SURES 2024 (Week of June 24th)

 

This Thursday, we discussed the importance of practicing sustainability. Our session began with a lesson on the connections between sustainability and environmental health, societal health, health equity, individual health, and population health (led by summer intern Sam). We then discussed the current statistics regarding pollution and environmental hazards and ways in which we can counteract them by implementing sustainable measures in our own life. Several suggestions included turning off lights when not in the room to conserve energy, turning off the tap water when brushing teeth and fixing leaks quickly to conserve water, and participating a meatless meal per week to reduce our carbon footprint. After the information session, we leaped into our activities for the day. 

Our first activity was making t-shirt tote-bags as a trendy way to recycle and repurpose old shirts. Students chose a shirt that spoke to them and then found creative ways to transform these old shirts into trendy tote-bags. Creativity from the students was evident as we ended this activity with a multitude of fun tote-bags, personalized cross-body bags, and a bag decked out in decorative bows and chain made of the t-shirt scraps! For our second activity we used the free PlantNet app to identify a selection of flowers, leaves, and foliage to learn if our collected plants were native or invasive (coinciding with a section of our lesson from earlier). The students then used their plant selections as inspiration for paintings or used the plant cuttings within their design! Ultimately, this session resulted in knowledge about sustainability and allowed the creativity of our students to shine through in their final products. 

Following the activities, we met with Dr. Pete Mirabito's KY INBRE summer group to discuss the impact of lead on health. Dr. Swanson led an informative lesson to the physical manifestations of lead poisonings and the reality of how the lack of information surrounding the dangers of lead has resulted in leaded paint and pipes being incorporated within many early homes. We then were split into four groups and were given supplies to test the lead in the soil of different locations on campus. By marking the coordinates and surroundings of our test site along with collecting multiple soil samples, we can observe a snapshot into how lead has impacted the areas we are sampling. The soil samples were weighed and are left to dry (we want no water in our samples before we send them for analysis) over the weekend. We will weigh the samples again as well as continue the prep of samples before sending the soil to Dr. Jason Unrine to be analyzed for their lead content! 

SURES 2024 (Week of June 17th)

 

This Thursday activity was a continuation of the Global Gardens activity from last week and a fun addition of tie-dying lab coats. To begin, we potted our plants in our beautifully decorated planters that were inspired by research of our regions from last week. Students from each group discussed the medicinal properties and cultural practices of their plants and we learned of many anti-microbial, anti-fungal, pro-digestive health that these plants have been utilized for. We discussed the importance of native plants with a discussion on the plant "bee balm" or bergamot (a common ingredient in Earl Grey tea) from Dr. Hollie Swanson.  

 

We rounded out the very warm afternoon with a fun session of tie-dying lab coats. We learned that lab coats are typically white to symbolize cleanliness and a promise to uphold the purity of scientific rigor. We discussed that although this is the typical symbolism of the lab coat, we are not desecrating the lab coats by dying them. Instead, we are adding to that promise in that we all bring different perspectives to the field of science. We discussed that by welcoming creativity, various outlooks, and diversity we can further progress the field of science.