Tank tops!

Post by AWRA - UF Chapter.

Upcoming Event: Water Institute Faculty Fellow Awards Celebration

The UF Water Institute (WI) and the Florida Climate Institute (FCI) are hosting a joint celebration on  

Monday October 20th to honor their 2014 Fellows:

Monday, October 20, 2014
4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Keene Faculty Center, Dauer Hall

This year's Water Institute Fellows include Dr. James Jawitz (Soil and Water Science) and Dr. Jonathan Martin (Geology). They will join last year's inaugural Fellows Dr. Matthew Cohen (SFRC) and Dr. Rafael Muñoz-Carpena (Agricultural and Biological Engineering). 

The event will be catered and will feature short presentations by the awardees as well as the heads of the Water Institute and FCI. Many of the people at the event have presented at our AWRA meetings (or will be soon!), so please consider coming out to support them and recognize them for their efforts on behalf of Florida's water!

For more info, visit the UF Water Institute website or see this flyer for more information about the program. We will also post more details soon - hope to see you there!

Speakers this semester - Mark your calendars!

We just finalized the list of speakers for the rest of the semester - here is the lineup, we hope you can join us for pizza and great water-themed presentations!

Tuesday, October 14th at 6pm we will be hosting Kevin Morris, a Science and Technology Office from Peace River Minesota Regional Water Supply Authority.

Wednesday, November 12th at 6pm we will hosting Dr. Wendy Graham, Director of the UF Water Institute.

Tuesday, December 2nd at 6pm we will be hosting Dr. James Nfiong who is a post-doc in Dr. Tom Frazer's lab and earned his PhD studying alligators in Dr. Brian Silliman's lab. Check out this awesome National Geographic article/video about his work!

We will keep you updated via this blog as well as the list-serv and Facebook page as we approach the next meeting on October 14. Feel free to be in touch with any questions that come up in the mean time!

Other Announcements:

If you're interested in becoming student members of AWRA here is the link that will allow you to register: http://www.awraflorida.org/Membership

The next technical meeting is in Tampa on September 19th. Please contact Alice Alonso (alice.alonso@ufl.edu) or Natalie Nelson (nataliegnelson@ufl.edu) about carpooling!

Jenny Adler will be having a springs art show at Santa Fe College on October 6th- 31st with an opening reception October 10th from 6pm to 8pm. The exhibit will be in Santa Fe's President’s Hall exhibit space, which is located on the second floor of building F.

Thank you to everyone who came out to our first meeting, featuring Cynthia Barnett

Thank you so much to our amazing speaker Cynthia Barnett and everyone who came out to hear her wonderful water talk at our first meeting on Monday. Her presentation, "Blue Revolution: A Water Ethic for Florida & America", was both poignant and inspiring. She described the tragedy that has befallen many Florida springs by showing before and after photos of springs that no longer flow or have been significantly reduced in size. This demonstrated how our "ditching and draining" and overuse of water has negatively affected these once-sparkling "bowls of liquid light." But she also brought a refreshing sense of optimism - she highlighted a few Florida counties as successful examples of recent declines in per capita water use and explained that with a new "water ethic", there is hope for both Florida and the US as a whole.

Award-winning journalist and author Cynthia Barnett introduces her talk: "Blue Revolution: A water ethic for Florida & America." You can find out more about her book Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis here.

A thought-provoking graphic from her presentation.

Barnett presented to a full house in Frazier Rogers Hall, Room 122 as the audience enjoyed pizza and lemonade. All of our meetings are held in this room - join us for the next one on Tuesday, October 14!

water ethic: making sure the way we live with water today doesn't jeopardize fresh, clean water for our children, businesses and ecosystems tomorrow

Barnett ended her talk by reminding us of the importance of inspiring and involving the next generation. She also gave us an exciting sneak preview of her new book Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, which will be released in April 2015.

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Reminders:

Our president Alice Alonso shows off our new glasses we're selling as a fundraiser - contact us if you're interested! (1 for $10 or 4 for $30)

Upcoming events. Contact us if you have questions or would like to attend any of the meetings!

You can check out all of our photos from the first meeting on Facebook:

Post by AWRA - UF Chapter. Hope to see you at our next meeting on October 14!