The Battalion: March 7, 2017 by The Battalion

Silver Taps

TONIGHT WE HONOR THE FALLEN

when 10:30 p.m. Tuesday where Academic Plaza In honor of Aggies who have died, the Ross Volunteer Firing Squad will march in Academic Plaza and fire three rifle volleys of seven shots. Buglers from the Aggie Band will play a special arrangement of Taps.

Alex Jones 1991 — 2017

Ross Travis Lightfoot 1993 — 2016

Ronald Thiessen 1994 — 2016

Professor Bruce Dvorak (purple) works with his Ph.D students to check temperature, status and growth of numerous plants.

BATT THE

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GREEN

Maria Fuentes — THE BATTALION

Langford’s roof goes A&M researchers establish ideal conditions for rooftop gardens in unfriendly Texas climate By Prateek Jain @prateekjn1

reen roofs have thrived for hundreds of years in the Mediterranean climate but have not worked in areas like Texas. But an ongoing research project at the Langford Architecture Center has identified ideal plants and conditions for a green roof in the Texas climate. Three A&M professors in architecture, atmospheric sciences and horticulture started this project to establish an understanding of green roofs — a garden atop a building — in Texas in 2012 and have successfully identified more than a more than a dozen plants that survive well in the southern climate. Data is collected through hundreds of sensors that record ambient factors such as the soil moisture content, tempera-

tures and the duration of sunlight. If they can determine the ideal conditions for Texas green roofs, they could have many benefits locally, including improved air quality and reduced energy consumption. Bruce Dvorak, assistant professor of landscape architecture, said the climate of Texas has been the hardest obstacle the team has faced. “First year some of the plants died so we consolidated successful plants on one side and we started purchasing additional plants and we would start planting those and from the new plant teams we would have some successes and some failures so every year we just kind of keep modifying it,” Dvorak said. Dvorak said the winter temperatures have played a major role in whether certain specie of plants survive and are best suited for Texas weather. “We had 18 degrees [Fahrenheit] and that 18 degrees wiped out several plants that are marginally hardy here, so you kind of learn that you are in zone 8b here and even though you might have a mild winter three or four years in a row we’re going to

have a cold temperature,” Dvorak said. “It doesn’t matter if it is one day or 15 days—still that one day can kill plants that are not cold hardy.” Dvorak said most meteorologists are environmentally minded but tend to lack the manual labor skills of designing green roofs to collect data, making this project attractive. “In order to do science on a green roof it was clear to me that there would have to be a lot of sensing done, a lot of instrumentation,” Dvorak said. “Meteorology these days can be kind of tied to the LED monitor and sitting in front of the computer. So I think even some of the manual labor skills of just assembling the green roof in the beginning was a real positive for the people that were involved and the chance to be next to plants.” Despite the severe challenges posed by the extreme weather conditions, the project has identified more than 12 species that have done well on the roof. Zhihan Tao, landscape architecGREEN ROOF ON PG. 2

Independent films come to B-CS Red Wasp festival offers platform to international filmmakers Sunday By Abbie Maier @AbbsMaier The Red Wasp Film Festival Sunday showcased films from all over the world and celebrated its 15th year of providing the Brazos Valley with high-quality independent film Sunday night. The Red Wasp Film Festival began with a desire from Carol and Craig Conlee to increase film appreciation in the Bryan-College Station community and to create a platform for up-and-coming filmmakers to showcase their work. This year’s festival was held at Coulter Air Field in Bryan, and awards were given for Audience Favorite, One to Watch and Best of Festival. Carol Conlee created the Red Wasp Film

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Nate Silver, editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight accurately predicted the last two elections.

Leah Kappayil — THE BATTALION

Films were screened inside an airplane hangar during the Red Wasp Film Festival.

Festival in 2003, while she owned a local bed and breakfast, called the 7F Lodge. Playboy Magazine called Conlee, wanting to use the 7F Lodge as the backdrop for a photoshoot RED WASP ON PG. 2

One of the events at last year’s International Women’s Day Event was slam poetry.

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Conference to celebrate Women’s Day By Kenya Robinson @AbbsMaier The fifth-annual International Women’s Day Conference will once again celebrate Women’s History Month by recognizing the diversity of the Aggie family and emphasize the importance of women in leadership. Student organizations Feminists for Reproductive Equity and Education and Women’s Organization for Motivation, Expression, and Nurturing (WOMEN) will team up with the

American Association of University Women and the Women’s Resource Center for the annual conference. The conference will include performances by student organizations on campus, presentations showcasing women achievements around the world and small group discussions for registered participants. The conference will take place Tuesday in the Memorial Student Center from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. WOMEN’S DAY ON PG. 4

Nate Silver to visit campus By Brad Morse @bradmorse53 Nate Silver, editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight, will give a speech titled “The Signal and the Noise: An Evening with Nate Silver,” focusing on statistics and how they relate to the modern world. Silver is also the main data scientist and founder of FiveThirtyEight, which is owned by ESPN. The site covers sports, politics, economics, science and popular culture. Silver is known for his work with statistics, which he uses to predict the outcome of various events. He was able to accurately predict the outcome of 49 of 50 states during the 2008 presidential election, and all 50 states in the 2012 election. The speech, sponsored by MSC Bethancourt, will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Rudder Auditorium. Accounting junior and MSC Bethancourt executive Brett Lucy said Silver will talk about how to use statistics to analyze today’s society. “Nate will be discussing how to combine different analytical tools and how to use them to properly sort through all the information and data that comes our way today,” Lucy said. “He will use relevant topics in the world today to relate how his methods can help one rise above all the nonsense and useless information that is often espoused by others.” Although the speech will be centrally focused around statistics concepts, Lucy said the speech won’t be tailored to math-oriented people. “Honestly, we have been targeting the whole campus,” Lucy said. “We want as di-

verse of an audience as possible, and we truly believe that everyone on this campus will benefit from this talk.” Lucy said MSC Bethancourt chose Silver because of his unique methodology and relevance to the world today. “He is an outside-the-box thinker and someone who has — and continues to — break ground in a variety of subjects,” Lucy said. “On top of this, he is extremely relevant at this point in time. With the recent election and the continued chaos of the new administration, Nate has been an important voice and someone that has been looked to for clarification. This modern state of affairs and our mission as an organization made him a great person to come speak to our campus.” Political science senior and MSC Bethancourt chair Alexa Etheredge said the group decided to bring Silver to campus because they thought his speech would offer a fresh perspective on current events. “We really admired his work both with data and making predictions with that data,” Etheredge said. “We thought [bringing him to campus] would be a great way to talk about dealing with a world that is so saturated with data, and he is able to approach these topics from a different standpoint.” Etheredge said she hopes the speech proves impactful to those who attend. “He has a lot of knowledge that students could benefit from,” Etheredge said. “I think that he will give students a great perspective on making decisions and predictions about the world today. Hopefully they can take something away and back into their lives.”