EMS Sustainability News

Two Penn State researchers received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation through the Belmont Forum to study actual and perceived impacts of land abandonment on the sustainability of soil and water resources. 

A new study may fill in gaps in understanding public perception toward prescribed burns in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic, where these fires are increasingly used, according to scientists.

Kaitlyn Spangler, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geography at Penn State, will discuss issues relating to crop diversity in her talk "Beyond corn, soy and wheat? Re-imagining a diverse U.S. agricultural landscape.”

Lexie Hain, director of agrivoltaics and land management at Lightsource bp, will introduce solar grazing as an agrivoltaic practice, and discuss ecosystem service considerations, as well as aspects of performance, professionalism, and potential implementation in her talk "Agricultural integration and solar facilities: Agrivoltaics in context" at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24.

Jenn Baka, associate professor of geography at Penn State, received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award to examine a new cracker plant’s impact on humans’ relationship to the environment and environmental policymaking.

Tom Murphy, director of the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research at Penn State, will answer questions around solar development in his talk "Utility Scale Solar and Pennsylvania – Trends, Impacts, and Implications." 

Computer games are an effective way to teach ecological issues and build pro-environment policy support, according to published research by an interdisciplinary group of Penn State scholars.

Kaitlyn Spangler, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geography at Penn State, will deliver the talk "Towards solar justice in Pennsylvania: tensions of land, farming, and power" at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 10.

Rob Altenburg, director of the PennFuture Energy Center, will deliver the talk "Solar Policy and Politics in Pennsylvania" at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 3.

A new study may improve the ability of pyrolysis to process hard-to-recycle mixed plastics — like multilayer food packaging — and generate fuel as a byproduct, the scientists said.