Academics

In the course “Spring Comes to the Cascades,” students don’t just read about the forests of the Western Cascade Mountains – they hike and snowshoe through them.

Along the way they learn how climate, elevation, disturbances such as fire and insects and other factors shape the forests. Tom Hinckley, professor of environmental and forest sciences,  originated the course 12 years ago and has taught it every year since, even now that he’s retired.

The University of Washington has been ranked seventh in the world for the number of journal articles published in 2012 in Nature or one of Nature’s main monthly research journals, some of the most widely cited journals in science.

Sustainability delivers a host of significant business and financial benefits to higher education. In addition to offering tremendous educational and environmental advantages to a college or university, it also makes sound economic sense -- especially with resources tightly constrained for the foreseeable future.

At the University of Washington (UW), we've implemented many conservation projects over the years that have embraced smarter processes and technologies for irrigating our grounds and powering our infrastructure.

Demos, films, exhibits at UW Tower Green Fair Thursday

“Recycle-Reuse” is the theme this year of the annual UW Tower Green Fair, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Thursday, March 14 in the UW Tower cafeteria.

It’s being presented in cooperation with the UW Tower Art Committee, which on the same day will open its new show of art made with recycled and found objects.

Turns out, the secret to fostering the emerging field of sustainability science is based on some simple and straightforward principles.

Speaking at a national meeting on a panel of academic leaders who focus on natural resource sustainability, College of the Environment Dean Lisa Graumlich said the college’s successful sustainability initiatives are grounded in long-standing relationships among scientists, local communities and decision-makers as well as widely accessible research data and results.

Some programmes that promote sustainability have augmented, rather than abandoned, their disciplinary approaches. For example, the University of Washington in Seattle runs a graduate certificate in Environmental Management that complements the research of students doing other graduate degrees. The students form multidisciplinary teams to tackle real-world problems presented by local, federal or tribal governments under a timeline and with specific 'deliverables' such as providing cost estimates for reducing a city's carbon footprint.

Is the question of global warming really a controversial issue or is it just framed as such by politicians, and the like, even though the majority of scientists agree on the facts?