Category Archives: News

UCI Water PIRE team launches a K-12 outreach program with The Academy in Santa Ana, featuring a spellbinding performance by Professor Peter Bowler, the Water PIRE’s answer to Bill Nye the Science Guy. Read more here!

This is a new and exciting K-12 outreach program designed to leverage the intellectual and physical resources being generated by the UCI Water PIRE in the area of water sustainability. While some projects will focus on water issues in Australia, others will build on our research expertise to provide innovative and hands-on projects focused around topics in the US. Specifically, this program will:

• Provide an interactive format for students and teachers to engage outside experts in fields related to material being taught in the classroom.

• Demonstrate community interest in student learning and success by personally addressing student populations and their lessons/projects.

• Provide material easily assimilated into curricula and class time in the form of short (3-5 min. videos) covering topics selected by collaborative talks with teachers.

• Enhance student curiosity in subject matter by stimulating classroom discussions and responding to student questions.

We recently participated in a project based learning exercise developed by Blaine Jones, PH at The Academy in Santa Ana. His high school students were charged with preparing for and holding a debate about the fate of the O’Shaughnessy Dam, which created the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite. Students had to learn about the water cycle, how water is managed, and how that management affects different groups of people such as fishermen and hydroelectric power companies.

We developed a complementary program, PIREwolf Productions*, to make videos directly addressing Blaine’s students (aka the Firewolves), discussing several factors that should be considered when deciding on the removal of the O’Shaughnessy Dam (or of any dam or infrastructure) and also answered their questions directly.

We were then invited to watch the ferocious (yet still diplomatic) debates held in the Firewolves’ den. At the end of these debates, the invited audience members determined who won the debate (not an easy task!) based on information presented and arguments made. Students were also evaluated in order to help them improve their public speaking and debate skills.

What a fantastic way to prepare for the real world! We are already working to grow our video library for Firewolves participating in this & other project based learning exercises with the help of RBF Consulting, CH2M Hill, and of course other PIRE researchers & friends.

If you would like to learn more about how PIREwolf Productions can interact directly with your classes please contact us at water-pire@uci.edu

*When students at The Academy were deciding on their mascot they were torn between the phoenix and the wolf. A compromise was reached by creating the Firewolf. Inspired by the Firewolf mascot’s origins and to acknowledge The Academy’s help in the initial development of this program, we decided to call this program PIREwolf Productions. Thank you, Firewolves!

Teacher Workshop Series

We are currently developing a workshop series that would help guide the generation of problem based learning exercises for direct implementation in the participants’ classrooms. Our goal is to help teachers develop exercises they feel confident to present, that cover numerous NGSS**, and promote higher order thinking related to Water PIRE’s primary outreach educational goals. Please check back for more details soon!

PIRE Under Fire

Inspired by Alan Alda’s The Flame Challenge and our recent interactions with The Academy Firewolves, PIRE Under Fire is a program designed to challenge our science communication skills while educating various K-12 audiences. Water PIRE participants will be explaining various water-related concepts with the goal of educating their audience members while improving their science communication skills through audience critiques. Our participants will create short videos answering questions or explaining concepts selected by K-12 students and/or teachers, which will then be judged by the appropriate audience with a winning video selected.

If you or your students have a concept or question for our PIRE participants to address, you would like your class to participate in the judging, or if you would like more information please contact us at water-pire@uci.edu

We plan to kick off this program in the fall of 2014. Check back for more details soon!

Get Connected! – UCI Water-PIRE Bolsters Social Media Presence

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Two PIRE researchers present their findings on urban impacts on coastal waters and low-energy treatment by hyporheic exchange at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meetings in Honolulu. Click here for more information!

The 17^th biennial Ocean Sciences Meeting, co-sponsored by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), The Oceanography Society (TOS), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), was held at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu from the 23-28 February 2014. The Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) is an important venue for scientific exchange across broad marine science disciplines. Sessions included all aspects of oceanography, especially multidisciplinary topics, as well as presentations that reflect new and emerging research on the global ocean and society, including science education, outreach and public policy. The OSM originated in 1982 as a joint effort between AGU and ASLO, TOS joined as a regular co-sponsor in 2004.

Increasing evidence of multiple human impacts on the oceans makes this is a critical time for the largest international assembly of ocean scientists, engineers, students, educators, policy makers, and other stake holders to gather and share their results on research, application of research, and education. What better place to hold the meeting than an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where there is emphasis on mauka to makai (ridge to reef) connection, the ultimate in ecosystem-based management; where there is interest in combining traditional knowledge with science-based understanding; where islands are in threat of disappearing from sea level rise; and where East and West can easily meet? Throughout their history, Hawaiians have demonstrated a thorough understanding of sustainability with an approach to land and water use that allowed them to self-sustain nearly one million islanders. Today they build on that heritage with innovations in science and clean energy. Hawaii is a place where interdependence and sustainability are both historic and necessary.

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PIRE Team to Produce Book on Water Sustainable Cities

The PIRE team has been awarded a contract to produce “The Water Sustainable City: Science, Policy and Practice.” To be published by Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd (UK) in 2015. The text will provide a timely, accessible introduction to the challenges in providing low-energy options to improve water productivity in cities. Aimed especially at graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and practitioners, the proposal was lauded by one reviewer as providing “. . . one of the very few (books) that treat cities and water explicitly, and the only one at its level that addresses these concerns with serious scientific and technical acumen . . . without ignoring the political angle.” Drawing on the insights of NSF-PIRE collaborators, the authors – including Dave Feldman (lead author/editor), Stan Grant, Jean-Daniel Saphores, Sunny Jiang, Ashmita Sengupta, Lindsey Stuvick, Lisa Levin, and Richard Ambrose – will address public health, ecological, economic, and governance issues.

Dr. David Feldman	Dr. Stanley Grant	Dr. Jean-Daniel Saphores	Dr. Sunny Jiang

 

Dr. Ashmita Sengupta	Lindsey Stuvick	Dr. Lisa Levin	Dr. Rich Ambrose

 

“PIRE holds an all-hands-on-deck strategic planning meeting at UCI. Find out what’s in store for 2014!”

The PIRE team had quite the day of planning for the 2014 year this last Saturday, January 25th. Please see below to check out the agenda, PowerPoint presentations and video (coming soon) from the day!

Agenda:

2014 PIRE Retreat Agenda

Dr. Stanley Grant – UCI State of the Budget UPP Down Under Closure – Overview of Field Sites Visited in 2013 Proposed Reciprocal Program with University of Monash Hyporheic Exchange and Urban Water Demand

Dr. Lisa Levin – UCSD Overview of Ecological Results in 2013 Animal Communities in Wetlands & Biofilters

Dr. Megan Rippy – Post Doctoral Researcher – UCI Overview of Physical/Chlorophyll Results in 2013 Evaporation Concepts – Stormwater Fountains as Public Art Post Doctoral Research Status Report

Dr. Sunny Jiang – UCI Overview of Pathogen Results in 2013 Pathogens & Public Health Risks

Dr. Lisa Kohne – SmartStart Lessons From the 2013 UPP Down Under Evaluation of 2013 CASQA Meetings

Edith De Guzman – TreePeople Tree People Summary

Jian Peng – County of Orange OC Stormwater Low Impact Retrofit

Matt Yeager, Chris Crompton, Mark Grey – County of Orange, Yeager Environmental OC Fletcher Basin

Amanda Carr – City of Irvine How to Submit a Successful Prop 84 Proposal

Dr. Richard Demerjian – UCI UCI’s Stormwater Infrastructure Evaporation Concepts – Misting Stormwater to Grow Redwood Forests

Dr. David Feldman Urban Water Sustainability Textbook UCI Activities Strategic Planning for 2014 and Beyond

Dr. Jean-Daniel Saphores – UCI Special Issues of WIRES Water Resource Economics and Public Perception

Dr. Amir Aghakouchak – UCI Proposed 2014 Conferences Defining/Predicting Drought

Dr. Diego Rosso – UCI Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Dr. Brett Sanders – UCI Flood Modeling

Dr. Richard Ambrose – UCLA Plant Communities in Wetlands & Biofilters

Dr. Jack Brouwer – UCI Opportunities for Energy Related Research

Dr. Andrew Mehring – UCSD Post-Doctoral Status Report

Dr. Brandon Winfrey – UCLA Post-Doctoral Status Report

Lindsey Stuvick – UCI Post-Doctoral Status Report