A unique lab class: UW students explore nation’s largest dam removal

Students on the Barnes

The Friday Harbor Laboratories, located on the remote shores of the San Juan Islands, provide a unique setting for students to live and breathe marine research. This spring, a group of students from several different colleges and universities participated in one of the labs’ apprenticeships looking at the effects of the Elwha Dam removal on the Strait of Juan de Fuca’s marine environment. 

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Ocean technology course ends spring quarter with a splash

The Pacific Northwest (photo: John Meyer)

Seawater and electronics don’t typically make a good mix. But those were the two key ingredients for a University of Washington undergraduate course that had students build their own Internet-connected oceanographic sensors. The students were getting their feet wet, literally, in a new type of oceanography that uses remote instruments to collect real-time data. During the final class May 31, seven instruments were lowered off the UW’s oceanography dock, immersed in saltwater for the first time, and successfully sent their readings back to laptops on shore. 

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College of the Environment awards first Hall Conservation Genetics Research Awards

DNA (photo: Pixabay)

The College of the Environment is pleased to announce Meryl Mims and Charlie Waters—both of the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences—as the first recipients of the Hall Conservation Genetics Research Award, which is made possible by a generous gift from the Benjamin and Margaret Hall Charitable Lead Trust. Meryl is doctoral candidate working on a project entitled “Conservation genetics of a Distinct Population Segment of the cryptic dryland amphibian Hyla wrightorum (the Arizona treefrog)” along with her faculty advisor Julian Olden. 

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Congratulations to our 2014-15 scholarship and fellowship recipients

The College of the Environment Dean’s Office is pleased to announce our 2014-2015 scholarship and fellowship awardees. Graduate and undergraduate students alike compete for multiple funds available and are able to apply them towards tuition and costs in the coming academic year. The Dean’s Office offers numerous scholarship and fellowship opportunities to match the diverse needs of our students and this year over $90,000 was awarded to a total of 23 students. 

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UW students restoring portal into Lake Washington’s past

Western Red Cedar Cones (photo: Walter Siegmund)

Yesler Swamp is emerging as a great example of what once was a common feature on our local landscape, thanks to efforts lead by professor Kern Ewing in the College of the Environment’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Student groups and others are working to restore the area to what it was nearly 150 years ago, a swamp dominated by western red cedar. 

Read more at the Seattle Times »