Presentations from the 2007 Rice University NSF Advance Conference entitled "Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position" and held March 14-16 are herein made available to the public. This workshop provided a unique opportunity for prospective women faculty to learn from established faculty leaders across all science and engineering disciplines.

Presentations from the 2008 Rice University NSF Advance Conference entitled "Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position" are herein made available to the public. This workshop provided a unique opportunity for prospective women faculty to learn from established faculty leaders across all science and engineering disciplines.

For four years after the U.S. dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, America held a monopoly on the production of atomic weapons. During this period, debate centering on the use of nuclear bombs in future wars proliferated among government officials, scientists, religious leaders, and in the popular press. In the following article from Collier's, former Navy lieutenant commander William H. Hessler, using data from the Strategic Bombing Survey, argued that saturation bombing of urban areas during World War II, while devastating for civilians, did not achieve war aims. A future atomic war, therefore, might well destroy cities but fail to stop enemy aggression. Furthermore, with a much higher urban concentration than the Soviet Union, the U.S. had more to lose from atomic warfare. The article, while providing detailed explanations of the bomb's destructive capability, demonstrated the lack of information available regarding the long-term medical and ecological effects of radioactivity. Hessler's prose also evoked both the fascination that gadgetry of atomic warfare held for Americans of the time and the fear many felt about the risks involved in putting this technology to use. On September 24, 1949, one week after publication of this article, news that the Russians had conducted atom bomb tests shocked the nation. The following April, a National Security Council report to President Harry S. Truman advised development of a hydrogen bomb--some 1,000 times more destructive than an atom bomb--and a massive buildup of non-nuclear defenses. The subsequent outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950 justified to many a substantial increase in defense spending.

In 1981, the U.S. medical community noticed a significant number of gay men living in urban areas with rare forms of pneumonia, cancer, and lymph disorders. The cluster of ailments was initially dubbed Gay-Related Immune Disease (GRID), but when similar illnesses increased in other groups, the name changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The mid-1980s saw a number of advances toward understanding and treating the disease, but no vaccine or cure was forthcoming. Gay advocacy and community-based organizations began providing services and pressuring government to increase funding for finding a cure and helping victims. As two representatives of AIDS health services organizations stated in the following 1987 testimony to Congress, AIDS spread in disproportionately high numbers throughout U.S. minority and disadvantaged communities. They advocated increased federal funding for prevention efforts targeted at minority communities and administered by community-based organizations. Despite such efforts, the number of minority AIDS cases continued to rise sharply, and by 1996, African Americans accounted for a higher percentage of reported adult cases of AIDS (41%) than did whites.

This course is assembled from UC-approved college preparatory courses and is designed to acquaint students with the physical, ecological, social, and political principles of environmental science. The scientific method is used to analyze and understand the inter-relationships between humans and the natural environment. The course shows how ecological realities and the material desires of humans often clash, leading to environmental degradation and pollution. The course covers: Earth's Systems, Human Population Dynamics, Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, Global Changes, and Environment and Society.

This University of California College Prep (UCCP) Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental Science online course has five objectives: Describe the six different forms of energy and the type of work done by each form. Discuss the roles of sources and sinks in an energy budget. Define the Law of Conservation of Energy, and explain how the operation of fuel cell vehicles illustrates this principal. Name the units with which energy, power, and force are measured and described. Use energy flow within a house to explain both theoretical and practical aspects of energy use and conservation.

Human activities release a variety of substances into the biosphere, many of which negatively affect the environment. Pollutants discharged into the environment can accumulate in the air, water, or soil......

The needs of humans and the living organisms and processes that comprise the biosphere are inextricably connected. Because of this connection the proper management of biological resources requires that genetic diversity and suitable habitats be maintained.

The world’s industrialized countries are undergoing many changes as they move to the later stages of the Industrial Revolution. Economies are becoming more information based, and capital is being measured not only in terms of tangible products and human workers, but also in terms of social and intellectual assets....

The earth's biogeochemical systems involve complex, dynamic processes that depend upon many factors. The three main factors upon which life on the earth depends are......

Economics is the process by which humans manage their environment and its resources. The process is made up of a system of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services....

The concept of ethics involves standards of conduct. These standards help to distinguish between behavior that is considered right and that which is considered wrong. As we all know, it is not always easy to distinguish between right and wrong, as there is no universal code of ethics......

Although environmental laws are generally considered a 20th century phenomenon, attempts have been made to legislate environmental controls throughout history. In 2,700 B.C., the middle-eastern civilization in Ur passed laws protecting the few remaining forests in the region.....

The various components of earth's systems interact with one another through the flow of matter and energy. For example, mass (carbon dioxide and oxygen gases) is exchanged between the biosphere and atmosphere during plant photosynthesis....

This text is designed to acquaint students with the physical, ecological, social, and political principles of environmental science. Scientific method is used to analyze and understand the interrelationships between humans and the natural environment. This test shows how ecological realities and the material desire of humans often clash, leading to environmental degradation and pollution.

Although humans have had the capability to monitor earth's systems effectively only relatively recently, previous global environmental events have not gone unrecorded. Climate indicators exist in various forms (e.g., pollen in lake-bottom sediments, patterns in tree-rings, air bubbles frozen in glacial ice and growth rings in coral)......

A population is a group of individuals living together in a given area at a given time.....

The human carrying capacity is a concept explored by many people, most famously Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834), for hundreds of years....

When environmental conditions are degraded such that the range of tolerance is exceeded, there will be a significant impact on human health. Our industrialized society dumps huge amounts of pollutants and toxic wastes into the earth's biosphere without fully considering the consequences....