November 12, 2009
World Water Monitoring Day
Sponsored by Smithfield, VCU Life Sciences Education and Outreach hosted Charles City Middle School 6th graders for World Water Monitoring Day™ on Sept. 18, 2009.
WWMD is an international education and outreach program that builds public awareness and involvement in protecting water resources around the world, by engaging citizens in conducting basic monitoring of their local water bodies. Test kits were provided by Smithfield and students measured the dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity and temperature of the James River from the Rice Center Research Pier. Two VCU Ph.D. students, an undergraduate student and two Smithfield employees participated and helped direct the student groups.
The findings were added to an international database of water quality measurements from more than 70 countries.
November 5, 2009
VCU graduate student award winner
Michael Brandt, a graduate student in the VCU Center for Environmental Studies was one of three award winners in a “Best Student Presentation Competition” at the Virginia Water Research Conference held October 15 and 16, 2009. The conference attracted 140 water scientists and managers and 75 oral and poster presentations.
Brandt’s presentation was titled, “Factors Limiting Benthic Algal Abundance in Virginia Streams of the Coastal Plain.”
>> View the presentation [PowerPoint]
October 5, 2009
VCU kicks off Year of the Environment at Rice Center
Virginia Commonwealth University kicked off the Year of the Environment on Oct. 1 with the presentation of a plaque recognizing the Walter L. Rice Education Building at the VCU Rice Center as the first building in Virginia to achieve LEED Platinum Certification, the highest sustainability rating possible.
September 24, 2009
Rice Education Building wins “Project of the Year” in design awards
The Walter L. Rice Education Building at the VCU Rice Center has been named the region’s Overall Project of the Year in the Mid-Atlantic Construction magazine’s Best of 2009 awards program.“This selection proves that great things can come in small packages,” Bruce Buckley, editor of Mid-Atlantic Construction, said of the $2.8-million 4,890-sq-ft winning project. “Our jury reviewed a record number of entries—including several megaprojects—and The Walter L. Rice Education Building rose above the rest in the eyes of our jurors.”
Read more about the award
August 19, 2009
The Center for Conservation Biology at VCU Rice Center tracks flight of ‘Hope’
Hope, a whimbrel carrying a satellite transmitter, made landfall Friday evening on St. Croix after completing an extraordinary 100 hour, 5,720 kilometer (3,500 mile) flight over the open ocean toward her wintering grounds in South America.
The bird had been staging on Southampton Island in the northern reach of Hudson Bay since July 15 before leaving on a non-stop flight south on Aug. 10. The bird flew south over Hudson Bay, crossed the interior of Canada and New England to emerge from the coast of Maine and out over the open ocean.
Flying more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) over the ocean and east of Bermuda, Hope then turned south and moved toward the Caribbean. Before landing in St. Croix, Hope had been on the wing for six days with an average flight speed of 60 kilometers/hour (37 miles/hour).
Hope was originally captured and fitted with a satellite transmitter on May 19, while staging on the Delmarva Peninsula of Virginia. She left Virginia on May 26 and flew to the western shore of James Bay in Canada. She staged on James Bay for three weeks before flying to the MacKenzie River near Alaska and then on to the Beaufort Sea where she staged for more than two weeks before flying back to Hudson Bay. Hope has traveled more than 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles) since late May.
Hope is one of several birds that has been fitted with a state-of-the-art 9.5 gram, satellite transmitters in a collaborative effort by the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary - Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Chapter of the Nature Conservancy to discover migratory routes that connect breeding and winter areas, and to identify en route staging areas that are critical to the conservation of this declining species.
Updated tracking maps may be monitored on the CCB’s Web site.
Photo credit: CCB
This is a map of the migration route used by Hope from Southampton Island in upper Hudson Bay to near the Virgin Islands. She has been tracked using a 9.5 gram, solar-powered satellite transmitter.
Background
The whimbrel is a large, holarctic, highly migratory shorebird. The North American race includes two disjunct breeding populations both of which winter primarily in Central and South America. The western population breeds in Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada. The eastern population breeds south and west of Hudson Bay in Manitoba and Ontario. Both populations are of high conservation concern due to dramatic declines in recent decades.
Satellite tracking represents only one aspect of a broader, integrated investigation of whimbrel migration. During the past two years, the CCB in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has used conventional transmitters to examine stopover duration, conducted aerial surveys to estimate seasonal numbers, collected feather samples to locate summer and winter areas through stable-isotope analysis, and has initiated a whimbrel watch program. Continued research is planned to further link populations across staging, breeding and wintering areas, and to determine the ecological requirements of whimbrels staging along the peninsula.
August 12, 2009
VCU receives $1.2 million gift to support Rice Center
Virginia Commonwealth University has received a $1.2 million gift from long-time benefactor Inger Rice.
The gift was made in recognition of the start of Michael Rao’s tenure as VCU president, and will support initiatives at the Inger and Walter Rice Center for Environmental Life Sciences in Charles City County.
Read more about the gift