UWF summer marine science camp teaches children about the gulf and oil Spill

A University of West Florida Explore Summer program is teaching elementary students all about marine biology as well as a lesson or two about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which is now impacting the very beaches many of the kids call home. Jennifer Edge, Explore Summer director at the Division of Continuing […]

UWF graduate students are key players in oil spill research

One day each week, Dane Smith, a University of West Florida graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in environmental science, loads up and heads south for the beach. But his truck isn’t carrying a surfboard: It’s filled with bottles, beakers and scientific equipment he’ll use this summer while collecting water samples from the Gulf of […]

UWF begins research on potential “invisible” victims of oil spill

A University of West Florida Environmental Studies assistant professor has started another oil spill research project in the wake of the explosion April 20 off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. Matthew Schwartz said he and a graduate student will be sampling for dissolved organic carbon and dissolved organic nitrogen – a […]

UWF oil spill team ready to analyze water and sand samples

Researchers at the University of West Florida, led by Richard Snyder, director of the Center for Environmental Diagnostic and Bioremediation, are ready to start analyzing and releasing data after four weeks of collecting sand and water samples from around the Pensacola area. The difficulty in obtaining a sample of oil from the spill site, essential […]

UWF graduate student monitors Gulf Waters for oil-related changes

Facing a collection of Gulf-water-filled beakers in a University of West Florida lab, biology graduate student Melissa Overton explains her role with the UWF oil spill research mission. “I am looking at the bacterial community, basic microbe ecology, in the coastal waters off the beaches of Pensacola and Navarre,” said Overton. “Bacteria are the key […]

UWF Small Business Development Center assisting businesses in oil spill’s aftermath

Standing in the Casino Beach parking lot next to Pensacola Beach, University of West Florida President Judy Bense noted the lack of people there taking advantage of the area’s strongest tourism draw – its beautiful beaches. “Why aren’t people here? The beach is fine,” said Bense, as she accompanied State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan […]

UWF research associate readies lab for oil spill experiments

These days Fred Hileman, University of West Florida lecturer and analytical chemist, is busy conducting oil and water experiments at the university’s Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation while he waits for real-life spill samples to come ashore in Pensacola. The April 20 BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of […]

UWF Environmental Studies instructor helps monitor Pensacola shoreline

Chasidy Hobbs, an environmental studies instructor at the University of West Florida since becoming a graduate teaching assistant in 2006, says she “loves having the opportunity to help students see the big picture and interconnectedness of our lives and the world around us.” As executive director of Emerald Coastkeeper of Pensacola, a non-profit member of […]

UWF faculty collect research samples in oil spill’s wake

University of West Florida faculty members from the university’s Center for Environmental Diagnostic and Bioremediation have begun local research into the potential impacts of the oil spill off the coast of Louisiana that began April 20. Dr. Richard Snyder, biology professor and director of the CEDB, said water from offshore as well as sand from […]

Students till their student community garden with promise

While other students slept in or headed for the beach on a recent Friday morning, members of the University of West Florida Community Garden Club worked up a sweat installing an irrigation system for the newly planted Student Community Garden located just behind the soccer field on the main campus. With four raised cypress-sided beds […]

UWF art lecturers join forces with local artist to help people in Haiti

Though the devastation left by the Jan. 21 earthquake in Haiti lays hundreds of miles away from Pensacola, the emotional impact on Haiti’s people there is felt here in Pensacola where Hurricane Ivan left its own mark in September 2004. That is why two University of West Florida art lecturers and artists, Gina Cestaro and […]

Alumni couple put their passion for the outdoors to work

UWF alumna Debbie Mullins is co-founder, along with her daughter, Sarah Welton, of PackitGourmet.com, an online business that provides gourmet food for outdoor enthusiasts. The company is truly a family project. “The entire family is involved,” Mullins said. “My husband, Jeff, Sarah’s husband, Sean, and my youngest daughter Loren all contribute to the success we […]