The 2017 Maine Sustainability & Water Conference is scheduled for Thursday, March 30, 2017 at the Augusta Civic Center. The conference will include two concurrent sessions, a student poster session and a keynote talk. Potential concurrent sessions include the following topics: Materials Management, Drought, Maine’s Changing Foodscape, Ocean and Coastal Acidification, Shoreland Zoning, Green-Gray Infrastructure. The conference keynote speaker is Aram Calhoun, a professor of wetlands ecology from UMaine. Aram will speak about her research that uses local vernal pool conservation as a model to help communities find ways to balance economic development with natural resource conservation on private land.

For more information, visit http://umaine.edu/mitchellcenter/2017-conference/

Lead your school to the 2017 Global Food Solutions Conference, all-expenses-paid!

It’s simple. Students will receive funding and toolkits to host a 90-minute event addressing interconnected issues like food production, climate change and the need to feed a growing world. The winning solution from the event will be entered into the Food Solutions Challenge for a chance to win $5,000!

To apply, visit http://www2.netimpact.org/e/200062/food-solutions-challenge-2017/8c4d4/30757415

To learn more about the Food Solutions Challenge and how you can get involved, email [email protected].

Following the spectacular Centennial year of the National Park Service in the United States, Canada is celebrating its 150th Birthday by making all of its national parks completely free!

That’s right, our neighbors to the north have a collection of natural wonders that rival any the world over, and are letting you see them for free for the entire year. You can even have a free park pass delivered to you by Parks Canada, the agency that oversees the countries national parks and historical sites.

Click here to get your free Canada National Parks pass for 2017!

Canada’s offering of national parks is a welcoming contrast to those in the United States, with many of these parks located in remote northern areas, some require more than just packing up the station wagon and hitting the road, but for those that are looking to get the auto-tour experience, they have that too.

Parks like Banff National Park and Jasper National Park in Alberta provide stunning vistas in the Canadian Rockies. In the northeast, Fundy National Park, Prince Edward Island National Park, and Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site can be reached by car when crossing the border from Maine into Canada; even Cape Breton National Park is accessible, if you’re not afraid of a serious road trip.

On the west coast, Pacific Rim National Park and Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada give contrasting tastes of the Canadian Pacific region and the Yukon Territory.

Sea Level Rise: Practical Tools and Community Implementation
Fri, 9 December, 9:30am – 12:00pm
Island Institute, 386 Main St, Rockland, ME 04841, USA (map)

What can coastal, estuarine, and tidal river communities do to address sea level rise and storm surge? Join the discussion hosted by Grow Smart Maine to learn what you and your community can be doing now to address the imminent challenges faced by a rising ocean level and increased storm and tidal surge. No matter the stage of planning, from zero to advanced, there will be relevant content and tools presented to help move Maine forward on this pressing concern. Presentations will be appropriate for all attendees from beginners to those who are familiar with the subject and anyone in between. Facilitated discussion time will be provided to get your questions answered. Connect with the experts and with other communities wrestling with these issues. FMI and to register go here: https://growsmartmaine.org/events/smart-growth-forums/sea-level-rise-practical-tools-and-community-implementation/

Tankers Full of Tar Sands in the Gulf of Maine?
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED!!
Tue, 6 December, 6:30pm – 8:00pm
The Farmstead (next to Flatbread Pizza), 399 Commercial Street, Route 1, Rockport. Maine (map)

Can you imagine what would happen if a supertanker spilled tar sands oil in the Gulf of Maine? Our fisheries and coastal tourism could be ruined for generations! Tar sands oil is the dirtiest, most polluting oil on the planet. A tar sands spill is nearly impossible to clean up if spilled in our waters. Now, TransCanada, the energy giant that fought to build the Keystone XL pipeline, wants to build an even more massive pipeline across Canada—passing just miles from the Maine border—to deliver tar sands oil to Saint John, New Brunswick. Once there, tar sands would be loaded onto nearly 300 supertankers every year and shipped across the Gulf of Maine!

Please join Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) in Rockport for a presentation by experts from the Natural Resources Defense Council, along with a local perspective from the Island Institute about this emerging threat to Maine’s coast.
FMI go here: http://www.nrcm.org/event/tar-sands-tankers-rockport-2/

Science, Technology and Sustainability– the 7th Annual Naval Academy Science and Engineering Conference
Nov, 13-15 November 2016
Annapolis, Maryland

Up to four undergraduate students from Bowdoin College to attend and participate

This year’s conference is titled “Science, Technology, and Sustainability” and it is organized around three technical themes:

Energy and Alternative Fuels (Professor Laura Schaefer, Rice University)
Cyber Physical Systems (Professor Rajeev Alur, University of Pennsylvania
Water and Sustainability (Professor Sandra McLellan, University of Washington, Madison)

A main objective of this conference is to bring together undergraduate students from a wide variety of institutions of higher education to foster discussions about STEM and the challenges our nation faces in solving some of the critical technical issues we encounter now and will be encountering in the near future. Keynote speakers from academia, government and industry will present their perspectives on the main topic of the conference to the attendees. . (Information on NASEC 2015 is available at http://www.usna.edu/AcResearch/NASEC. We will have this year’s website up in a few short weeks.)

It is our plan to follow the successful approach of the previous six NASEC conferences, with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) introducing the technical themes during their presentations on the first day of the conference.

Please contact Rosie Armstrong if you are interested in attending by Thursday, Sept 29.

Our goal is to have undergraduate student representatives from a cross-section of science and engineering colleges and universities in North America. We are hoping to have about 150 or so student participants, including the Naval Academy midshipmen who will serve as student organizers, leaders and hosts.

The Naval Academy will provide lodging in a local hotel, bus transportation between the hotel and the Academy, and all meals and refreshments during NASEC 2016. The student attendees (and/or their home institutions) will be responsible for the transportation arrangements and costs for the students to get to the conference hotel by noon on Sunday, 13 November and to return home on Tuesday evening, 15 November (the conference ends by 1300 on Tuesday).

If faculty members from your institution who would like to participate as mentors or as SMEs during NASEC 2016, please let us know so that we can reach out to them to discuss opportunities and arrangements.

USNA looks forward to hosting your students and to have them be participants in these important discussions. Based on past conferences and feedback, the attendees found this to be a unique experience, as the conference is a student organized event, and its success is dependent upon student discussion and their level of engagement and interactions.

Please feel free to call us, or have any of your staff members get in touch with us, if you have any questions. USNA looks forward to interacting with you and with having your students join NASEC 2016.
Reza Malek-Madani Cody Brownell
Director of Research and Scholarship Prof of Mechanical Engineering
US Naval Academy US Naval Academy
410-293-2504<tel:410-293-2504> 410-293-6525<tel:410-293-6525>