After their successful Artscape concert in July, Straight Up Tribal has been invited by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts to perform on the Main Stage at the Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday September 29th at 3pm. 

The world music group, co-founded in 2008 by Interdisciplinary Studies Assistant Director Steven McAlpine and UMBC alumni Trey Kulp, Abhik Saha, Bryan Lee, Asif Majid, and Eddie Chen, has recently released an album of original songs available in the UMBC bookstore.

Two days after starting work as the new director of INDS, Stephen Freeland traveled to Washington DC to present a public lecture on the emerging science surrounding the possibility of other life in the universe. This lecture was invited by the Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (DoSER) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which welcomed a diverse group of politicians, scientists and members of the general public to a Q&A about the implications of this work.

The research about which Dr. Freeland spoke falls under the emerging science of astrobiology (https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-astrobiology/) which, by placing together insights from the traditional scientific disciplines, is rapidly forming a consensus picture that life should not be as rare as was once thought. In fact the focal point of the lecture were "three clues consistent with extraterrestrial life."

A full description of this event, together with a video of the event, can be found here:

www.aaas.org/spp/dser/events/archives/lectures/2013/Exoplanets/Exoplanets6_19_2013.html

Since Spring 2012, students of Jill Wrigley’s INDS 430 Food Systems Seminar learn about the intersecting benefits, problems and challenges generated by modern food systems. Now, thanks to a BreakingGround grant (umbcbreakingground.wordpress.com),  students in Spring 2014 will get their hands dirty while challenging their minds and forging new relationships beyond the classroom.

Two thirds of the new course will be spent in small group work devoted to various projects on and off campus. Each project asks students to propose or enact some improvement of the food system at UMBC or in a neighboring community or schools. Examples include (but are not limited to):

Growing Microgreens at UMBC:  What are the nutritional advantages of microgreens and how can we deliver them to plates of fellow UMBC students?  This project will integrate horticulture, entrepreneurship, marketing/communications and policy.

Edible Campus: The K-12 community is creating edible schoolyards in schools across the country, and globe.  Why not edible campuses? Students selecting this option will research how and where UMBC might develop this idea.

Garden Pals with Neighboring schools and communities:  Students will utilize the UMBC Biology Greenhouse to grow vegetable seedlings for transplant into container or in-ground gardens at various partner sites within the K-12 community.

What’s on Our Plate at UMBC?: Students selecting this option would undertake a “community food assessment” of the food provided to them at UMBC using an adapted version of the Real Food Calculator created by Real Food Challenge, or using an instrument of the students’ own design.

Food waste and food recovery at UMBC:  How can UMBC             reduce food waste and alleviate hunger and promote health in the           Baltimore region?  

• Semester Academic Honors - earned at least a 3.5
• Dean's List - earned at least a 3.75
• President's List - 4.0!!!

These honors are only for students who took classes full-time and the credits were not taken as pass/fail.

http://www.umbc.edu/inds/students/academic_awards

Will YOU be on the list next semester? We can work with you to make it happen!

• Documentarian/Audio Visual Lead - create and edit videos for the web and podcasts
• Online Journalist and Social Media Lead - must have an interest and experience in print journalism and social media
• K-12 Education Lead - work closely with the Museum's Education Outreach division

For more information and instruction on how to apply (by July 1), please visit http://www.smithsonianofi.com/blog/2013/05/20/nmah-history-freedom-school-fall-internships/

The National Museum of American History’s Department of Education and Public Programs seeks three exemplary college students committed to making a positive impact on their communities to participate in the Freedom School fall internship program. Through this program, participants will:

• Learn the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign first hand through dialogue with people who were there and through other primary sources

• Meet with curators and educators to explore related material in the Smithsonian’s National Collection and visit local civil rights-related historic sites

• Explore, discuss, and debate the meaning and legacy of social justice, democracy, and leadership in American history

• Visit government offices, and advocacy organizations to discuss modern activism

• Share lessons-learned with local high school students

• Publish their research on the Smithsonian website for a national audience.