science and technology workforce in Central New York," said SUNYIT President Wolf Yeigh. He said the biology degree will prepare students to enter the work force immediately as laboratory assistants or technicians; research assistants in nanotechnology; and in other high-tech fields.

"Government projections indicate faster-than-average job growth in these areas in the coming years," Yeigh said.

The new programs were developed by SUNYIT administrators and faculty, with curriculum approvals at the statewide level. Approval of a master plan amendment by Paterson was the last step in the process.

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When You Eat May be Just As Vital to Your Health As What You Eat - Kansas City infoZine

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 08:35 AM PST

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Researchers', at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, experiments in mice revealed that the daily waxing and waning of thousands of genes in the liver—the body's metabolic clearinghouse—is mostly controlled by food intake and not by the ...

Job prospects drawing agriculture students - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 05:58 AM PST

There isn't a farm within miles of where she grew up on Chicago's west side, but she's set to graduate with a bachelor's degree in crop sciences from the University of Illinois' agriculture school next spring.

"People ask me what is my major, and they say 'What is that? So you want to grow plants?' " Jones said.

She is one of a growing number of students being drawn to ag schools around the country not by ties to a farm but by science, the job prospects for those who are good at it and, for some, an interest in the environment.

Enrollment in bachelor's degree programs in agriculture across the country grew by 21.8 percent from 2005 to 2008, from about 58,300 students to nearly 71,000, according to surveys conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the numbers are likely higher - not all schools respond to the surveys.

National enrollment figures for 2009 aren't yet available, but numbers from major schools make clear the trend continues: The University of California-Davis has more than 5,490 students enrolled in agricultural majors - a jump of 210 from a year earlier. Purdue University has 2,575 ag students this fall, up 40 from last year.

Yet the number of farms nationwide has dropped for decades. There were about 2.4 million farms in the United States in 1978, and 2.2 million last year, according to the USDA.

Many students are choosing to major in agriculture, educators from across the country say, after finding out that much of what they'll learn is science - biology, chemistry and a long list of more specialized areas that can land them jobs at companies that produce the seeds and chemicals for farmers or in still-forming industries like biofuels.

Almost a quarter of the incoming freshmen at the University of Wisconsin each year say they want to do "something in biology," said Bob Ray, associate dean for undergraduate programs and services.

Agriculture schools are doing their best to reach out to such students.

Texas A&M University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has several full-time recruiters on the road talking to high school students. It also uses its Web site, YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to reach prospective students.

A lot of the messages boil down to job prospects.

"Every one of our poultry science graduates, they average about five job offers per graduate," college spokesman Bill Gibbs said.

Demand for science graduates, agriculture industry officials say, outstrips supply.

Monsanto, the St. Louis agribusiness giant that makes seeds, pesticides and an array of other farm products, can't hire enough.

"We find it really hard to find people in science, in particular, because they tend to get snatched up by medical and health care-related things," said Monsanto spokesman Darren Wallis, adding that it has openings for 100 researchers in St. Louis.

UC-Davis' College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is one of the country's biggest ag schools and still has plenty of students studying in traditional areas, said Diane Ullman, the college's associate dean for undergraduate academic programs.

But more than 3,200 of UC-Davis' ag students - almost 60 percent - are studying so-called human sciences, such as nutrition, or environmental sciences, such as environmental policy and landscape architecture.

"I think that young people are recognizing all of the issues that surround our society that have to do with food, and I think there's a real interest in new ways of doing things and solving some of these problems," Ullman said.

Kate Molak is one of the students Ullman is talking about.

Molak is from Portola Valley and plans to graduate in June with a bachelor's degree in community regional development. She wants to work in public health.

"I wouldn't say that agriculture necessarily has anything to do with that, but we do deal with a lot of environmental issues with public health," she said.

At Illinois, Jones said she wound up in the ag department after her high school pompon coach - who happened to be a biology teacher - steered her toward a summer science program at the university.

"I always liked to pick apart worms - I thought I was a weirdo," Jones said

Now she's applying to graduate programs and hoping she'll eventually be a research professor, maybe working on how to grow a better soybean.

"I love doing research," she said. "Just having that hands-on experience, and being able to see the product, even if it takes years to see it."

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Hammerhead sharks see 360 degrees in stereo - Tehran Times

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 08:28 AM PST

 View Rate : 207 #            News Code : TTime- 208892        Print Date : Sunday, November 29, 2009


Hammerhead sharks see 360 degrees in stereo

Scientists have long wondered why the hammerhead shark has such a strangely shaped head, one that looks like two heads of a hammer protruding from the sides of the shark's snout, with an eye at the outer edge of each protrusion.

Researchers long figured the bizarre shape had something to do with an adaptation for better vision.

"One of the things they say on TV shows is that hammerheads have better vision than other sharks," said study team member Michelle McComb from Florida Atlantic University. "But no one had ever tested this."

McComb and colleagues caught wild sharks of various types and rushed them to a lab, then tested the field of view in each shark's eyes by sweeping a weak light in horizontal and vertical arcs around each eye and recorded the eye's electrical activity.

Hammerheads "have outstanding forward stereo vision and depth perception," the scientists write in the Nov. 27 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Stereo vision, which humans have, means each eye gets a slightly different view of an object, which improves depth perception. Many sharks have eyes on the sides of their heads that don't allow for stereo vision.

The scalloped hammerhead shark had a "massive binocular overlap" of 32 degrees in front of their heads, three times that of pointy nosed sharks. The overlap is even greater when head and eye movements were factored in.

The T-shaped hammerhead configuration also allows the sharks to see 360 degrees, with "respectable stereo rear view, too," the researchers conclude. "They have a full 360-degree view of the world."

(Source: LiveScience)

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