News

Sun for All, All for Sun

UMaine’s Sharon Klein tracks the rise of community solar  Sharon Klein has had an interest in environmental issues from her middle school years right through her time at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science. But it wasn’t until Klein was teaching a high school “environmental systems” course […]

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The Philosophy of Science Communication

Had high school senior Brianne Suldovsky not encountered the novel “Sophie’s World” in her Advance Placement English class, she likely would not be heading off to the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center for a postdoctoral fellowship in the Science of Science Communication. The book details events as a 14-year-old Norwegian girl corresponds with […]

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Researcher, Research, Revamped

Linda Silka’s transformation from a conventional social and community psychologist into the interdisciplinary, bridge-building and problem-solving role she fills at the Mitchell Center began in 1994 at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. “I started out doing straight social psychology research and teaching first-year general psychology students at UMass Lowell,” Silka says. “That’s all I knew how […]

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Talking Trash

The Maine Science Festival included a Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions session on the components and complexities of Maine’s solid waste stream On Friday, March 18 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, the three-day 2016 Maine Science Festival got underway as hordes of students from around the state took part in numerous, diverse exhibits […]

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Something Fishy in the News

Eva Weitman has learned a lot about reading the news — and a lot about shellfish — over the past few months. The 21-year-old University of Maine environmental science major has been working with doctoral candidate Brianne Suldovsky on a research project looking at media coverage of Maine and New Hampshire’s shellfish industry to get […]

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Garbage Man

For Travis Blackmer, the summer of 2011 was a summer of garbage. And it changed his life. While classmates at the University of Maine were waiting tables, pounding nails, or painting houses to make tuition money, the 20-year old undergrad was pawing through trash. Tons and tons of trash. But he didn’t really mind. After […]

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Steering Trash Down the Road Less Traveled

It’s only human to make trash. Even early hunter-gathers had a waste stream. Of course, back then most of it was biodegradable and, even when it did pile up — discarded mussel shells for instance, the long-term impact was negligible. Thousands of years later it’s a different story. Humans create mountains of waste. Americans alone […]

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Photo Competition Winner

As part of our holiday celebration, we invited our faculty, researchers and students to submit ‘sustainability’ photos that they’ve taken in the last year, and attendees voted for their favorites. This photo by Bridie McGreavy titled, “Where water and sky meet on the mudflat” won first prize. Please contact Bridie for permission to use or […]

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Sustaining the Saco Estuary

A research team from the University of New England, led by Chris Feurt and Pam Morgan, recently published a report on the work they completed under the NSF EPSCoR Sustainability Solutions Initiative grant. The report, titled, “Sustaining the Saco Estuary”, is focused on the ten-kilometer long estuarine portion of the Saco River which lies below […]

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