Academics

Curiosity about what’s happening in some of the coldest places on Earth has prompted the University of Washington to launch its first Arctic Studies minor.

The program is the first of its kind offered by a university in the lower 48.

Nadine Fabbi, associate director of the Canadian Studies Center at the Jackson School of International Studies, says the impact of climate change on the region is just one of the reasons why the university has started this program.

The Runstad Center is pleased to announce a new Spring 2014 course offering:

RE 598: Green Building Law & Risk Mitigation
Tuesdays/Thursdays, 7 – 8:20 pm (3 credits)
Gould 440
Instructor:  Nicole DeNamur, JD & LEED Green Associate

This multidisciplinary course will focus on the intersection of green, high performing buildings and the law.  Topics will include:

The Northwest has long been a hub for Alaska-bound fishing vessels and scientific study of the Arctic.

The University of Washington’s new “Future of Ice” initiative seeks to build on that research in a region now undergoing rapid changes. The initiative includes several new hires, a new minor in Arctic studies and a winter lecture series.

A new University of Washington institute to develop efficient, cost-effective solar power and better energy storage systems launched today (Dec. 12) with an event attended by UW President Michael K. Young, Gov. Jay Inslee and researchers, industry experts and policy leaders in renewable energy.

An intensive two week field course – visiting sites of spectacular wildfires as well as forest restoration areas – helped 20 University of Washington students learn firsthand about the challenges of managing dry, fire-prone forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Traveling with Jerry Franklin, UW professor of environmental and forest science, the students explored forests of central and southern Oregon to consider how PNW forests have been dramatically altered by human activities in the last 150 years, and ways to possibly restore their resiliency to such things as wildfires.

A study recently published in the Nature Geoscience journal shows that ocean currents from the Earth’s poles are the reason why the northern hemisphere is warmer and rainier than the southern hemisphere.

The team included researchers from the UW, the University of Hawaii, Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. They found that warmer places are wetter because the air rises more frequently, allowing its moisture to precipitate.

The challenge of sustainability and the promise of mathematics will be discussed by biologist Simon Levin from Princeton University, 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 11, Kane 210 as Math Across Campus kicks off for the year.

The notion of keystone species, the loss of which can reverberate throughout the food web, is a concept taken for granted today but was unheard of when University of Washington biologist Robert Paine pioneered it in the 1960s.