California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) faculty and students who have been active in plans to turn a long-contaminated parcel of land in unincorporated Los Angeles County into a neighborhood park are celebrating. In November, Margaret Manning, lecturer in the Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Program, joined CSUDH students, local residents, neighborhood activists, and industry and civic leaders for a groundbreaking ceremony for Wishing Tree Park. The park will be built on land that for more than two decades has been under environmental supervision as an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund Site. “Over here on the north side there were open pits ... Read More
Environmental Science
Kids Conference Puts STEM into Action for Inner-City Youth
What: “STEM in Action: A Kids Conference” When: Thursday, May 31, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Where: California State University, Dominguez Hills’ North Lawn. The university is located at 1000 E. Victoria Street, Carson, CA 90747. Click here for directions and a printable campus map. Summary: California State University, Dominguez Hills’ (CSUDH) 4th Annual “STEM in Action: A Kids Conference” on May 31 will provide close to 1,000 inner-city students the opportunity to participate in hands-on interactive science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities that will help inspire them to become lifelong learners. Designed around the theme, “Outer Space: A Mission to STEMIA 2018,” ... Read More
Urban Farm Takes Root on Campus
On a newly cleared plot of land on the southeast corner of campus, sociology major and Presidential Scholar Hawk McFadzen props up a tight bundle of plant material to show sociology student Martha Hernandez how to rotate a three-stage compost system to cultivate fertile soil for planting organic vegetables. McFadzen is an intern and coordinator of California State University, Dominguez Hills' (CSUDH) Urban Farm, which saw its first crops planted this semester. A multidisciplinary living laboratory, the farm provides a venue for faculty to engage students not only in organic gardening and urban horticulture techniques, but also in discussions about larger societal issues around ... Read More
Karina Martinez Helps Advance Understanding of Invasive Species
It may have been brought to the United States from Europe in the 1860s for its flavor, but garlic mustard, a member of the Brassicaceae plant family, is now an invasive species in the forests of North America that is negatively impacting native flora and fauna. To help discover ways to eradicate the intrusive plant, California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) biology student Karina Martinez spent the first 11 weeks of her summer in Harvard Forest, a 4,000-acre ecological research site and outdoor laboratory that has been administered by Harvard University since 1988. Her research focused on if the “Eurasian invasive duo,” garlic mustard and exotic earthworms, work in tandem to ... Read More
Alexandra Gutierrez Spends Summer Seeking Early-Earth Microbes
Unlike most undergraduate students who go to the Colorado River during the summer to camp or enjoy whitewater rafting, Alexandra Gutierrez, a biology major at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), spent much of that time processing soil samples harvested in the shallows of the river in search of Archaea microorganisms. Funded by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Robert Noyce Scholars and the STEM Teacher and Research (STAR) programs, Gutierrez—an avid environmentalist—was tasked with searching for more diverse families of the microbe during her internship at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), along with working on campus at Stanford in the Green Earth Sciences ... Read More
