Behold the common house plant, the front-yard shrub, the rhododendron around back that’s seen better days since the next-door neighbors put their home on the market. They brighten our lawns, increase our property values, even boost our mental and physical health by reducing carbon dioxide levels.
For Dr. Joel Burken, such plants are far more valuable than as mere window dressing. The Curators’ Distinguished Professor and chair of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology is an expert in phytoforensics, the process of using plants to study human exposure to pollutants.
Most environmental engineering students are concerned about conditions on Earth. Nicholas Jarnagin, a senior in environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, is worried about pollution in space.
Read More »Many of the 2 million cell phones, computers and other electronic products Americans discard each year could have a second life if they were designed for disassembly and reuse, says a UMR researcher who specializes in industrial ecology.
Read More »A UMR researcher’s studies on how trees can help clean up the environment has received a $270,000 boost from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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