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Broward Youth Climate Summit
Dr. Colin Polsky speaks to students about sea-level rise. Photo by MaryBeth Hartman Kerber
CES researcher Richard Jones engages students in a game of Flooding Feud. Photo by MaryBeth Hartman Kerber
The second annual Broward Youth Climate Summit was held January 10, 2020 at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale. Almost 1,000 middle and high school students from Broward County public schools attended. CES sponsored and exhibited at the Summit, along with leading the Technology and Science session for approximately 300 students.

The theme for this year’s Summit was Sea-Level Rise, and students choose to attend a mix of eight different sessions, with themes including Engineering, Politics, Government, Economics, Law, Arts, Communication and Human Services.

For CES’ sessions, Dr. Colin Polsky first provided a sea-level rise overview, followed by CES Researcher Richard Jones playing the lively host of the game Flooding Feud, based on the TV show Family Feud. The students stayed engaged through multiple rounds, which used local real-world, sea-level rise-related flooding examples.
The Invading Sea Collaborative is GROWING

The Invading Sea started as an unprecedented media collaborative that included the editorial boards of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, along with WLRN Public Media. Their goal was to use their collective voices to communicate the threat of sea-level rise in South Florida.
 
Thanks to a generous benefactor, this collaborative effort is growing, expanding to include more than just South Florida and sea-level rise. As of this newsletter, the collaborative now has 26 newspapers throughout the state, and they are publishing opinion pieces that address how climate change is affecting the entire state.

Over the next month, they will be updating their website so be sure to bookmark the page.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT : Hallee Meltzer
Hallee Meltzer joined the CES research lab in May 2017 before beginning the FAU Master’s in Environmental Science Program. Hallee was the lead CES graduate student researcher on CES’ collaborative “CNH-L: Multi-scale coupled natural-human system dynamics of nitrogen in residential landscapes” research through the U.S. National Science Foundation grant ICER-1615560 from the Coupled Natural-Human Systems program. 

In this video, Hallee discusses her experience on this research and her thesis, “Exploring how social cohesion affects residential lawn management in Baltimore neighborhoods.” She graduated in Summer 2019. Hallee was involved with many of the CES research and outreach projects, and we are proud to announce she begins working as a communications specialist for the national NOAA Sea Grant office in Silver Spring, Maryland this month.

Congratulations, Hallee!
Student Research Updates
CES would like to welcome and congratulate new students and research assistants working in our Coastal Resilience Research Lab.

  • Congratulations to Glen Oglesby on starting his master’s in Geosciences Program this spring.
  • Welcome aboard to Ryan Amato as a graduate student researcher in the CES Coastal Resilience Research Lab.
CES researchers Jon Stonger (left) and Ryan Amato (right). Photo credit: Kimberly Vardeman
GOODBYE AND CONGRATULATIONS CHARLENE
Earlier this month CES said goodbye to our longtime budget coordinator, Charlene Hickson. Charlene has worked for FAU since 2008 and CES since the fall of 2014. She leaves us for the position of Assistant Director of Admission Events in the FAU Office of Undergraduate Admissions. We'll miss you, Charlene!