With the arrival of 456 third- through fifth-graders at the University of Georgia Rock Eagle 4-H Center on Thursday, Oct. 10, Georgia 4-H marked its millionth student served by its environmental education program.
While Georgia 4-H may be best known for student leadership and skills development programs offered through UGA Extension's 4-H clubs, the organization has offered environmental education to youth across the Southeast since 1979. The programs are open to all Georgia students, whether they attend class at public or private schools or are home-schooled.
The University of Georgia Performing Arts Center has created a new family concert series called the Saturday Morning Club. Designed for children ages 4-12, the series will feature performers from UGA's Hugh Hodgson School of Music and will give young audiences an inside look at what it takes to make music.
The University of Georgia's Lynne Billard has been selected to receive the 2013 Florence Nightingale David Award by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies. Billard is a professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of statistics.
Established in 2001 and jointly sponsored by the Caucus for Women in Statistics, every two years the F.N. David Award biannually recognizes a female statistician who exemplifies David's contributions to education, science and public service. The award was announced at the COPSS awards session during the Joint Statistical Meetings.
Billard has long been recognized for her statistics research, her leadership of multidisciplinary collaborative groups and as a role model for women in science.
The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has launched an online resource for Georgia teachers looking to start or take full advantage of their school's gardens.
Hundreds of schools in Georgia now have school gardens, and October—which is Farm to School Month—is a great time to use the gardens to help students connect classroom lessons and the natural world, said David Knauft, a professor of horticulture at UGA.
The UGA Extension School Garden Resource Center, launched Oct. 1, offers teachers in kindergarten through eighth grade lesson plans that use school gardens to teach the curriculum prescribed in the Georgia Performance Standards.
Sylvia M. Hutchinson, a professor emerita, has been named director of academic partnerships and initiatives at the University of Georgia. She will join the Division of Student Affairs staff to coordinate a new strategic priority to formalize and strengthen partnerships with campus academic units, according to an announcement by Victor K. Wilson, UGA vice president for student affairs.
Her position will be responsible for building a network of student affairs partnerships with academic degree programs and instructional enterprises, as well as fostering learning opportunities for students.
The Center for International Trade and Security in the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs has received four grants totaling more than $700,000 from the U.S. State Department to improve security in Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The grants are part of the State Department's ongoing efforts to stem the illegal spread of dangerous chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials and technologies that could be used to build weapons of mass destruction by non-state groups, terrorists and other entities with malicious intent.
CITS will work closely with the U.S. State Department, the government of Kenya and other stakeholders to train top government officials-including legislators, leaders in relevant Kenyan agencies, border control officials, port authority agents, and the national police-to create a system of strategic trade controls that will promote legitimate trade and eliminate smuggling of materials that can be used to make extremely powerful unconventional weapons.
Four University of Georgia faculty members—Julian Cook, Tracie Costantino, Sarah Covert and Tom Reichert—will gain expertise in academic leadership as SEC Administrative Fellows for 2013-2014.
The Administrative Fellows program at UGA is part of a broader Academic Leadership Development Program of the Southeastern Conference. The program seeks to identify, prepare and advance academic leaders for roles within SEC institutions and beyond.
As the Gulf Coast continues to recover from the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists from the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography are continuing to look into the long-term effects of the spill on coastal marine life. A team led by Skidaway Institute professor Richard Lee recently completed preliminary work into the effect dispersed and emulsified oil has on blue crabs and shrimp. The project includes vital information from fishermen and crabbers in the Gulf.
Georgia Sea Grant, a public service and outreach unit of the University of Georgia, and North Carolina Sea Grant are launching a project to help St. Marys and Hyde County, N.C., plan for sea level rise, increased coastal flooding and intensified storm surges.
Funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the project is part of the National Sea Grant College Program's nationwide effort to assist communities in preparing for the current and predicted impacts of these and other coastal changes. UGA public service and outreach units, which also include the Carl Vinson Institute of Government and the Marine Extension Service, see the project as a means of helping ensure long-term economic livelihood in coastal communities.
St. Marys is one of the most vulnerable cities in Georgia to impacts such as sea level rise, increased coastal flooding and intensified storm surges.
A team of senior researchers at the University of Georgia have received a five-year $7.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to help better understand one of the most fundamental building blocks of life.
They are tiny chains of sugar molecules called glycans, and they cover the surface of every living cell in the human body-providing the necessary machinery for those cells to communicate, replicate and survive. But they're not all good. Glycans support the function of all cells, including those that cause cancer, viral and bacterial infections, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders.
This makes them an attractive target for new treatments, and the experiments supported by this grant promise to speed the development of new, more effective therapies for many of humanity's most insidious diseases and increase our understanding of the body's most basic cellular functions.
