All across the University, students, staff, and faculty are studying, writing about, and exploring the environment. Click on the departments below to find out more about Bloomsburg University's commitment to Earth and Environmental Studies.
Department of Anthropology students and faculty presented the results of their research on fracking at the December 2012 Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings in Denver, CO.
Anthropology major Krysta Shaeffer presented her poster "The Impact of Fracking on Rural Communities in Central Pennsylvania". Student Julie Steffen and Dr. Faith Warner presented their research, “The Perceived Costs and Benefits of Fracking in Central Pennsylvania." The ethnographic research presented in their poster documented perceptions of local residents towards the impact of fracking on the region’s environment, economy, laws, and culture. Central foci of the research include the disagreement over the risks associated with fracking, conflict over the distribution of its benefits, and the resulting community tensions over changes in socioeconomic relations, the social and natural environment, laws, policies, and regulations relating to the fracking boom.
Dr. Jerry Wemple in the Department of English is editor of Watershed: The Journal of the Susquehanna, an interdisciplinary annual print and online journal. Watershed's mission is to promote cultural and environmental awareness of the Susquehanna River region, which includes over 27,500 square miles in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The journal accepts nonfiction articles, short fiction, personal essays, poetry, and photography.
<Dr. Resa Noubary in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics puts his research interests in time series analysis, geostatistics, reliability, and risk analysis to use studying floods and earthquakes, among many other topics. Dr. Noubary has worked on ways to predict large earthquakes, evaluate earthquake hazards, estimate the effects of natural hazards such as wind and earthquakes on buildings and other structures, and estimate flooding hazards.
Noreen Chikotas, D.Ed., and Kimberly Owelski, instructor of nursing, and Carol I Parks, registered nurse of PPL Corporation of Berwick, recently had two manuscripts, “Comprehensive Review of the Healthy People 2020 Occupational Safety and Health Objectives: Tools for the Occupational Health Nurse in Goal Attainment: Part I and Part II,” accepted for publication in the peer reviewed journal American Association of Occupational Health Nurses. These manuscripts provide all occupational health nurses with the tools to implement the objectives of Healthy People 2020 to reach goal attainment in the area of occupational and
environmental health.
In the Department of Philosophy, Dr. Wendy Lee has a passion for the environment that informs both her scholarship and her activism. She has authored many articles and given presentations on ecological feminism, environmental philosophy, and ethics and the environment. She also writes for raging chicken press and Shale Justice.
Dr. Heather Feldhaus, Assistant Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Co-director of Bloomsburg University's Center for Community Research and Consulting (CCRC), Dr. Chris Podeschi, associate professor of Sociology and co-director of the CCRC, and Dr. John Hintz, associate professor of Environmental, Geographical, and Geological Sciences recently received a $29,000 grant to partner with Geisinger Health System's Weis Center for Research in their Marcellus Shale Initiative. The Marcellus Shale initiative is investigating the potential health effects of shale gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale region of central Pennsylvania and Southern New York. The Bloomsburg University collaboration will assess local knowledge and attitudes about Marcellus Shale Drilling. Click here for more information on Geisinger's Environmental Health Institute.