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Message from the Associate Dean NEWS he University of Arizona College of Science is developing a comprehensive outreach plan to New Grant Ttake advantage of the incredible opportunities Supports Study afforded us through facilities such as Biosphere 2, the Flandrau Science Center, Tumamoc Hill, and the of Plant, Microbe Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter. This effort will combine VOLUME 1-5 FALL 2010 both our informal, public outreach activities with our Effects on Weathering more formal K-12 education outreach programs. We he National Science Foundation Elliott Cheu believe that by helping to coordinate and integrate our (NSF) recently awarded a Associate Dean outreach efforts, we can have a significant, positive three-year, $424,623 grant to College of Science T impact on our local community. University of Arizona researchers to investigate how plants and microbes In the K-12 sector, we are developing a number of significant new programs. 1 influence mineral weathering and One example is a college-wide service learning program, where undergraduate leaching of mineral-forming elements. and graduate students will work with middle- and high-school students to This research will look at how tree provide mentoring and tutoring opportunities. This program will also include and grass species common to the sponsored trips to UA Science facilities such as Flandrau and Biosphere 2, western United States (Ponderosa where secondary school students will engage in fun, educational activities pine and Buffalo grass) affect bacterial to further explore the role of science in their lives. These trips will also help and fungal communities (particularly acquaint students to the UA as a future destination, breaking down some of mycorrhizal fungi) to promote the the barriers to higher education. weathering of rock-derived minerals Another K-12 outreach effort is an initiative to create a community of and the incipient formation of soil. educators, including K-12 teachers, UA staff and faculty. To build such a Scientists will focus on interactions community, we are creating a number of new resources that will help each between biological and mineral of these constituents to connect to each other. One such resource is a new components during laboratory-based website that has a searchable faculty/staff database that teachers can use weathering of four common rock to help find researchers engaged in activities such as classroom visits, lab types (basalt, granite, schist, and tours, and public lectures. We are also offering a series of Teacher Science rhyolite) and the extent to which this Cafes, where teachers can learn about science, interact with other teachers, weathering results in chemical loss and find out the latest offerings at the UA. We expect to expand upon these versus biomass accumulation or re- new initiatives to help build a broad and dynamic educator community. In precipitation of dissolution products. addition to these formal education programs, we are beginning to integrate The research team is led by Katerina the public outreach efforts throughout the College of Science. Dontsova, an assistant research We are very excited about the possibilities afforded us by our new outreach professor at Biosphere 2 Earthscience, activities. The new innovations and research within the UA College of Science and includes Travis Huxman, director will now be more readily shared with both the general public as well as our of Biosphere 2 and professor of colleagues in the K-12 education system. We expect that this will have a ecology and evolutionary biology, very positive impact on the Tucson region, and will further enhance the very in addition to professors Jon things that make Tucson a special place. n Grant, cont. on back INSIDE THIS ISSUE PAGE 2: Building PAGE 4: Biosphere 2 PAGE 5: Largest telescope PAGE 6: AZ Center for mountains in Biosphere 2. receives gift to conduct dedicated to public STEM Teachers completes storm water research. observing in the Southwest. second summer institute. Featured Research Building Mountains in Biosphere 2: The Landscape Evolution Observatory ven a short hike into the predictive models, and new teams of channel at all. You have reached the mountains of the Southwest can experts from a wide range of earth channel head, but you are not yet at Etake you across hot, dry, rocky science disciplines. the top of the ridge above you. The slopes covered with yucca, grass and unchanneled landscape above you is cactus, while just around a bend in With the goal of predicting how termed a hillslope. At this point, you the trail, a change in exposure might the terrestrial water cycle will might notice that the vast majority reveal cooler, shady—perhaps even respond to climate change, we have of the landscape around you is made up of hillslopes, not channels, and any rain that falls must either “This is the place, I said, that you would come if you cross or move through (infiltrate) wanted to know the truth about water” these hillslopes to get to the river channel. Depending on the climate, —Craig Childs, in the Grand Canyon elevation, geology, and direction the slope is facing, the hillslope will moist—slopes of juniper and oak. begun the largest structural change have a certain type of soils, plants, From Tucson, we just need to look to Biosphere 2 since its original and shape. Many different processes upward to see that the mountain construction over 20 years ago. We will occur on it during rain storms, slopes also change dramatically with are building three two-million-pound such as interception by plants, runoff elevation – from open rocky desert artificial landscapes inside the former over the surface, infiltration into at the base up to the cool, moist pine agriculture biome. These huge underlying soil, and erosion of tiny 2 forest at the peaks. We understand physical models will allow us to tackle bits of soil. The large landscapes intuitively that when it rains here, two significant scientific questions: we are building in the LEO are some areas generate runoff quickly How does rainwater interact with and dry rapidly with the reappearance and change landscapes of the warm sun, while other areas over time, and how does stay cooler and damp through the biological activity change landscapes over time? Both VOLUME 1-5 rainy FALL 2010 seasons. We see that our limited rainfall is used opportunistically by questions are tremendously plants and animals; vegetation can complicated, and require change from day to day as the rains unprecedented cooperation come and go. The brief periods of between scientists from running water, wet ground and thick, a range of earth-science green mesquite and palo verde trees disciplines and development give desert dwellers a sense of the of new tools that permit dynamic nature of life in arid regions, detailed measurement and the importance of water above all of water, life and energy else in our natural environment. in a large-scale, highly controlled environment. As our climate warms, what will be the fate of arid places here and The three artificial everywhere that depend on local watersheds will be known as water sources, seasonal rains, and the Biosphere 2 Landscape the success of local ecosystems and Evolution Observatory agriculture for survival? Do we fully (LEO). The landscapes are understand how much-needed rains intended to be physical are distributed across landscapes, models of “hillslopes." into the soil, plants, groundwater What is a hilllslope? If you reservoirs, rivers and streams, and are hiking to the upper back to the atmosphere? Each reaches of a mountain of these systems is complicated canyon, you can continue enough when studied in isolation; upstream until the stream understanding how all of these channel in which you are components of the water cycle work walking gets smaller until Preliminary structural model of the Lansdcape Evolution together requires new tools, new it no longer appears to be a Observatory watersheds. designed to replicate a wide range of these processes. But, because First Undergrad we are building them from scratch, we will know the specific physical Research Program characteristics of each one in a way a Success that we could never know in nature, iosphere 2 kicked off its and, even better, we can install a first Research Experiences variety of measurement devices into for Undergraduates (REU) and around the landscapes during B program this past summer thanks to construction that allow us to measure a $400,000 grant from the National how water and energy move across Science Foundation. The program and through them at a level of detail hosted 10 undergraduate students impossible in nature. from several disciplines within earth These 40-by-100-foot LEO and environmental sciences, who landscapes will be steel structures that came from 8 different universities Although we can’t construct an entire mountain reach over two stories tall, covered range in Biosphere 2, many of the earth systems across the country (including one in over three feet of engineered soil displayed in this figure will be simulated in the from the University of Arizona) and shaped to approximate the form Landscape Evolution Observatory. to live at Biosphere 2 and work of hillslopes in nature. Thousands in research labs there and at the of sensors will be embedded in the water moves through it. We plan University of Arizona. Each student VOLUME 1-5 FALL 2010 soil to measure soil moisture, water to observe how this physical system worked with a faculty mentor over availability, temperature, and soil evolves from its initial conditions, the course of 10 weeks to design and energy fluxes; specially designed and then introduce plants to see implement a research project from samplers will provide access to soil how the establishment of ecosystems start to finish.