Long before closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, many Pennsylvania schools faced a different health crisis: unsafe facilities. Crumbling buildings, asbestos, lead, and other school facility health and safety risks plague many schools across Pennsylvania, particularly in low-income districts and those that enroll a high percentage of Black and…

To assist Extension professionals working in Texas's Little River Watershed with efforts to educate landowners about reducing amounts of bacteria there, we assessed motivations for and barriers to landowners' adopting best management practices (BMPs). We surveyed 275 landowners in the watershed. Respondents were at least somewhat familiar with…

Lead poisoning harms brain and nervous system development and is most detrimental to children resulting in, among other things, reduced attention span, learning disabilities, higher high school dropout rates and delinquency, and higher likelihood of violent crime in adulthood. One major source of lead poisoning in Wisconsin is old housing stock.…

We demonstrate here a novel laboratory experiment for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) by using a low energy gold-sputtering method together with a modern, green, and biofriendly deep eutectic solvent (DES). The strategy is straightforward, economical, ecofriendly, rapid, and clean. It yields uniform AuNPs of 5 nm in diameter with high…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder with poorly understood etiology. Many maternal exposures during pregnancy and breastfeeding potentially interfere with neurodevelopment. Using data from two age- and sex-matched case-control studies in Jamaica (n = 298 pairs), results of conditional logistic regression…

In 2018 the Gulf coast of Florida suffered extensive damage from harmful algal blooms (HABs), from as far north as Clearwater Beach south to Naples. The bloom lasted nearly a year, picking up in intensity during the late summer months. HABs occur when conditions such as reduced salinity, higher water temperatures, light saturation, and currents…

A summer workshop was offered to inner-city high school students to explore the sustainability of their consumer choices using a systems thinking model. Students learned about related environmental or health issues due to the manufacturing, use, or disposal of common household products. Then, in the laboratory, they performed experiments to…

Advocates for civil rights, environmental justice, and movements promoting social justice require data and may lack trust in public authorities, turning instead to academic scientists to help address their questions. Assessing historical exposure to toxic chemicals, especially in situations of a specific industrial source of pollution affecting a…

Virtual laboratory simulations are commercially available to train students; these creative resources are available to complete remotely without traditional time and safety restrictions of laboratory-based practical classes. We introduced a Health and Safety virtual laboratory simulation to a core large first-year science module. Having surveyed…

Testing water samples for arsenic contamination has become an important water quality issue worldwide. Arsenic usually occurs in very small concentrations, and a sensitive analytical method is needed. We present here a 1-day laboratory module developed to introduce Earth Sciences and/or Chemistry student undergraduates to key aspects of this…

Children are uniquely vulnerable to environmental contaminants. Their bodies are still developing, they eat, drink, and breathe more per pound of body weight than adults, they have lungs that are still developing, and they may be more exposed to hazards and unaware of how to protect themselves. Lead exposure can cause serious damage to children's…

This article examines the tensions that arose as teachers, scientists, youth, and community organizers worked to develop a curriculum that was responsive to community concerns and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Within the context of urban heavy metal contamination and building on previous critiques of the standards, we identified…

Occupational training is a crucial feature in enhancing workforce efficiency and the expertise involved in any profession. This is carried out through a variety of ways such as institutional training, basic instructions, excursions, industrial training, laboratory lessons, workshop operations, field studies, intensive problem-solving based…

For the last seven years, an interdisciplinary course known as "Greener Solutions", offered by the University of California, Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, has brought together graduate students in chemistry, environmental health, and engineering to understand each other's disciplines, and to work together to develop safer…

Background:A 2011 nationwide school pandemic preparedness study found schools to be deficient. We examined the impact of a school nurse educational intervention aimed at improving K-12 school biological event preparedness. Mehods: Missouri Association of School Nurses (MASN) members were e-mailed a survey link in fall 2013 (ie, preintervention),…