News and Events
Pollinators need people
A global study has concluded that people are essential to conserving the pollinators that maintain and protect biodiversity, agriculture and habitat.
“There’s increasing awareness of the importance of pollinators to our quality of life,” lead researcher Rosemary Hill said. “That discussion is often reduced to how to protect bees, and how to expand the amount of land managed as conservation reserves.
‘Underwater forecast’ predicts temperature, acidity and more in Puget Sound
Most of us rely on the weather forecast to choose our outfit or make outdoor plans for the weekend. But conditions underwater can also be useful to know in advance, especially if you’re an oyster farmer, a fisher or even a recreational diver.
A new University of Washington computer model can predict conditions in Puget Sound and off the coast of Washington three days into the future.
EarthLab launches first-ever Innovation Grants
EarthLab at the University of Washington envisions a world where nature and people thrive. To that end, EarthLab has launched an Innovation Grants program to provide funding for projects that are risky, new ideas with a high potential for impact and the ability to motivate change.
Through this program, EarthLab hopes to increase capacity across the UW for innovations in the application of transdisciplinary scholarship, deepen engagement with diverse community partners (e.g., practitioners, policy makers, tribes, community groups outside of UW), and fund research projects that address problems from multiple perspectives, ultimately generating knowledge that is both usable and used.
Ann Bostrom elected to Board of Directors for the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Ann Bostrom, Weyerhaeuser Endowed Professor in Environmental Policy at the UW Evans School of Public Policy and Governance and member of the EarthLab Executive Steering Committee, was elected to the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Her term starts in February 2019.
Congratulations, Ann!
3 steps to boost your child’s outdoor time — and health
According to the best available evidence, connecting with nature offers considerable promise in addressing a range of health challenges. Pooja S. Tandon, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children’s Hospital, assistant professor at the University of Washington, and active member of UW EarthLab’s Nature for Health initiative, and Kyle Yasuda, the 2018 president-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics and co-founder of BestStart Washington, penned an opinion piece in the Seattle Times about how outdoor play is correlated with physical activity, improved motor skills, better vision and vitamin D levels — especially in children.
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Center supports an action-oriented social science research agenda for the Salish Sea
The Center, with the Center for Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University, was awarded a four-year Title VI grant in September in part to build regional expertise on the Salish Sea. A key initiative includes support for Social Science for the Salish Sea, a project co-led by staff at UW EarthLab and the Puget Sound Partnership, that brings together over 40 social scientists and environmental practitioners from diverse disciplines, organizations, and Tribes and First Nations in the region to outline a research agenda aimed at improving our understanding of the human dimensions of the Salish Sea.
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UW, Tableau create interactive tool to explore more than a century of Pacific Northwest weather observations
The University of Washington’s College of the Environment has teamed up with Seattle visual analytics company Tableau Software to create a new, interactive visualization for historical observations of temperature and precipitation in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana, and for Washington snowpack.
The free online tool lets anybody interact with the records going back as far as 1881 and look for significant trends.
From skiing to salmon runs, the national climate report predicts a Northwest in peril
Climate change’s effects – among them, increasing wildfires, disease outbreak and drought – are taking a toll on the Northwest, and what’s to come will threaten and transform our way of life from the salmon streams to ski slopes, according to a new federal climate assessment released Friday.
The 1,000-plus-page report, produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is the most comprehensive evaluation to date of climate change’s effects on the nation’s economy, human health, agriculture and environment.
EarthLab initiative connects the UW to community members and practitioners
Ten years ago, the UW formed the College of the Environment. Across the UW, many researchers were already engaged in environmental studies, but were often isolated from each other by departmental niches. The College of the Environment strove to change this and developed a home for environmental science.
“It wasn’t enough to not only just bring all the Earth systems pieces together under the College of the Environment,” Harriet Bullitt Endowed Executive Director of EarthLab Ben Packard said.
New resources support tribes in preparing for climate change
Which Pacific Northwest streams will warm the most in the next 50 years, and where would restoration work make a difference for salmon? Where will wildfires and pests be most aggressive in forests as the Earth warms, and how can better management help?
As the natural world responds to climate change, American Indian tribes across the country are grappling with how to plan for a future that balances inevitable change with protecting the resources vital to their cultural traditions.