Setting students on a path to success in careers in science is a challenge in poor rural Appalachian public schools. Students face many socioeconomic obstacles. Their teachers are also limited by many factors including inadequate facilities, under-funding, geographical isolation of the schools, and state-testing constraints. Additionally, students and teachers lack the availability of outside science educational opportunities. In an effort to address this situation, 24 academically strong high school junior girls and their teachers from the Carter County School System in rural east Tennessee were invited for a laboratory day at Milligan College, a small liberal arts college in the heart of the county. Science faculty, female science majors, and admissions staff volunteered in service to the project. The event included three laboratory sessions, lunch in the college cafeteria, and campus tours. This successful example, as evidenced by positive evaluations by the invited girls and their teachers, of educational outreach by a local, small liberal arts college to a rural county school system provides a model for establishing a relationship between higher education institutions and these underprivileged schools, with the intention of drawing more of these poor, rural Appalachian students, particularly girls, into a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career path. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education

Fertilizer plant waste carbon slurry has been investigated after some processing as an adsorbent for the removal of dyes and phenols using columns. The results show that the carbonaceous adsorbent prepared from carbon slurry being porous and having appreciable surface area (380 m2/g) can remove dyes both cationic (meldola blue, methylene blue, chrysoidine G, crystal violet) as well as anionic (ethyl orange, metanil yellow, acid blue 113), and phenols (phenol, 2-chlorophenol, 4-chlorophenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol) fruitfully from water. The column type continuous flow operations were used to obtain the breakthrough curves. The breakthrough capacity, exhaustion capacity and degree of column utilization were evaluated from the plots. The results shows that the degree of column utilization for dyes lies in the range 60 to 76% while for phenols was in the range 53-58%. The exhaustion capacities were quite high as compared to the breakthrough capacities and were found to be 217, 211, 104, 126, 233, 248, 267 mg/g for meldola blue, crystal violet, chrysoidine G, methylene blue, ethyl orange, metanil yellow, acid blue 113, respectively and 25.6, 72.2, 82.2 and 197.3 mg/g for  phenol, 2-chlorophenol, 4-chlorophenol and 2,4-dichlorophenol, respectively

In recent years managing solid wastes has been one of the burning problems in front of state and local municipal authorities. This is mainly due to scarcity of lands for landfill sites. In this context experts suggest that conversion of solid waste to energy and useful component is the best approach to reduce space and public health related problems. The entire process has to be managed by technologies that prevent pollution and protect the environment and at the same time minimize the cost through recovery of energy. Energy recovery in the form of electricity, heat and fuel from the waste using different technologies is possible through a variety of processes, including incineration, gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion. These processes are often grouped under “Waste to Energy technologies”. The objective of the study is twofold. First authors assessed the current status of solid waste management practices in India. Secondly the leading barriers are identified and Interpretive structural modeling technique and MICMAC analysis is performed to identify the contextual interrelationships between leading barriers influencing the solid waste to energy programs in the country. Finally the conclusions are drawn which will assist policy makers in designing sustainable waste management programs.

The current investigation presents the role of gooseberry (Phyllanthus acidus) seeds as an effective biosorbent for remediating chromium (VI)), a toxic heavy metal pollutant commonly found in effluents from tanneries and relevant industries. Biosorption was affected by pH, temperature and initial metal concentration. Furthermore, there is a need to understand the holistic effect of all variables to ascertain the best possible conditions for adsorption, therefore, these factors were considered and a total of 17 trials were run according to the Box Behnken design. Quadratic model had maximum R2 value (0.9984) and larger F value (1109.92). From the Analysis Of Variance table and R2 value, quadratic model was predicted to be the significant model with the best fit to the generated experimental data. The optimal parameters obtained from the contour plot for the maximum removal of chromium(VI) were initial metal concentration of 60 mg/L, pH value of 2, and temperature of 27°C. Under these conditions, maximum removal of 92% was obtained. Thus this biosorbent substantially eliminates chromium(VI) under optimized conditions, enabling its use in larger scale.

During the last years, several exceedances of PM10 and benzo(a)pyrene limit values exceedances were recorded in Taranto, a city in southern Italy included in so-called areas at high risk of environmental crisis because of the presence of a heavy industrial district including the largest steel factory in Europe. A study of these critical pollution events showed a close correlation with the wind coming from the industrial site to the adjacent urban area. During 2011, at monitoring sites closes to the industrial area, at least the 65% of PM10 exceedances were related to wind day conditions (characterized by at least 3 consecutive hours of wind coming from 270-360±2deg with an associated speed higher than 7 m/s). For this reason, in 2012 an integrated environmental permit and a regional air quality plan were enacted to reduce pollutant emissions from industrial plants. A study of PM10 levels registered during windy days was performed during critical episodes of pollution highlighting that the difference between windy days and no windy days’ concentrations reduces from 2012 to 2014 in industrial site. False negative events (verified ex-post by observed meteorological data) not identified by the forecast model - did not show a significant influence on PM concentration: PM10 values were comparable and sometimes lower than windy days levels. It is reasonable that the new scenario with a relevant reduction emissions form Ilva plant reduced the pollutants contribution from industrial area, contributing to PM10 levels decrease, also in false negative events.

Erosion plots were selected for characterizing the effects of main natural factors on runoff and soil loss in a semi-arid region. These erosion plots with an area of 40 m2 are located in the Kakhk experimental watershed in Gonabad County of Khorasan-e Razave Province in the north-eastern Iran. Data acquired from 2008 to 2015 include slope, aspect, soil texture and land covers (canopy and litter) factors that were selected as main natural factors and it was tried to determine the effects of these factors on runoff and soil loss amount. In the next stage, it was focused on evaluation of the effects of land covers on runoff generation and soil loss in more details. For this purpose, in each class of the mentioned factors, the relationship between land covers and runoff and soil loss was analysed. The maximum of runoff and soil loss were occurred at E site with the amount of 15.6 mm and 140 g/m2 respectively. Results showed that soil loss and runoff have decreased where the amounts of land covers have increased, and the line gradient is steeper for soil loss reduction than runoff generation. The result especially characterized the role of land covers on soil loss. Based on these results land covers have a significant effect on soil loss but this effect is mostly highlighted in the highest and lowest conditions of erosion potential, rather than the medium erosion potential condition. Furthermore, in each plot and event, a dominant factor determines the quantity of the effect of land cover on runoff and soil loss.

Heavy metals and dyes are major contributors in contamination of water streams. These contaminants enter into our eco- system, thus posing a significant threat to public health, ecological equilibrium and environment. Thus a combined discharge of these contaminants results in water pollution with high chemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, color, particulate matter, suspended particles and odor. The mounting pollution of the water bodies has attracted attention of the researchers towards the development of novel techniques and materials for water pollution. The paper describes the use of such a material Parthenium hysterophorus, a weed, explored for water purification. The potential of the weed has been tested for several heavy metals and dyes as described in this paper. As per literature the weed is capable of showing adsorption tendency up to 90% in certain cases for some heavy metals and dyes. Powdered weed, activated carbon, ash etc. of Parthenium have been employed for the removal process.

Organic fraction of solid waste, which upon degradation produces foul smell and generates pathogens, if not properly managed. Composting is not a method of waste disposal but it is a method of waste recycling and used for agricultural purposes. An integrated approach of composting methodology was tested for municipal solid waste management. Solid waste first was composted and after 22 days, was further processed by vermicomposting. Samples were routinely taken for analysis of carbon, nitrogen, moisture content, pH and temperature to determine the quality of composting. Decrease in moisture content to 32.1 %, relative decrease in carbon and nitrogen content were also observed. Among the different types of treatment, municipal solid waste + activated sludge integration showed promising results, followed by vermicomposting municipal solid waste + activated sludge combination, compared to the combinations of dried activated sludge, municipal solid waste + activated sludge semisolid and municipal solid waste + sewage water. Thus, windrow composting followed by vermicomposting gave a better result than other methods. Thus this method would serve as a potential alternative for solid waste management.