The 2nd UW Student Film Contest commenced in 2019 to bring together STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) majors across the world to collaborate within the arts and humanities through film making. With this transdisciplinary approach, the contest centers around incorporating more art within the STEM field. In fact, the contest centers around STEAM (Science Technology Engineering ARTS and Maths).
As a sponsor of the award category Planet Earth, EarthLab would like to congratulate the winners of this category: Ocean State of Debris and Exist.
Over the past few years, Nature and Health’s coalition of scientists and practitioners has been exploring the nexus of nature and health. While based in the Seattle area, this lively group includes people and organizations active across the nation, indeed the planet. The Nature and Health group seeks to understand the connections between nature and human health and well-being.
What does this mean for health and nature during Covid-19? Find out during Nature and Health’s webinar as they explore this question.
When: March 24, 2020 | 12:00 PM PST
Where: Online – please RSVP and you will be provided a link to the presentation.
In this webinar, you will join health and nature experts, and the session will include time for Q&A. The discussion will focus on the connections between nature and human health during Covid-19.
We would like to welcome Madison Canfield, Jessica Peyla Nagtalon, and Rabia Ramzan to our growing team!
As a new initiative at the University of Washington, we are excited to continue growing our team with professionals to excel in our shared vision for tomorrow by helping us collectively act now to make our vision real today.
Madison Canfield, Grants SpecialistJessica Peyla Nagtalon, Assistant to the DirectorRabia Ramzan, Fiscal Specialist
To see our full team, please visit our staff page.
We are closely monitoring the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) situation. Out of an abundance of concern for the health of our community, we have decided to postpone our Voices Unbound event that was scheduled for March 14 and 15. We thank you for your interest and support and hope to reschedule in the future.
As one of EarthLab’s 2019-2020 Innovation Grant grantees, the Voices Unbound project will be opening an eco-gallery to showcase their work!
The Voices Unbound project asked people throughout Pierce County to document environmental challenges that are impacting them and their community by using enviro-postcards. These enviro-postcards were distributed to communities and asked:
What environmental challenges are most important to you?
How are you coping with or surviving these challenges?
From this, the gallery will showcase 1,000 south sound perspectives on our most important environmental challenges.
Details
Voices Unbound: An Art Exhibition
When: POSTPONED until further notice
-Opening night:March 14 at 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. TBD
-Open house:March 15 at 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. TBD
Where: Fern and Foster Family Wellness, 1402 S 11th St. Tacoma, WA 98405
For more information, please visit the Voices Unbound webpage or contact voicesunbounduwt@gmail.com
EarthLab welcomes Dr. Hugh Possingham, The Nature Conservancy’s chief scientist, to the University of Washington on Tuesday, March 3. He’s in town to enhance the partnership between The Nature Conservancy and UW. In a time where environmental problems are growing in number and complexity, EarthLab strives to enable and promote collaborations that deepen understanding of these issues.
In addition to giving a seminar at 12:30 (details below), Dr. Possingham will be available to meet with students after his talk from 1:30-2:15 in Alder Hall auditorium, and then is available for a faculty and staff roundtable from 2:30-3:30 in Alder Hall rm 105.
TNC Seminar: Innovation Science for Conservation and a Sustainable Future
About:
Learn about The Nature Conservancy’s scientific research and how science informs policy and practice around the world. The Nature Conservancy is one of the largest conservation organizations in the world, working in 79 countries and territories to conserve the lands and water on which all life depends.
Bio:
Dr. Hugh Possingham is The Nature Conservancy’s Chief Scientist. In that role, he leads the work of more than 500 scientists engaged in conservation around the world. A Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Science, Dr. Possingham’s groundbreaking research comprises more than 600 peer-reviewed papers including over 30 in Science, Nature, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
His team’s Marxan software initially assisted Australia’s rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and is now used in more than 150 countries to support the design of marine and terrestrial reserves. He led a group of more than 400 ecologists and wildlife scientists in petitioning the Australian government to stop the destruction of native woodlands, especially in Queensland. Known as the Brigalow declaration, their efforts more than halved deforestation in Australia, reducing that nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent for several years.
As a member of many advisory committees and boards, Dr. Possingham has been a leading voice in providing independent advice to the Australian government and the public about environmental issues. He has also birded in some of the world’s most amazing places. So, you bird enthusiasts out there should seek him out during a break to exchange notes.
Details
Where: Alder Hall | 1315 NE Campus Pkwy, Seattle, WA 98105
When: Tuesday, March 3, 2020
–Lecture: 12:30 – 1:20 p.m., Alder Auditorium
This event is open to all UW faculty, staff, and students.
Faculty and staff are welcome to join Dr. Possingham for an informal roundtable in Alder Hall rm 105.
The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities. To request disability accommodation contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at: 206.543.6450/V, 206.543.6452/TTY, 206.685.7264 (FAX), or e-mail at dso@u.washington.edu
EarthLab and EarthGames are seeking an undergraduate or graduate student (hourly) to assist with planning and implementing the 2020 Games for Our Future (GFOF) game jam, to be held this April in Seattle and simultaneously with multiple cities internationally. GFOF and EarthGames build awareness and mobilize action on climate change, climate justice, and other environmental issues by catalyzing the creation of new, fun games that incorporate a diversity of research insights. This year the theme of the game jam will be nature and mental health, including the health benefits of exposure to nature and the emotional challenges of a changing planet. EarthLab and EarthGames recognize the need to engage the full range of the world’s perspectives, knowledges, and values to address the complexities of environmental and justice challenges, and to serve the needs and interests of frontline communities.
Natures, Peoples, and Justice: Collaborative land management and cultural burns in the Australian Capital Territory
When: February 6, 2020 | 4:00-5:30 p.m.
Where: Communications (CMU) 120
Dr. Jessica Weir, PhD, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Syndey University
With the cultural and political resurgence of Indigenous peoples globally, and global alarm about environmental issues, there has been a burgeoning of contexts for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and institutions to form environmental collaborations. However, these are fundamentally challenged by whether they are meaningful or not for Indigenous people. Many Indigenous scholars have critiqued environmental management collaborations for: compounding unjust power arrangements that deny and displace Indigenous peoples’ territorial and governance authority; and, perpetuating discriminatory epistemological assumptions that dismiss, ridicule and fetishize Indigenous peoples’ knowledge. Dr. Weir will present on how these two matters are being grappled with through a government land management and natural hazard initiative to conduct Indigenous peoples’ ‘cultural burns’. This is a very different context to cool burns conducted by Indigenous ranger groups on their land holdings in ‘remote’ areas. Instead, these cultural burns are conducted by Indigenous people working as Parks and Conservation staff on government owned land in none less than the national capital of Australia.
This program is changing why land is burned, by whom, how, where and when; but, it is not without its shortcomings. As the collaborative practice finds ways to address fraught and misunderstood matters, new matters become surfaced and outstanding matters become clearer. Significantly, very few of the Indigenous staff are Ngunnawal – the traditional custodians of the Australian Capital Territory – and this has highlighted the commonalities and divergences of differently positioned Indigenous peoples. Dr. Weir’s results show that both the successes and problematics of the cultural burning program stress the importance of supporting Indigenous peoples’ governance. This is a critical movement away from the ‘traditional ecological knowledge’ focus of many environmental collaborations, and will necessarily involve a greater sharing of power and resources. The findings are of broad relevance for diverse people wishing to better navigate intercultural matters of knowledge and authority in collaborative contexts. This candid illustration is supported by a research partnership with Parks and Conservation that has prioritised co-design and co-authorship with Indigenous peoples, and is part of a larger project across southern Australia.
Co-sponsored by: School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, the Program on the Environment, EarthLab, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities
There is an urgent need for scientists from a range of disciplines to work together in innovative ways to solve problems. The Future Rivers Initiative, an organization in EarthLab, aims to build a culturally-aware STEM workforce fluent in state-of-the-art quantitative approaches that will be necessary for sustaining food-energy-water (FEW) services in large river ecosystems.
Applications can be submitted anytime; however, to be considered for funding, please submit by January 22, 2021.
Come join exciting discussions of current research focused on the benefits of the connections between nature and health!
Title: Designing for Health in the Informal Amphibious Community, Iquitos.
Peru has significantly increased mining and oil extraction in the last decade, degrading Amazon Rainforest ecosystems and indigenous livelihoods, interrupting local to global climate regulation, and resulting in rapid jungle-to-city migration with ultimately 90,000+ people living in informal “amphibious” communities floating in the floodplain borders of the jungle city. These indigenous migrants struggle adapting from nature rich lifestyles to the harsh urban slums, manifesting in a multitude of physical, mental, social and environmental health issues. Leann Andrews and Coco Alarcón will discuss InterACTION Labs: Iquitos, a transdisciplinary action research program that fuses scientific, indigenous and professional knowledge to design landscape architecture interventions with an informal amphibious community in Iquitos, Peru. They will share preliminary human and ecological health impacts of the designs, and discuss implications to One Health, Planetary Health, diseases of poverty, climate change resilience, generational amnesia, and global environmental justice.
Bio: Leann Andrews and Coco Alarcón are landscape architects and global health researchers, co-founders of the non-profit Traction and co-directors of the InterACTION Labs program in Iquitos Peru. Coco is also currently a PhD student in Implementation Science at UW and Leann is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture and research staff in the UW Green Futures Lab. They have been working on community design projects that strategically improve human and ecological health for vulnerable populations in both Peru and the United States since 2009.
Details
When: January 29, 2020
Where: Anderson Hall Room 22
(Lunch will be provided — first come, first served.)
Future speakers will be:
Sara Park Perrins, PhC, February 12, 2020. Please bring your own lunch.
Carly Gray, PhD Student, March 11, 2020. Please bring your own lunch.
The Bullitt Foundation seeks graduate students in British Columbia, Washington State, and Oregon interested in applying for the 2020 Bullitt Environmental Fellowship.
The Foundation awards this two-year, $100,000 Fellowship annually to one graduate student who has overcome adversity, demonstrates strong leadership potential, and is focused on work to safeguard the natural environment by promoting responsible human activities and sustainable communities in the Emerald Corridor, stretching from Vancouver, BC to Portland, OR.
Eligible candidates will have a strong academic record and a university faculty member who will nominate and recommend them. Students of color are highly encouraged to apply.
Qualified candidates must apply by April 1, 2020. Visit www.bullitt.org for more information.
