| While most professors and graduate students teach from textbooks, some expand their research beyond the classroom into sustaining the environment as part of service.
The first “Sustainability Across the Curriculum Symposium” at ACES, or the Annual Celebration of Excellence by Students, will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Thursday in the Bluebonnet Ballroom.
The free event will feature faculty and graduate students discussing what sustainability means for their disciplines and research.
Information
What: Sustainability Across the Curriculum Symposium
Where: Bluebonnet Ballroom
When: 9 a.m. – noon Thursday
Cost: Free
Open to the public. No reservation required.
For a detailed program schedule visit Mavericks Go Green
The event, organized by the Office of Graduate Studies and the Curriculum, Research and Community Engagement Work Group of the University Sustainability Committee, will foster discussions on sustainability research across different disciplines and highlight the research of UTA faculty and doctoral students.
The symposium extends this year’s OneBook discussions on the theme of sustainability by providing a wide range of topics, perspectives and research projects.
Stacy Alaimo, University Sustainability Committee co-chair, said the program will introduce the meaning of sustainability within different academic disciplines and areas of research.
“In order to develop not only a more sustainable campus, but a more sustainable world,” she said. “We need research and expertise from a wide range of academic perspectives and methods — from engineering and biology to history and new media studies.”
The discussion topics range from environmental engineering to science fiction. Professors and graduate students will give 10 presentations, each lasting 15 minutes.
The presentations will pose questions such as if humans can continue to survive on Earth without decimating other species and the natural systems humans depend on, as well as how to live in ways that cause the least amount of damage to habitats, ecosystems and biodiversity.
Alaimo said the symposium is important for students because all students should be informed about the single most important global issue: sustainability.
“Knowledge of sustainability is crucial for many careers and will become even more important in the future,” Alaimo said.
Biology professor James Grover, a presenter, will talk about research in ecology and how it relates to research on sustainability and environmental issues. Even though ecology is a basic science that studies organisms and their environments, it also encompasses sustainability and issues of human interest, he said.
Grover said he will present a short history on sustainability and show some brief results from his personal research indicating that ecosystems highly impacted by humans are governed by some of the same basic ecological principles as those that are relatively undisturbed.
“The research is important because the human population is so large that it has impacts on all ecosystems and habitats in the world,” he said. “Therefore ecologists have to consider humans and human impacts in the research to preserve essential ecosystem services as the human population continues to grow in the coming decades.”
English graduate student Justin Lerberg serves as a member in the Waste Reduction and Environmental Management Systems work groups and will present “Examining Climate Change Through Nature, Culture, Science and Technology: An Embodied Approach?” which examines climate change through digital media technology.
“Lots of resources are finite,” Lerberg said. “There has to be a broader understanding and action to using the resources. Climate change is the combination of nature and human aspects.” |
