Other Projects and Activities
Workshops and Symposia
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6/19/15 |
Haline Heidinger |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: Rainfall extremes over the Peruvian Andes: An evaluation of the contribution of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) |
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6/19/15 |
Laura Harrison |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: Concerns for Tanzania’s blue and green water resources |
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6/3/15 |
Lisa August-Schmidt |
BGS Seminar Series: Differences in nutrient cycling among Hawaiian N-fixing trees |
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5/27/15 |
Patricia Tavormina |
BGS Seminar Series: Microbial aerobic methanotrophy in ocean waters: Effects of geochemistry on population structure, and cultivation of select, phylogenetically-diverse lineages |
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5/26/15 |
ERI/Geography Colloquium: The spatial-temporal evolution of topography of the central Andean plateau and geodynamic implications for the growth of plateaus |
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5/20/15 |
Erin Hanan |
BGS Seminar Series: Combining remote sensing and watershed models to assess regional-scale carbon balance in mixed-age ecosystems |
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5/19/15 |
Kelly Caylor |
When change is more of the same: The increasing importance of hydrological variability on ecosystem structure and function |
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5/15/15 |
Forest Cannon |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: Global Climate Variability and Extreme Precipitation in High Asia: Implications for Water Resources |
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5/15/15 |
Jesse Norris |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: The intra-annual and diurnal evolution of extreme precipitation in the Himalayas |
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5/11/15 |
Kelin Whipple |
ERI/Geography Colloquium: Decoding Tectonic History from Topography: Is There Evidence of Erosion Driving Tectonics? |
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5/6/15 |
Peter Leavitt |
BGS Seminar Series: Regulation of lake production and composition by nitrogen influx – a synthesis of 20 years of ecosystem ecology |
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5/5/15 |
Cin-Ty Lee |
ERI/Geography Colloquium: The role of continents on the whole Earth oxygen and carbon cycles |
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4/29/15 |
Joel Blum |
ERI/Geography Colloquium: Mercury stable isotope geochemistry: applications in the earth, atmosphere, and oceans |
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4/15/15 |
Susan Bush |
BGS Seminar Series: Trace gases and urban emissions |
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4/8/15 |
Ryan Bart |
BGS Seminar Series: Investigating the Effects of Vegetation Type-Conversion on Streamflow in the Sierra Nevada |
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3/20/15 |
George Kiladis |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: In search of the elusive eastward inertio-gravity wave |
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3/11/15 |
Ryoko Oono |
BGS Seminar Series:Patterns in communities of foliar fungal endophytes: from landscapes to individual trees |
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3/6/15 |
Sally MacIntyre |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: Linking Arctic Climatology, Resulting Weather, and Mixing Dynamics in Arctic Lakes |
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2/18/15 |
Doug McCauley |
BGS Seminar Series: Mantas, sharks, and hippos: insights into material transport and ecological connectivity afforded through biogeochemistry |
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2/13/15 |
Alicia Cortes |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: Pathways of snowmelt water into Arctic Lakes (Alaska, USA) Arctic Climatology, Resulting Weather, and Mixing Dynamics in Arctic Lakes |
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2/13/15 |
Sally MacIntyre |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: Linking Arctic Climatology, Resulting Weather, and Mixing Dynamics in Arctic Lakes |
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1/28/15 |
Max Moritz |
BGS Seminar Series: How is the "fuels versus weather" debate playing out in western forests? |
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1/16/15 |
Brandi Gamelin |
Climate Hazards Group: Arctic Warming, Water Vapor Variations and Influencing Teleconnection Patter |
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1/16/15 |
Hugo Loaciga |
Climate Hazards Group: Droughts, people, environment in the semi-arid American southwest. |
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1/14/15 |
Katerina Michaelides |
Runoff-driven sediment transport, erosion and nutrient fluxes in dryland environments |
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1/14/15 |
Michael Singer |
Floodplain Ecohydrology: Insights into climate-driven water availability and water use by riparian trees |
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11/14/14 |
Colin Kelley |
Climate Hazards Group Seminar: The western Yemen long rains and the low-level circulation |
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11/14/14 |
Haline Heidinger |
Climate Hazards Group seminar: Rainfall variability in the Peruvian Andes: An evaluation of changes in total and extreme rainfall |
Research Experiences for Students:
Research education is a key component of ERI’s mission. This fiscal year, ERI supported 77 graduate student researchers and 168 undergraduate students. The students were involved in a wide range of projects. Undergraduates have been involved in the NASA-funded Plumes and Blooms project, taking part in one-day optical oceanography cruises in the Santa Barbara Channel. The Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEIN) has included multiple students in their research efforts. Many students took classes, interned, or were employed by the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER) learning restoration and management skills, natural history collection management, and K-12 science education. The Research Abstracts (http://annual-reports.eri.ucsb.edu/2014-2015/research-summaries) demonstrate the span of research involvement by students.
K-12 Outreach Activities:
Kids in Nature:
The mission of the Kids in Nature Environmental Education (KIN) program is to promote the aspirations and achievements of students in underserved schools by providing quality environmental science education. To achieve this goal, CCBER recruits and trains undergraduates for careers in K-12 science education, provide professional development opportunities for teachers who have inadequate undergraduate preparation in science and who lack the resources for teaching science content in the classroom, and for both students and teachers, we create and encourage personal connections to the natural world, which will foster an interest in becoming stewards of the environment.
Program Description
While many programs are designed to offer educational experiences for several hours or for one day, the KIN program provides each classroom with a total of twelve educational activities offered with our partners, the Marine Science Institute’s REEF program, Coal Oil Point Reserve, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and Arroyo Hondo Preserve. The fifth grade students work closely with the KIN staff and UCSB students enrolled in EEMB189/ES191 in an outdoor setting and gain firsthand experience with the concepts they learn in class for an in-depth and sustained educational experience. KIN curriculum emphasizes hands-on, placed based activities in outdoor environments and also includes classroom visits where UCSB students mentor and assist with the fifth grade student work and activities in the established native plant gardens on the elementary school campuses.
During the yearlong program, we estimate that each KIN student experiences approximately 100 hours of small group education. KIN has a significant impact on the students’ understanding, involvement in, and awareness of environmental issues through engaging and challenging activities and positive interactions with scientists, graduate and undergraduate students both in class and in the field. KIN students spend a significant amount of time on the UCSB campus, which helps to demystify the university and provides the students with opportunities to learn about programs and the campus environment. Each 5th grade student receives a Kids in Nature Science Notebook and Nature Journal, which contains additional information and activities to accompany each fieldtrip. There is also a teacher version of the journal available, which includes the Next Generation Science Standards that correspond with each chapter.