From innovative student ideas to campus programs and campaigns, UMBC is going green—and getting noticed. The Princeton Review has recognized UMBC as a college raising the bar on sustainability in its 2013 Guide to 322 Green Colleges.

The annual guide profiles higher education institutions in the U.S. and Canada that demonstrate a strong commitment to sustainability in their academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation.

To determine which schools qualify, colleges and universities are rated based on institutional data such as the school’s energy consumption, green transportation programs, and the level of dedication for sustainability in and out of the classroom.

UMBC was noted for its successful student programs, including the Biodiesel Club’s sustainability project and a student-driven initiative to bring a farmer’s market and community garden to campus. The list also highlighted UMBC’s efforts to increase its renewable energy resources, the new LEED certified Performing Arts and Humanities Building, and its educational campaign for recycling.

The traveling exhibition For All the World to See: Visual Culture the Struggle for Civil Rights curated by Maurice Berger, CADVC, and organized by the CADVC has been selected as a critic’s pick for Artforum Magazine by Chelsea Haines. Haines describes the exhibition as one that, “provides a historical mirror for our current moment of global unrest, in which demands and claims over cultural ownership have spurred almost as much social momentum as the toppling of states.”

Read the review of the exhibition at Artforum’s website.

“NBC Learn, an educational division of the television network, came to Baltimore recently to report on how the physical alteration of streams in urban areas makes it that much harder for them to handle polluted storm-water runoff. It highlights research on area streams that’s being led by Claire Welty, a hydrologist at University of Maryland Baltimore County,” writes Tim Wheeler of the Baltimore Sun.

Welty, the Director, Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE) and professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering takes NBC Learn on a tour of Baltimore’s streams.

“With NBC correspondent Anne Thompson narrating, Welty shows and tells how the loss of vegetation along stream banks and their channeling through concrete culverts deprives them of natural ability to filter out the pollution that causes algae blooms locally and dead zones far downstream in the Chesapeake Bay. The culprits are nutrients – notably nitrates from fertilizer, animal waste and even fallout from air pollution – washed off city streets, parking lots and yards whenever it rains,” continues Wheeler.

You may watch the video here:
http://science360.gov/obj/tkn-video/f535d962-4086-4e01-8e0f-2a57f810738b/sustainability-water-baltimores-urban-streams

Sustainability: Water - Baltimore's Urban Streams

Baltimore, Maryland is a major city situated on the Chesapeake Bay- a sprawling 64,000 square mile watershed. Currently, the Chesapeake is facing an environmental crisis due to pollutants. Scientist Claire Welty of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County is monitoring the travel times of pollutants in the urban streams in and around Baltimore. Through her research, she hopes to gain an understanding of the urban water cycle, and how municipalities can better prevent pollutants from contaminating the greater watershed.

Provided by the National Science Foundation & NBC Learn

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