This session will provide strategies and resources for including geospatial civic data into research, teaching, and community projects. This session will highlight data, geospatial, and civic literacies related to open government and community datasets. This session will aim to enhance responsible, ethical, and accessible use of geospatial civic data sources. In addition, open educational geospatial resources aimed at community geospatial data will be highlighted.
Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive
You're viewing an archived collection of past energy and environment events from around Penn State and beyond. Please visit our Event Calendar to view current and upcoming events.
Explore collaboration in the digester value chain with C-CHANGE. Learn how stakeholders can drive progress and uncover new opportunities.
The search for new phases of matter is one of the most thrilling challenges in materials science. Why? Because discovering and designing new materials unlocks groundbreaking technologies—from faster electronics to cleaner energy solutions. But what if, instead of following the conventional rules of stability, we embraced disorder? High-entropy oxides take an unconventional route, challenging the limits of traditional material design. Instead of relying on enthalpy-driven approaches, they harness entropy—deliberately mixing a wide variety of elements in a single crystal structure.
~ 375 million years ago, early tetrapods began transitioning from life in the water to life on land. To understand how they achieved this major transition, we study the fossil record and the diversity of living fishes. Here I’ll discuss two behaviors that are adaptations to life on land—walking and blinking—and how we are studying the origins of these behaviors to learn about joint mechanics and neural system evolution. These investigations help us to understand how functional innovations originate at evolutionary timescales and reveal new comparative systems for bio-inspired design.
The Penn State Sustainable Labs Program is an initiative where participating labs can work toward earning a My Green Lab Certification by improving practices in energy use, waste reduction, chemical management, and more!Join us for an info session to learn how your lab can get involved in next year’s cohort, the benefits of participation, and what to expect throughout the program. More details can be found at: https://sustainability.psu.edu/programs/sustainable-labs/
Kathleen Hill, director of the Center for Science and the Schools, and teaching professor of science education, will give the talk, “Center for Science and the Schools: Translating STEM Research to Improve K-12 Education.”The focus of the Center for Science and the Schools (CSATS), a University-wide center with expertise in translating technical research into programs for precollege teachers and students, is on growing and broadening participation in the STEM workforce pipeline by partnering with faculty on their research grants.
Bees are remarkable visual learners. After just a few learning flights, they are capable, repeatedly, of successfully traversing large distances from the nest and returning home with food. Despite these facts being well known for decades, it is still not clear how bees accomplish such feats. This bee learning is much more efficient than state-of-the-art AI training in robotics. We have recently developed a multicopter drone that can follow bees tagged with a small reflector to record videos and high-resolution trajectory data.
Join Dr. Liptzin as he discusses the national initiative led by the Soil Health Institute to identify essential soil measurements for improving soil health. This session will provide practical recommendations for farmers to assess and manage their soil health effectively. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights into soil health management and its importance for sustainable farming.Event DetailsModerated by a Penn State Extension field and forage crops educator, this one-hour webinar will feature a guest speaker from the Soil Health Institute.
Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and its international agriculture and development dual-title graduate program (INTAD) is inviting members of the Penn State community to explore their “ag love language” at this year’s Global Gallery symposium. This annual gathering showcases the agriculture-focused research of Penn State faculty and graduate students, celebrating the interdisciplinary connections that foster innovation and sustainability in global agriculture. Organizers encourage students, faculty and staff interested in the global food system to attend.
Join the Student Farm at the first Food Justice Summit, a dynamic and engaging event for students and faculty to come together to explore and address food justice at Penn State. Enjoy free food from a local caterer while participating in meaningful discussions and action-oriented workshops! All are welcome — students, staff, faculty and community members.What to Expect:• Key Insights: Learn about the key players in the food justice movement at Penn State and how their work is impacting our community.
Soaring population growth, supply and demand imbalance, shortage of ready-to-use remedies, and urbanization have imposed unprecedented challenges to satisfying the world’s essential needs. At the Bio-Soft Materials Laboratory (B-SMaL), we try to address some of the quintessential challenges of the 21st century in healthcare and environment by developing translatable colloidal systems based on the chemically-enabled micro- and nanoengineering of abundant biopolymers.
The plastic pollution crisis is deeply intertwined with the energy crisis, with projections indicating that by 2050, approximately 20% of fossil fuel consumption will be devoted to plastic production, contributing nearly 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions—double that of the aviation sector. To address these challenges, comprehensive systemic transformations are essential to decarbonize the U.S. plastic industry. This involves integrating bio- and waste-based supply chains and creating a circular economy loop for plastics through innovative recycling techniques.
The Penn State community is invited to attend the Online Data Summit, “Navigating the Next Wave: Data, Insights, and Collaboration," to be held Feb. 12 and 13. This year’s summit will feature five distinct tracks as well as presentations, panels and a Dashboard Showcase. Tracks include:
The Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) is a cornerstone for a wide spectrum of meteorological applications. It offers fast, accurate forward simulations and Jacobians with respect to state variables for various sensors, directly supporting research and operations in data assimilation, satellite retrievals, satellite calibration and validation, new sensor prototyping and development, retrieval algorithms, and a broad range of Earth system modeling and satellite simulation.
Humans have been coevolving with pathogens since the emergence of our species, leaving traces of these interactions embedded in our genome. Infectious diseases have exerted strong selective pressures on human populations throughout history and continue to pose significant global health challenges, accounting for nearly 15 million deaths annually despite advancements in vaccines and antibiotics. These enduring interactions highlight the profound influence of microbes on human evolution and underscore the need to understand the genetic and evolutionary factors shaping immune responses.
Shweta Bhogale studies whether administrations exacerbate the 'Tragedy of the Commons' for groundwater and impede adaptation to scarcity by influencing the decisions of individuals and nested governments. She uses a difference-in-differences framework that relies on the overlap of groundwater resources with districts, and the permeability of aquifers which facilitates spillovers across borders. She finds that policy spending in districts that compete more for groundwater escalates the dependence on groundwater irrigation, aggravating negative externalities.
The Penn State community is invited to attend the Online Data Summit, “Navigating the Next Wave: Data, Insights, and Collaboration," to be held Feb. 12 and 13. This year’s summit will feature five distinct tracks as well as presentations, panels and a Dashboard Showcase. Tracks include:
A free public lecture intended for a general audience.
The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Geoportal provides users with a discovery and search option for identifying map and geospatial content in a range of formats. This session will highlight search strategies for locating geospatial data resources, describe resource types available, and spotlight collections within the BTAA Geoportal, such as historical maps, open government data portals, aerial imagery, important farmland maps, and more.
Penn State's definition of sustainability is "the simultaneous pursuit of human health and happiness, environmental quality, and economic well-being for current and future generations." I will provide a brief update on what is happening with sustainability at Penn State and how this definition has translated into real solutions for real challenges. I will also highlight opportunities for faculty, students, and staff to get involved, including through education, research, operations, and helping to meet the land-grant mission.