University of Florida Office of Sustainability

The Washington Center for Undergraduate Education is accepting application for the 10th Annual National Summer Institute on Learning Communities, June 24-28, 2008.

The institute is designed to help campuses start or strengthen learning community programs. It draws on the wisdom of experienced learning community practitioners as well as the growing research on what makes learning communities an effective institutional change strategy aimed at improving student learning, persistence, and retention rates.

Colleges and universities selected for the institute are matched with resource faculty who are leaders in learning community work. Teams will attend workshops designed around practical problems, consult with resource faculty, and create a campus action plan for learning community development.

The 2008 institute will be held in partnership with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Development Network.

To apply for this institute or learn more about this and other events, visit the Washington Center website: www.evergreen.edu/washcenter

SOS 6932/4932-Water, Soil, and Public Health

This course is designed to highlight important instances
where water, soil, and public health merge - and to develop in
students skills required for competency in both disciplines.
Learn to take an integrative approach to identifying,
evaluating, and managing environmental health problems.

Instructors:
Liz H. Snyder, MPH
Dr. G. A. O’Connor
Dr. N. Freeman

Contact Liz for more info: lizah@ufl.edu

PhD Studentships

The Sustainability Institute

Applications are invited for 3-year full-time Research Studentships in Sustainability, to the value of £12,500pa plus tuition fees. The Studentships will be associated with The Sustainability Institute at the University of Gloucestershire.

The Sustainability Institute promotes excellence in research, education and social learning for sustainability. The Institute supports research which will result in change outcomes and makes a contribution to social and institutional progress. In the context of sustainability, progress is defined as an improved quality of life for all which does not endanger biodiversity or productivity of ecosystems.

Specifically, the Institute is seeking researchers who can make a contribution to one of the areas listed below:

a) Organisational change including studies which seek to support, document and learn from the experiences of change for sustainability in further and higher education.

b) Public sector including studies which seek to support, document and learn from needs, opportunities and change for sustainability experiences in government agencies.

c) Executive leadership and education including studies into mainstreaming sustainability within executive education programmes; studies into the development and support needs of existing leaders in the area of sustainability.

d) Professional education and practice including studies into how to mainstream sustainability into professional training and accreditation; workplace mentoring and learning in sustainability.

e) Monitoring and Evaluation in Education for Sustainable Development including studies into ESD indicators and the development of monitoring frameworks for the UN Decade in Education for Sustainable Development.

It is expected that the successful applicants will register for a PhD degree, and so will already have or be undertaking a relevant MA.
Candidates with no prior research methods training at Masters level will need to participate in the Certificate stage of the Masters in Research (Cert MRes).

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Daniella Tilbury via email at dtilbury@glos.ac.uk. An application form may be downloaded from:
http://www.glos.ac.uk/jobs/ Further Details are HERE

or obtained from the Postgraduate Research
Centre:

Postgraduate Research Centre
Research Office
University of Gloucestershire
The Park
Cheltenham
GL50 2RH

Tel: 01242 714157
Email: researchadmin@glos.ac.uk

Closing date for applications: Monday 3 December 2007

Interviews are expected to take place during the week beginning 17 December 2007.

The successful candidate will be expected to commence their studies as soon as possible after 7 January 2007.

This is the core course in the Natural Sciences subject area of the IE
curriculum at UF, and also can be taken as an elective.

See attached Description

Sustainable Energy Education and Training (SEET) Workshop

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ATEEC’S 2008 SEET WORKSHOP IN GOLDEN, CO:

The Advanced Technology Environmental Education Center (ATEEC, at www.ateec.org) announces that applications are now open for the 2008 SEET Workshop, July 7 – 18, 2008, offered by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) on location at the Lab in Golden, CO.

The SEET Workshop is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DUE#0602633) and is developed through a partnership among ATEEC, NREL, the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), Eastern Iowa Community College District, and the Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE). High school and two-year college science, math, and technology instructors from across the U.S. are invited to apply. Twenty-five (25) instructors will be selected to attend, with the following expenses covered: travel, lodging, meals, study materials, and optional tuition (for graduate credit through the Colorado School of Mines). Additional details and the workshop application are available on the ATEEC Web site at http://www.ateec.org/profdev/seet/2008.htm.

The primary goal of the SEET workshop project is to build the capacity of energy and environmental technicians to meet the challenges of sustainable energy in the 21st century workplace through two ten-day intensive annual workshops at NREL for technology instructors at upper level high school and community college levels in the content areas of energy efficiency and energy conservation. Content experts will share knowledge about research advances in energy technology, requirements for technicians, and implications for a sustainable energy future. Instructors who participate in the workshops will be connected and supported by an active online network and workshop follow-up support. Sustainable energy knowledge will be further extended to additional technology instructors through events coordinated by workshop participants in their home communities.

The 2008 workshop will focus on energy efficiency technologies and renewable energy. The workshop will provide hands-on, inquiry-based lab experiences; take-home equipment and training; and site visits and field work assisted by professional partners of the hosting institution. The workshop participants will team to identify teaching and learning strategies and materials to share with high school and two-year college educators in an online energy resources clearinghouse.

Send your application and two letters of reference by January 18, 2008 as directed on the application. (Please note that late or incomplete applications may not receive full consideration.) Questions not answered on the ATEEC Web site (http://www.ateec.org/profdev/seet/2008.htm) or the application may be directed to Melonee Docherty at mdocherty@eicc.edu.

 

PCB 5046 Advanced Ecology – Spring 2008

Instructor: Stephen Mulkey, PhD, 422 Carr Hall, 392-2775, mulkey@botany.ufl.edu, Office hours by appointment.

Class meeting: Tuesday and Thursday Periods 6-7; Williams 202

Overview of course: This is the first iteration of a graduate course in sustainability science and its development as an emerging research paradigm. It is intended to be a graduate survey of a diverse array of interdisciplinary literature focusing on pedagogy, methodology, and limitations of the concept of sustainability as it relates to the dynamic interactions between nature and society. Readings will be taken from the social and natural sciences, including a limited number of guest lectures from experts at UF. Fundamental skills in scholarship and interpretation of data will be reviewed during the first part of the course.

Requirements: Students will develop an independent project that encompasses linkages between social and natural science in their research area. Students will give two presentations on this or related topic. Readings will be posted to the web, and students will be responsible for giving a short verbal synopsis of one or two papers each class session. Students will be asked to play a significant role in determining the content of this course for this and future iterations.

Sequence of topics:

Orientation and poll of students on subject matter
Review of methods in interdisciplinary scholarship
History of ecology and its relation to sustainability science – review of PNAS 2003 special section on sustainability science.
Long-term trends in nature and society
Overview of the drivers of global change
Climate change mitigation and adaptations – implications for sustainability
Land use change as a driver of sustainable resource use
Medical ecology and human wellbeing
Ecosystem form and function, biodiversity, and ecosystem services
Vulnerability analysis of coupled human-environment systems
Designing knowledge systems for sustainable resource use
Limits to sustainability, population and the economics conundrum
Communicating complex science across disciplines and to the public