{"id":132473,"date":"2026-09-23T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/?p=132473"},"modified":"2026-09-23T13:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T17:17:10","slug":"oct-1-owu-environment-sustainability-labs-host-open-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/oct-1-owu-environment-sustainability-labs-host-open-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Oct. 1 &#8211; OWU Environment &amp; Sustainability Labs Host Open House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Students interested in environment and sustainability applications and hands-on learning are invited to visit three research and teaching laboratories on <\/span><b>Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026, from 12 to 1 p.m. in the Schimmel\/Conrades Science Center, second floor<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The SWIRL, ALOE, and GURL laboratories will open their doors to the OWU community, offering students an opportunity to learn more about the research, projects, equipment, and student experiences taking place within the Department of Environment &amp; Sustainability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Each laboratory represents a different area of environment and sustainability research:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>SWIRL<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (Soil and Water Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory), located in SCSC 221, is the department\u2019s newest research and teaching laboratory and was recently established by new faculty member Dr. Carolina C. Barbosa. SWIRL focuses on interactions among soil, water, climate, and land-use change, with an emphasis on connecting environmental data and field observations to real-world water and soil management challenges. Current student research projects include investigating long-term changes in land use and water quality in the Old Woman Creek, a freshwater estuary connected to Lake Erie; examining salinization trends in the Delaware Run watershed; and studying phytoplankton communities in five drinking-water reservoirs, including relationships between algal biovolume, water-quality conditions, and harmful algal bloom events.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>ALOE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (Anderson Lab of Ecology), located in SCSC 247, focuses on plant interactions with the environment. ALOE\u2019s current projects focus on studying temperate forest responses to environmental change through long-term monitoring. ALOE maintains sets of 20 x 20 m forest monitoring plots for measuring tree growth in Ohio Wesleyan\u2019s nature preserves and at a site in Ontario, Canada. Each spring, students measure sap sugar content and tree growth during maple sugaring season at Stratford Ecological Center. Students in ALOE also monitor tree leaf out and salamander egg-laying phenology in a vernal pool on the Stratford property. The ALOE team just finished data collection on a long-term study of how invasive garlic mustard affects the understory plant community in the temperate forest.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>GURL<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (Geospatial Undergraduate Research Laboratory), located in SCSC 204, uses geospatial tools to investigate environmental issues, primarily relying on satellite and drone imagery. The current GURL research project includes annual, high-resolution mapping of a coastal community in Costa Rica to identify land-use and land-cover change, and uses topography (3D imagery from our drone data set) to determine flood inundation risk (due to hurricanes, storm surge, and high-precipitation events).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Together, the three labs showcase the interdisciplinarity of environmental sciences, environmental studies, and geography research at Ohio Wesleyan, as well as the range of opportunities available for students to engage in hands-on research. The open house will allow students to meet faculty and student researchers, see laboratory equipment and research spaces, learn about ongoing projects, and discover opportunities to participate in independent research and other experiential learning activities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All OWU students are welcome to stop by and learn more about environmental research and opportunities within the Department of Environment &amp; Sustainability. <\/span><b>Snacks will be provided.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Source: <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Department of Environment &amp; Sustainability<br \/>\nContact: Academic Assistant Angela Moore @ <a href=\"mailto:almoore@owu.edu\">almoore@owu.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students interested in environment and sustainability applications and hands-on learning are invited to visit three research and teaching laboratories on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026, from 12 to 1 p.m. in the Schimmel\/Conrades Science Center, second floor. The SWIRL, ALOE, and GURL laboratories will open their doors to the OWU community, offering students an opportunity to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2057,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-news-events"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2057"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132473"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132521,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132473\/revisions\/132521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/daily\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}