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Preparing for the season
The men’s basketball team has one last shot to tidy up in its final exhibition game tonight
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SPORTS
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UA opens bike share program By Marissa Freireich ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Students who don’t have wheels of their own can now get around campus easier, thanks to the Cat Wheels Bike Share Program. The program, in its second week, currently has 10 cruiser bikes, five at Tyndall Avenue Parking Garage and five at Sixth Street Parking Garage. Organizers started the program small so they could work out any problems, said
Bill Davidson, marketing specialist for Parking and Transportation Services. The program is free for students, faculty and staff. “We were looking for new ways to serve the community, new ways to provide alternative transportation to the community,” Davidson said. To rent a bike, students or staff must present a valid CatCard and fill out an agreement form with the cashier of the garage. A U-Lock and key is provided with each rental. Students and staff
may rent a bike Monday through Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. The bike must be returned by 4 p.m. the next business day in the same condition and at the same location it was rented. If the bike is not returned, a $10.00 late fee will be charged to the person’s Bursar’s Account. The bike may be renewed if other bikes are available. “It seems like it’s catching on already,” Davidson said. “It won’t be too long before we have to add bikes to the program.”
Davidson said the cost of the program is about $3,000 to $4,000, which includes the purchase of the bikes, the bike racks and the bike locks. A member of Parking and Transportation Services staff will also check the bikes for any problems with maintenance on a daily basis, Davidson said. The UA modeled the bike-sharing program after successful programs on other campuses, such as the University BIKE SHARE, page 6
Learning how the other half lives
Ashlee Salamon/Arizona Daily Wildcat
The Cat Wheels Bike Share Program allows students and staff to rent bikes on a daily basis free of charge to ride around campus.
Space club in spotlight Students prepare to host national conference at the UA By Michelle Monroe ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Lisa Beth Earle/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Merlynda Sol, an anthropology sophomore and member of the Social Justice League, writes facts on a poster about homelessness to post at the second annual Tentropolis on theUA Mall yesterday. Sol, along with other members of the club, will spend the week living homeless as a means to raise awareness about the issue and collect donations for Casa Maria homeless shelter. Her poster reads, “1.35 million children in the U.S. are homeless.”
Students forgo luxuries in ‘Tentropolis’ to raise awareness of homelessness By Will Ferguson ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Students from the Social Justice League are taking the concept of walking in another’s shoes to the next level. Members of the club are participating in a simulation this week of what it is like to live without a home in what organizers call an effort to bring the realities of homelessness to the UA campus. In addition, participants will be collecting canned goods, pillows, blankets and money for Casa Maria, a local homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Participants will go without the luxuries that most students are accustomed to — no bed, shower, computer, cell phone, iPod or meals other than what is donated through an arrangement with Dining Services. “Dining Services is donating leftovers from various restaurants across campus for our meals, said sociology senior Hali Nurnberg . “We want
to begin to feel the stresses that the homeless live on a daily basis.” The experiment will take place throughout the week on the UA mall and in the Gittings gymnasium where approximately 30 students a day will participate. “Any student can participate as long as we have enough food and t-shirts to go around,” said molecular and cellular biology senior Clark Alves. Nurnberg got the idea for Tentropolis two years ago while participating in a National exchange program with Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts . “I liked the idea because it takes participants out of their comfort zone and begins to expose them to the hardships of being homeless,” she said. Tentropolis is one of three homeless simulations conducted by college students across the country. Students in Massachusetts and Vermont are simultaneously conducting the simulation and holding nightly discussions. Nightly discussions will revolve around the
participants’ experiences in Tentropolis as well as how college students can work to address the problem on a large scale. “A lot of clubs and organizations show movies, we are trying to create an actual environment and then discuss our experiences,” said anthropology sophomore Merlynda Sol . Two speakers a day from a variety of community centers, soup kitchens and shelters will talk about their own personal experiences working with the homeless. Members of the league said they hope the discussions will help to break down stereotypes and assumptions about the homeless community. “A lot of people have this concept of a drunk bum, but a lot of people who are homeless have done everything right,” said Nurnberg. “The homeless have no political clout.” Nurnberg said she talked to multiple people at the university who have been homeless.
SpaceVision 2009, the largest fully student-run space conference in the nation, will take place at the UA, Nov. 12-15. The UA chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space club submitted a bid to host the conference at last years conference at Texas A&M, said Joshua Nelson, chairman of the club’s national organization and a recent UA aerospace engineering graduate. “It’s our organization’s national conference so each chapter voted and we got elected,” Nelson said. Planning for the event began immediately and the 60-member space club is prepared for this weekend, Nelson said. “We want the public to understand that there’s more to space than NASA,” said Kyle Stephens, president of the UA’s club and conference organizer. Organizers say they expect close to 200 people to attend the event and are on track to get that number. About half of the expected attendees are from out of state, and the others will be not only UA affiliates but also surrounding members of the Tucson community. Of the 24 speakers at the conference, there are four UA employees scheduled to lecture. Marcia Rieke, a UA astronomy professor, will be speaking on her latest NASA-affiliated project, the James Webb Space Telescope Near Infrared Camera. Rieke is the principal investigator on the project
TENTROPOLIS, page 6
Fish waste for fertilizer By Tim McDonnell ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT In a world desperately in need of solutions to a growing food-shortage crisis, one UA student has engineered a solution that could have large-scale applications for the food industry. The latest installment of the Flandrau Science Center’s lecture series “Science Café,” will feature agriculture doctoral student Jason Licamele, who will talk about a process he has developed to sustainably produce food using an unlikely fertilizer: fish waste. The process, Licamele said, involves taking the waste generated by farmed tilapia to feed hydroponically grown produce, including lettuce, basil and strawberries.
“The idea is that by coupling these two ideas together you can grow a lot of food in a small area,” Licamele said. “You could grow just about any crop you want.” In a partnership with the UA’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center and the Environmental Research Lab, Licamele has expanded his program from a few tanks to his own hydroponic lab on campus as he identifies the ideal fish-to-plant ratio. Licamele has even marketed his produce, which he said could qualify for organic certification, to local restaurant Elle, 3048 E. Broadway Blvd. “In the future we might end up developing a business out of this,” he said. Concerns about whether the process
Jason Licamele, agriculture & biosystems engineering doctoral student, tends basil in his greenhouse that was grown with the help of his innovative system, using fish waste to hydroponically fertilize his crops. Licamele’s food sustainability process will be featured during a Science Café lecture at the Cushing Street Bar and Restaurant today.
is hygienic can be put to rest, Licamele said, because the fish waste is heavily filtered, leaving behind only concentrated nutrients. “It’s like natural organic fertilizer for the plants,” he said.
IF YOU GO
What: Science Café — Aquaponics: Whetting your appetite for sustainable food production Who: Jason Licamele, doctoral candidate in the Department of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering, open to the public Where: Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, 198 W. Cushing St. When: 6 p.m. How much: Free
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SPACE, page 6
Ashlee Salamon/ Arizona Daily Wildcat
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