Terms describing severe weather patterns like “El Niño” and “polar vortex” get bandied about on the nightly news without much context or definition. Understanding climates and how extreme weather and climate variability manifest and affect life on Earth helps put rising temperatures and mild winters in perspective.  “We are seeing fewer really extreme cold days,” says Scott Sheridan, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Geography, who published a study of abnormal weather patterns in the Journal of Geophysical Research in 2019. “Winter weather has gotten more ...

Kent State Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 By Kat Braz and Jan Senn hen the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report in April 2022, IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee described it as “powerful evidence that we have the potential to mitigate climate change. We are at a crossroads.  . . . Climate promises and plans must be turned into reality and action, now. It is time to stop burning our planet and start investing in the abundant renewable energy all around us.” The Working Group III report, prepared by 278 scientists from 65 countries, is the...

Kent State Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 By Jan Senn, photo by Greta Bell, BS '22 Let Our Powers Combine!” If you’re a millennial—or watched children’s TV shows in the early 1990s—that expression may ring a bell. It’s a catchphrase from Captain Planet and the Planeteers (also known as The New Adventures of Captain Planet). The animated series featuring an environmentalist superhero ran for 113 episodes from 1990 to 1996. The brainchild of entertainment mogul and environmental philanthropist Ted Turner, the series was created as a way to teach children about real-world env...

Kent State Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 By Jillian Kramer, BA ’06 In their shared Biogeochemical Oceanography and Soil Science (or BOSS) laboratory at McGilvrey Hall, married couple Timothy Gallagher, PhD, and Allyson “Allie” Tessin, PhD, both assistant professors of geology, are studying the Earth from two perspectives—on land and at the bottom of the sea—to better understand climate change. Gallagher, a biogeochemist and sedimentary geologist, digs into the land, quite literally, to study how terrestrial environments have responded to climate change. He’s cataloging what human intervention...

Kent State Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 By Lisa Abraham, photos by Rami Daud, BA ’20 Imagine a day when Ohio’s environment is unable to sustain native trees like the sugar maple, which produces the sap distilled into Ohio maple syrup—or the Ohio buckeye, our state tree.   Research underway at the Climate Change Grove on the Kent Campus is shedding light on what may happen to native tree species if we don’t address the carbon emissions that are causing global warming. The tree grove, which sits on a parcel of land behind the Warren Recreation and Wellness Center, was established i...

Kent State Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 By Candace Goforth DeSantis, BS ’94 Concerned about the dire crisis facing their generation, Kent State students are drawing attention to the causes of climate change and demanding action. In spring 2021, several students from the College of Communication and Information helped found Project Citizen: Climate360, a collaboration of students from Kent State University, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and Morgan State University in Baltimore. The group brings together student communicators, jo...

Kent State Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 By Jillian Kramer, BA '06 Climate change is affecting all of us in one way or another, and its impacts will only increase in the near future. It's a daunting problem that will be difficult to solve but we cannot give in to discouragement or despair. Millions of people throughout the world are dedicated to building a clean, green, healthy, sustainable and just planet. They are developing solutions. And when people and organizations work together, we can put those solutions into practice at a global scale. Yes, we need to discuss the devastating challeng...

Kent State Magazine Spring/Summer 2022 By Jan Senn On a warm but windy April day, about 40 faculty and staff gather at the squirrel statue near the Kent State University Library for a noontime “Wellness Walk & Talk” tour organized by the Employee Wellness office and led this day by Melanie Knowles, Kent State’s manager of sustainability. We expect to get some exercise and learn about recent sustainability initiatives on the Kent Campus. “A couple locations are going to require you to use your imagination, because some things don’t always happen on schedule and other things are...

Kent State continues to establish itself as a leader in sustainability and environmental stewardship with solar installations—to attract students in environmental studies and research, to help our planet and to save money. The university’s first solar array was installed through a power purchase agreement on the roof of the Field House on the Kent Campus. A third-party developer owned the solar array but sold the power to Kent State. Upon completion in summer 2012 it was the largest roof-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) panel electrical system within the University System of Ohio. Ke...

Daffodil Hill, on Kent State University’s Kent Campus, is part of the May 4, 1970 site, which was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2016. The cascade of flowers on the hill overlooking Kent State Commons was part of a concept by Kent State Professor Emeritus Brinsley Tyrrell that he submitted for the university’s 1985 design competition for a May 4 Memorial. Tyrrell also created the “Legend of the Iron Hoop” sculptures located behind Henderson Hall and the “Behind the Brain Plaza” near Merrill Hall. Originally, the hill displayed more than 58,000 daffodils. In the 32 years since ...