Research Round Up for November
The life at the preserve: Biobliz participants explore the Lakeshore Nature Preserve in search of the species that make the urban oasis thrive
At the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, life is everywhere. Hundreds of different species call the 300-acre property home. In its woodlands, prairies and shoreline you can witness pollinators fertilizing native plants, birds scouting their next meal and even see a fungus that, until last year, was unknown to the science community.
You just need to know where to look.
That’s the idea behind the Preserve Bioblitz, a daylong nature scavenger hunt that brings together UW and Madison community members to find and document as many living species as possible across the preserve.
During the annual event, which just completed its second year, participants explore the natural area and record their observations along the way. No experience is necessary, just a curious eye — and a phone equipped with some helpful apps. Each observation adds to a growing picture of the biodiversity that makes up the preserve.
Midwest Center of Excellence for Vector Borne Disease receives funding from HHS to improve tick control and prevent disease
The Midwest Center of Excellence for Vector Borne Disease (MCEVBD) is one of two CDC Centers of Excellence (COEs) in Vector-Borne Diseases to share nearly $3 million funding research into innovative approaches for reducing tick populations and lowering people’s encounters with ticks and the risk of tickborne disease. The award, announced last week, is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Wisconsin Sea Grant celebrates 20 years of innovative research and partnerships at UW-Stevens Point’s Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility
Sometimes, great ideas exist beyond the boundaries of a university campus. The Wisconsin Idea was built on that premise.
You may not find a better example than the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility (UWSP NADF). Located near the Lake Superior shore on the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Anishinaabeg tribal land in Red Cliff, Wisconsin, the facility is a one-of-a-kind center in the Midwest and joins only a handful in the nation that offers similar capabilities in aquaculture research, demonstration, and education.
Facility staff work directly with private industry partners, state and tribal hatcheries, and other universities to identify key issues and formulate projects that seek to ensure sustainable and effective production of fish and meet their goals for research, demonstration, education, and stocking.
AFAR Features Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center Director Rozalyn Anderson
The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) recently featured Rozalyn Anderson, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center (WiNSC), in its national Ask the Expert series.
The interview highlights UW–Madison’s NIH-funded Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center, which focuses on the role of metabolism in aging. Dr. Anderson discusses the center’s interdisciplinary approach to aging research, its research cores supporting metabolism, multi-omics, and translation, and the collaborative network of investigators working across UW–Madison to advance the basic biology of aging.
New Study Examines Graduation Rates for Students Who Waive English Learner Services
For students classified as English learners, language support services are designed to help them succeed. But a new study found students who waived those services as high school seniors were more likely to graduate, raising questions about whether the way English learner (EL) services are delivered meets the needs of multilingual students in high school.
The findings, published in AERA Open, come from a study of more than 4,400 high school students in the state of Oregon and are believed to be the first to estimate the effects of waiving English learner services on course-taking and graduation outcomes. The study was co-authored by Janette Avelar, a researcher within the Multilingual Learning Research Center (MLRC) at UW–Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER).
The study reveals key insights into how waiving services shapes educational trajectories, serving as an urgent call to examine whether service models are responsive, especially to long-term ELs and ELs also identified as special education students.
New Research Highlights Promise, Challenges of Youth-Driven School Mental Health Reform
Young people have valuable expertise about what supports their mental health in schools, according to a new study from Kate Somerville of UW–Madison’s School Mental Health Collaborative (SMHC). But a companion study, also by Somerville, suggests that even when educators and community members support those ideas in principle, friction with current school, health care and policy systems can make transformative change difficult.
“One of the most striking findings across these studies is the tension between what students say they need and what current systems are structured to provide,” said Somerville, a post-doctoral research fellow at SMHC, based in the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research. “The students offered a compelling vision for more equitable school mental health supports, but the companion study suggests there are significant structural barriers that can make those changes difficult to achieve.”
Yet that doesn’t mean would-be reformers should give up, she added.