Center for Environmental Sciences Receives EPA Grant

Saint Louis University's Center for Environmental Sciences (CES) has received a grant from the United States Environment Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Education Program for new initiative, "Midwest Clean Air Stewardship: Building Upon the St. Louis Ozone Gardens."

The University will partner with the Missouri Botanical Garden on the program which will begin with moving SLU's successful St. Louis Ozone Garden into a greenhouse-like classroom greenhouse in order to display the effects of global pollution year round.

The project comes at an ideal time as the EPA is considering changing the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone. This project will help students and teachers connect with how this standard effects the environment and agriculture -- both visually and interactively-- as well as encourage them to become environmental stewards, making decisions that will benefit air quality.

Jack Fishman, Ph.D., director of CES, said the program will provide a valuable foundation and ongoing learning tool about the environment.

"The focus of the work will be to develop a demonstration and educational material that will illustrate how global climate change is damaging plants and crops, primary components of our planet's biosphere and a natural extension of that is how human health can be affected by global change," Fishman said.

Plants, if we take a much closer and deeper look, have a lot to teach us about the natural world and how it works," Voss said.

Sheila Voss, vice president of education at the Missouri Botanical Garden, also stressed that today's work will reach far into the future.

"Plants, if we take a much closer and deeper look, have a lot to teach us about the natural world and how it works," Voss said. "In this project, plant investigations and plant-based action projects will help educators and students understand the complexities of climate science, and equip them with plant-based solutions to minimize environmental impacts and improve quality of life."

In addition, the greenhouse-like classroom project will serve as a hands on educational setting for students who visit the Garden each year. The program will implement classes and programming at both local and regional locations demonstrating how common plants exhibit foliar damage because of an elevated ozone level. Workshops for educators on the concepts and materials developed by the Garden will also be offered.

The new space is scheduled to open at the Garden in April 2016.