Student Sustainability Summit 2023

Ensuring food and nutrition security in the backdrop of a growing global population, climate, and competition for natural resources is one of the main challenges in food production systems. There is a prediction that we will see more changes in our food systems over the next ten years than we have over the past several decades. This shows the need for modern approaches to respond to unique demands on our food system and work to ensure that the food supply remains safe, robust, and resilient in the face of a growing global population. This presentation will highlight the role of aquatic seafood production systems (i.e., aquaculture, wild capture fisheries, and cellular agriculture) in sustainable food production.

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Climate change and other sustainability issues present daunting challenges requiring large-scale actions, often at a global level. Oftentimes, the scope and scale of the problems we face leaves us feeling hopeless. Can individuals make meaningful contributions to sustainable solutions in the face of such large-scale problems? My presentation will provide a hopeful answer.

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In 2010, Ted Carver, CEO at Edison International was quoted in National Geographic, the power industry faces “more change in the next ten years than we've seen in the last hundred.” That has turned out to be true as solar, wind, energy storage, microgrids, and other exciting technologies continue to progress requiring the modernization of the electric grid, the critical infrastructure component of a decarbonized economy.

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Will give a brief overview of the various state and campus requirements, regulations, and policies relating to green building. This will include a synopsis of the Maryland High Performance Green Building Program, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, energy code requirements, and state green purchasing requirements. I will also discuss the green building aspects of some of our campus buildings.

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Given the scale of the climate crisis, the short timeframe for action, and insufficient progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there is a need for scaling up carbon capture and removal technologies to meet net-zero goals by midcentury. This session will discuss the technological, economic, and regulatory barriers that need to be addressed to enable large-scale deployment of carbon management technologies.

Given the scale of the climate crisis, the short timeframe for action, and insufficient progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there is a need for scaling up carbon capture and removal technologies to meet net-zero goals by midcentury. This session will discuss the technological, economic, and regulatory barriers that need to be addressed to enable large-scale deployment of carbon management technologies.

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Facing the difficult truths of the climate emergency; apocalyptic disaster or transformational moment in history?

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Chesapeake Water Watch - How a citizen science program is training NASA satellites to be used as water quality monitoring tools

Climate models are indispensable tools in planning for a sustainable future. But, results from models need to be interpreted carefully before we use them to make decisions.

The invasive species zebra mussels have caused significant damages to many lakes and rivers. By using a hybrid population model with discrete-time equations and ordinary differential equations, we represent the zebra mussel's life cycle and its population spread. The goal is to investigate the effects of zebra mussel movement between different spatial locations. Zebra mussel data and temperature values from the Hudson River over several years were used to estimate model parameters. We will illustrate numerically the hybrid population model for several scenarios.

StyrofoamMom is an environmental film that examines the challenges involved in eliminating single-use plastics and specifically ESP or Expanded Polystyrene.
The film includes interviews with Cheryl Kaagen, a Maryland State Senator, concerned with the impact on the Chesapeake Bay and the fish, wildlife and public health of her state. Greg Kasten, President and CEO of Ocean Pro Industries & Profish, Ltd., in Washington, DC, gives his perspective on the use of styrofoam in the fishing industry. Alexandria Dysard, Director of Sustainability, Mom's Organic Market, addresses the challenge to keep styrofoam out of the retail grocery chain and recycling the product. Michael Levy, American Chemistry Council, discusses the efforts of his organization to recycle Styrofoam. Gennari also focuses on the removal of styrofoam from Fairfax county schools through her interviews with youth. Baltimore Beyond Plastic is an organization whose spokeswomen led the charge for Maryland styrofoam legislation.
Gennari gives air time to these collective voices in her film which is dedicated to improve the health and well being of her community, the oceans and the marine life affected by single-use plastics and styrofoam. The increasing popularity of ordering products via the Internet has led to the proliferation of styrofoam and threatens our environment. Gennari takes a look at solutions to the current challenges communities face as they seek to eliminate styrofoam use.
Her #holdthefoam campaign has received global attention through Arlington Public Media on her program Sustainable Scoop in Arlington, Virginia, and throughout the country. The film StyrofoamMom was released in March 2019 and is set to be screened in film festivals and with environmentally responsible organizations like the Sierra Club, the Center for Concern in Washington, DC, universities and trade associations.

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Join us in-person Thursday April 13th from 6-7pm for an incredible environmental justice panel with UMD's environmental justice student organization, 17 for Peace and Justice. The goal of this panel is to introduce and expand conversations surrounding environmental justice and to inspire students by offering insight from prominent trailblazers who have founded their own organizations working to shape public policy and address environmental injustices.

Key panelists include Vernice Miller-Travis, who co-authored the “Toxic Waste and Race in the United States” a landmark report that gave birth to the environmental justice movement and other prominent emerging leaders including Yinka Bode-George who recently founded her own EJ organization called Sustain our Future and Ruby Stemmle, CEO of EcoLatinos.

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A recent report from the IPCC (2021) states that increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations, as well as the warming of atmospheric temperature, ocean, and land, are undeniably caused by human actions. Climate anxiety could serve to either increase or decrease actions to resolve some climate change challenges and may be moderated by psychological flexibility as a behavioral process. In the current study, we recruited a representative sample of 500 participants using crowdsourcing platforms. Climate action was measured using two assessments, the Stanford Climate Change Behavior Scales and the EARTH-beta. Climate anxiety was measured using the Climate Anxiety Scale and psychological flexibility was measured using the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire 2. Results supported convergence of the two behavior scales supporting interrelatedness of pro-climate action, and a positive relationship was observed between climate anxiety and climate action. Further analysis suggest that participants who were both anxious about climate change and psychologically flexible were most likely to engage in climate action. Implications for climate policy are discussed.

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Exploitation of renewable resources in a sustainable way is extremely important if we want to preserve them for future generations. Fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay are key renewable resources whose harvesting supports the economic prosperity of the Bay's local communities, but they are also important for the biodiversity and ecological sustainability of the largest estuary of the United States. In this talk, I will discuss the use of mathematical modeling to study how we can balance economic harvesting goals with ecological harvesting goals for long term sustainability in relation to three important fish in the Bay area: Atlantic menhaden, striped bass, and the non-native blue catfish. Using one prey-two predator system, we study the bionomic equilibria, the maximum sustainable yield, the maximum economic yield policies, and their effects on the fisheries long term sustainability. Using actual time series abundance data for the Atlantic menhaden and striped bass we analyze the resilience of the system under different harvesting policies.

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Low crop productivity and weather variability contribute to food insecurity in Kenya. Having earlier insight on seasonal crop yields would improve economical and agricultural security as well as national health. Recent improvements to EO (earth observation) satellites and machine learning technology have provided new data products that can be used to advance crop yield forecasting. The purpose of this study is to apply machine learning to the Kenyan maize crop yield forecast. Agrometeorological EO products from 2002 - 2016 are used as model inputs, including precipitation, temperature, evaporative stress index, soil moisture, and Normalized Difference Vegetative Index. Ridge Regression, Random Forest, and MERF (Mixed Effect Random Forest) models are evaluated. Testing optimizes accuracy for the prediction of lower yields where there is increased famine risk. After optimization, RMSE values were found to be x and y for the Random Forest and MERF model respectively, and precipitation was found to have the highest feature importance. A consistent R^2 range between 0.75-0.97 suggests that these models hold promise for providing early warning predictions.

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Soil pH has an important but often overlooked role in normal plant growth for a variety of reasons - it affects the availability of various nutrients and the activity of many micro organisms. The optimum range for most plant species is around 6-8, with notable exceptions like the blueberry, which favors acidic soil. In this experiment, I tested the impact of increasing soil pH on Helianthus annuus hybrida (Ruby Eclipse Sunflower). 7 individuals were grown in potted soil with a pH of approximately 8, while 6 individuals were grown in unmodified potted soil as a control. pH was increased using a solution of 1 tablespoon of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in 1 gallon of water. The date of germination was logged, and so was plant height once every 2 days, for 20 days. After experimentation was complete, i ran a t-test on the data set collected on the last day to calculate statistical significance. The calculated t-value of 0.35 is much lower than the critical t-value of 2.201, so I conclude that sunflowers are not significantly affected by increasing soil pH to 8. This indicates that sunflowers are tolerant of pH changes, and that thus they can be grown in more basic soils efficiently.

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This project uses historical and modern newspaper data to evaluate the historical transition away from Yankee Whaling in New Bedford and Nantucket, MA, and the modern transition from offshore oil to offshore wind energy in Houma, LA, and Galveston, TX. The Massachusetts communities used the Yankee whaler archetype to defend historical modes of production and retain heritage and power. Now, in Houma, LA, and Galveston, TX, the archetype of the Gulf oil worker is used to reinforce the importance of offshore energy work by many, while opponents use the archetype to resist energy transitions toward wind. Rather than fighting the archetype of the oil worker or the cultural importance of oil, the continuity of offshore energy work from oil to wind should be emphasized to create community support for offshore wind energy projects.

Although difficult to obtain, having an accurate estimate of a colony’s population allows researchers and beekeepers to better understand trends in a bee hive’s health. This work presents an algorithm utilizing a Dynamic Vision Sensor for tracking flying bees in real time with the intent of accurately monitoring the population of an Apis mellifera colony. Neuromorphic sensors like the Dynamic Vision Sensor are uniquely suited for detecting small fast-moving bees with minimal latency due to the asynchronous event-based design which detects changes in brightness rather than processing images in traditional video frames. To test the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, the event-based sensor is set outside of a hive entrance alongside a traditional camera and the algorithm’s population estimate is compared to a manually verified estimate. With further improvement, this methodology could provide accurate population estimates in real time without requiring extensive modification that limits the movement of the hive.

My project, individully done with the help of my family. is a research project on electric vehicles. There has been a discussion if electric is really that worth it. With its lavish advertisements and sleek looks from different companies, there has been a huge market for electric cars. Being told they are energy efficiant and environmentally safe, people are buying these cars in an instant. But I personally think that there might be more to the story. I have been hearing complaints, and there is a side to this story that people are not considering. I aim to present a well-rounded picture of the EV market, including the advantages and disadvantages of investing in an EV, as well as a comprehensive overview of the EV industry, wanting to answer a big question: Are electric Vehicles worth it?

This past fall semester, I participated in a research project with a group of undergraduate students. We surveyed an island in Montgomery county to look for endangered species of bats. We set up four ultrasonic monitors in different habitats across the island. Each week students went to the island to retrieve SD cards and run them through Kaleidoscope Pro software that identified what type of bats were echolocating neat the monitor. Although no federally endangered species were found, many other species were and we learned a lot about fieldwork. Our findings are presented on this PosterBoard.

HHO gas has several uses. It can be used to power cars by being burned in a combustion chamber, replace fossil fuels, and protect the environment by only emitting water as a byproduct. Therefore, it is a reliable source of clean energy. Aware of the advantages, my goal is to produce HHO gas sustainably by preventing corrosion in the HHO generator. Researchers have attempted to mitigate corrosion in the HHO generator by using a thick layer of zinc as a sacrificial metal. However, this process is inefficient because additional layers of zinc must be applied at regular intervals. Otherwise, the generator will corrode to the point of being unable to produce HHO gas. My solution is an innovation over existing processes because rather than using an overly alkaline solution with large amounts of dissolved NaOH, citric acid is added to the solution to produce a buffer solution around 7 pH. The hypothesis is that the total dissolved solutes will still enable electrical conduction while the neutral pH prevents corrosion. Using a buffered solution also has the added advantage of maintaining a constant pH for greater durations of time. Moreover, rather than taking the HHO generator apart to cake on zinc, additional NaOH or citric acid can more simply be added to bring the pH back to 7.

Algal blooms are detrimental to both life and the economy as they lead to unusual marine mortality events through cyanobacteria contamination. Unfortunately, detecting and predicting these events can be costly and challenging, with chlorophyll sensors costing at least $2000. In this study, we developed an affordable and dependable method for predicting algal blooms through the use of an Artificial Neural Network with Keras and Sklearn. In addition, we designed a low-cost, environmentally friendly buoy that can provide real-time data on wind speed, UV index, pH, water temperature, and salinity. The buoy was developed for just $140, a 93% decrease in cost compared to current methods. Additionally, the buoy was equipped with imaging and notification capabilities using AWS services, enabling relevant parties to be informed of harmful conditions. The ANN was trained using data from the National Centers for Environmental Information, which provided water quality data sets for Lake Erie and Saginaw Bay. The model demonstrated 95.24% accuracy in predicting elevated chlorophyll levels. The buoy and its algorithm show a significant improvement over current methods of detecting elevated chlorophyll levels, allowing authorities to take timely action to minimize damage from algal blooms.