Biology & Environmental Sciences, Department of

Since the dawn of time, people have feared, fought and sought to control fire.According to USA Today, fires are currently burning in Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Just last week, 5,000 people fled the west Canadian town of Jasper. Before summer began—almost 90,000 acres of Californian grassland burned—15 times more than a year ago.Even in Russia’s far east, a jaw-dropping 12.8 million acres of forest today are being scorched.Fortunately, no wildfires...

Most internships are pretty cool. They give students hands-on experience and a chance to see if a career field really suits them.But John Hollis’ three-part internship was much more than that. It was an adventure. A real expedition—trekking past hot springs; vast fields of spikey purple flowers, forests of towering pines, barren ravines, rocky-cliff beaches and spectacular waterfalls. He even visited the volcanic eruption site that caused the town of Grindavík to be evacuated in Nov...

Not only did Junior Ivan Yuan Chu get offered an REU this summer—a Research Experiences for Undergraduates from the National Science Foundation—he got six.The biology major from Hazelhurst, Georgia, chose the 10-week, 2024 Bio REU Summer Undergraduate Research Program at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana to work on possible pancreatic cancer treatments. He chose Notre Dame, because the atmosphere there was much like his experience at Georgia College & State University—rigorous...

The variety of plants surrounding Athens, Georgia, are well documented and cataloged. This isn’t the case for Baldwin County and Middle Georgia.But students and faculty in the herbarium at Georgia College & State University are working to change that. “The majority of our samples are from Georgia, and mostly Baldwin County,” said Dr. Gretchen Ionta, associate professor of environmental science and current curator of Georgia College’s herbarium. “Around Athens there’s a ton of herbarium...

 Some people love the red-eyed buzzing critters. Others can’t wait for them to go.But for soil ecologists like Dr. Bruce Snyder, these last few weeks are a waning opportunity to learn more about periodical cicadas and the lasting impact they leave behind.The clock is ticking. Soon, millions of cicadas from the Great Southern Brood XIX will go silent. They won’t be back until 2037.“When they’re gone, they’re gone,” said Snyder recently, as he checked multiple wire cages and netted traps...