News
Environmental variability and global change are discussed more and more frequently in news articles and programs as the general public becomes increasingly aware of the rapid environmental transformations taking place around the world. The Institute of the Environment produces general interest articles about current UA research relevant to the environment, spotlights that chronicle the work of IoE faculty, and other articles, including a series on drought in the Southwest. The most recent articles are listed below. Older articles and links to UA News press releases also are available in the News Archive.
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The Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) project at the UA focuses on a handful of key issues, from sustainable water-supply planning and the impacts of climate change on human health to examining the cost of protecting ecosystems against competing energy and water uses.
Researchers at the UA's Tumamoc Hill have digitized 106 years of growth data on individual plants, making the information available for study by people all over the world. Knowing how plants respond to changing conditions over many decades provides new insights into how ecosystems behave.
Warming trends and other indicators suggest warmer-than-average conditions are in store for the May–July period in the Southwest; forecasts also call for below-average precipitation in northern Arizona and in all of New Mexico, but with higher uncertainty.
The UA has been honored in the EPA's first-ever Campus Rainworks Challenge, a new design competition that inspires the next generation of landscape architects, planners and engineers to develop innovative green infrastructure systems. The proposed UA project would convert a campus parking lot into a common area with storm water retention basins, underground water harvesting cisterns and more.
The UA's Project WET, which stands for Water Education for Teachers, is designed to teach elementary and middle school students about Tucson's water scarcity and how to conserve.
Stuart Thomson's research involves the use and development of devices to determine the time and temperature history of rocks and minerals. His most recent project applied these techniques to determine the age of Antarctica’s subglacial fjords. Thomson is a research scientist in the UA department of geosciences.
For its commitment to sustainability in athletic facilities and programming, the UA has been accepted to the Green Sports Alliance, a national nonprofit organization that aims to help sports teams, venues and leagues enhance environmental performance. Among the environmentally friendly athletic facilities on campus is the Student Recreation Center, the first campus recreation center in the country to achieve Platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Earth Day is well-celebrated at the nation’s No. 1 public university for environmental research publications. The UA will mark Earth Day on April 22 from 3-7:30 p.m. on the UA Mall with vendors, entertainment, live music and events by the University's many environmental organizations.
The UA is leading a national movement to track the annual rhythms of plants and animals and the ecological connections between them. This year, the USA National Phenology Network will host the first ever annual Phenology Day on April 20, a free public celebration of desert life cycles. The network has a strong focus on citizen science.
A new chemical process can transform waste sulfur into a lightweight plastic that may improve batteries for electric cars, reports a UA-led team. The new plastic has other potential uses, including in optics. The team has successfully used the new plastic to make lithium-sulfur batteries.