Georgia State wins NASA grant to improve climate change education, monitor carbon dioxide

Georgia State University will use a recently awarded $499,950 grant from NASA to help improve learning about global climate change for high schoolers, undergraduates and teachers in training, in addition to purchasing a unique urban carbon dioxide monitor to further research and teaching in the field.

At its core, the initiative will use NASA data and other resources to engage students participating in a course on weather and climate.

In addition to more than 1,000 Georgia State students each year, including candidates for the Master of Arts in Teaching, the university will create new pathways for the participation of students in the Carver Early College program — which gives high school students the opportunity to take college classes at the university.

Teachers in training will also have an opportunity to earn a NASA Earth and Space Science Certificate via their work in the weather and climate course labs.

“Education about global climate change is essential for everyone in today’s world, and doing it in the compelling context of NASA research motivates learning in science, math and reading,” said Cherilynn Morrow, professor of physics and astronomy and leader of the Georgia State initiative.

“Additionally, companies considering locating in Georgia want to know that we have a workforce which has had educational access to excellent geosciences courses related to energy, climate and other disciplines,” Morrow said. “Climate change is a great interdisciplinary topic for all of the sciences.”

Georgia State is one of 22 institutions receiving a total of $6.4 million in grants to enhance climate science education and spark interest in science through the use of NASA’s Earth science resources, including observation data and NASA Earth system models.

Resources from the NASA grant will help enhance the content of one of the university’s introductory geosciences courses, which introduces weather and climate, by giving a hands-on experience with the data and tools professional scientists use to monitor climate change. Georgia State will work to recruit and support Carver Early College students to this course in hopes of exciting their interest in the sciences.

Graduate students in the Master of Arts in teaching program at Georgia State will have similar access to NASA resources to better prepare them to teach earth sciences through opportunities such as a summer institute at the university, Morrow said.

Funds will also go to the purchase of a carbon dioxide monitor which will be used in Atlanta’s urban environment. Data collected from this monitor will be used by students and teachers-in-training to learn more about a gas which contributes to climate change.

The Georgia State initiative will combine efforts of the Georgia State Department of Geosciences, the Georgia State College of Education, GSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning, the university’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, the University System of Georgia Early College Program, and the University System of Georgia Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Initiative.

"We have an extraordinary and talented array of partners involved in this effort that will enable us to make a difference statewide, not just at Georgia State," Morrow said.

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Atlanta Campus Partners with Harvard To Explore Ethical Implications of Climate Change

What are the ethical implications of climate change? What can people do to confront and solve this mounting challenge? How can we better care for God’s Creation? More than 250 students, faculty and staff from Mercer University will be looking for answers to those questions when they gather at a conference, titled “Caring for Creation: Ethical Responses to Climate Change,” on Feb. 27 and 28 on the University’s Atlanta campus.

Mercer, in partnership with Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, will hold the multidisciplinary conference in the Atlanta Administration and Conference Center. The event is organized by the Atlanta Campus Quality Enhancement Plan Team as part of a campuswide effort to examine ethical issues.

“Caring for Creation is a moral obligation incumbent on every human being. It should be especially important to Christians and other people of faith who recognize that Creation belongs to God and that we are called to be good stewards of it,” said Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and conference organizer. “Climate change is recognized by scientific authorities around the world as one of the leading long-term threats to the well-being of Creation — especially to human beings, our health and our civilizations. This conference will bring together some of the world’s leading experts on climate and on Creation care to explore these critically important issues.”

The conference will be highlighted by presentations from several prominent climate change scientists, including Dr. Paul Epstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has written extensively on the impact of climate change on human health; Dr. Judith Curry, a professor at Georgia Tech and an expert on climate modeling and climate change; and Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Friday, Feb. 27, the program will begin at 7:30 p.m. following a dinner, with a welcome from Dr. Gushee and Dr. Epstein. Three plenary addresses will follow, moderated by Michael Battle of the Interdenominational Theological Center. The addresses include: “The Science of Climate Change,” by Dr. Curry; “The Health Effects of Climate Change,” by Dr. Frumkin; and “Religious and Ethical Reflections on Climate Change,” by Cheryl Bridges Johns of the Church of God Theological Seminary. The evening will conclude with a discussion.

On Saturday, Feb. 28, two groups of breakout sessions will be held from 9 to 10:15 a.m. and from 10:45 a.m. and noon. Breakout sessions will include: “Basic Climate Science,” with Dr. Curry; “Local Environmental Policy” with Michael Battle; “Climate Change and Human Health” with Dr. Frumkin; “National and International Climate Policy” with Dr. Epstein; “Greening the Campus/Lifestyle Changes,” with Richard Bohannon and Corrine Williams; “Religious and Ethical Issues,” with Bridges Johns and Dr. Gushee; and “Sustainable Agriculture” with Daron Joffe, or “Farmer D.” The conference will conclude with a lunch discussion beginning at noon.

Attendees are reading Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson’s book, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, prior to attending the conference.

The QEP Atlanta mission is to enhance interdisciplinary reflection on ethical issues at Mercer through seminars and other events. Previous QEP seminars have focused on dimensions of moral decision making. This year’s conference marks a departure from past events, with its sustained attention to one issue: the environment, and, in particular, climate change.

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University of Georgia Wins $6.7 Million National Science Foundation Grant to Extend Research in Southern Appalachia

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $6.7 million to a consortium of universities headed by the University of Georgia for research on the effects of climate change and urbanization in the southern Appalachian Mountains.

The grant extends the work of the Coweeta Long-Term Ecological Research project, which has been continuously funded since 1980, according to Ted Gragson, a professor of anthropology in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and lead principal investigator of the ongoing project.

“While we will be continuing the superb work that has preceded us, under the new grant we will explicitly focus on the effect of human settlement and climate change and how they affect the region,” said Gragson.

Scientists believe understanding the southern Appalachian Mountains from many viewpoints is crucial to ensure that their unique ecological and societal character are preserved for future generations. Problems tied to climate change in the region and pressure from those moving from surrounding urban areas to the sparsely populated mountain land present daunting challenges.

The Coweeta Long-Term Ecological Research Program was originally centered at the U.S. Forest Service’s Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in Otto, N.C., a 1600-hectare outdoor laboratory; however, it moved into surrounding areas several years ago, making the studies of human interactions with the landscape possible. The new grant will allow researchers to focus on experimental and observational research in the French Broad and the Little Tennessee River basins, the latter with headwaters in north Georgia.

Ten UGA faculty members in several colleges and departments, as well as collaborators at a number of other universities, are involved in research projects under the umbrella of the grant. The Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at UGA is the administrative unit for the grant.

Other faculty involved in the project at UGA include: Carolyn Dehring from the Terry College of Business; Jeff Hepinstall, John Maerz, Rebecca Moore and Rhett Jackson of the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources; Jackie Mohan and Cathy Pringle of the Odum School of Ecology; and Nik Heynen and David Leigh from the department of geography in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

The project also has collaborators from Duke University, Mars Hill College, the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina, the University of Wisconsin, the U.S. Forest Service Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory and Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

“Southern Appalachia provides a near-perfect opportunity for a natural experiment,” said Gragson. “By significantly strengthening the social science component of the project and moving outside the experimental watersheds of the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory into the surrounding areas, we will be able to find focus on how exurbanization and climate change are affecting this priceless part of America.”

While the southern Appalachian Mountains have long been a vacation area for people in urban areas all over the South and elsewhere, there is increasing evidence that in the next century the area could become a sprawling megalopolis.

“The southern Appalachian Mountains are one of the most significant biological regions in North America,” said Gragson, “but changes are now taking places so fast that cities, counties and states in the region are finding it difficult to manage the growth and development affecting the biological uniqueness of the region.”

The team hopes that research from numerous different angles in the project area will help lead to practical ways to control growth in the coming decades.

“Earlier, it was thought that development would slow in the region, but after the 2000 census, people noticed that it was accelerating and turning into sprawl,” said Gragson.

The Coweeta project is part of the national network of sites funded by the National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. For information on the program, see www.lternet.edu/. For specific information on the Coweeta LTER, see http://coweeta.ecology.uga.edu/.

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