COMPOSITION LAB WINS EXPLORES FREE AWARD FOR THOUGHT SAVING WATER
PREPARING FOR DISASTER AMONG MOST VULNERABLE UNT researchers are learning how to help Native American communities — a historically underrepresented population in the field of emergency preparedness research in the U.S. — better prepare for and rebound from disasters. Gary Webb, professor and chair of emergency management and disaster science, and Nicole Dash, associate professor of sociology and associate dean in UNT’s College of Public Affairs and Community Service, are using interviews and GIS analyses to identify the natural and technological hazards the population faces. They are studying the existing emergency management structures in those communities and assessing the challenges they face in implementing emergency planning initiatives.
Joseph Klein, Distinguished Teaching Professor of music composition, is working on an ambitious composition, An Unaware Cosmos, which in its most expansive form will require 70 musicians distributed across 24 ensembles, each performing its own distinctive music. The piece applies a modular approach to musical form where the individual pieces or “modules” — composed for various chamber ensembles of one to five instruments each — are played concurrently, rather than sequentially, allowing for the resulting music to be fragmented, dislocated, suspended, disrupted, and penetrated in unpredictable ways. “An Unaware Cosmos was conceived as a celebration of humankind’s quest for knowledge through skepticism and critical inquiry, as well as a rebuke of the tribalism, superstition and sophistry that continue to characterize much of our society,” Klein says. The composition pays homage to free thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, Bertrand Russell, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. Among other issues, the work addresses non-linear models of time and the human desire to impose structure, order and inherent meaning on the universe. Klein plans to complete the work in 2017, and it will be presented in its entirety at UNT the following year.
For its efforts in helping to educate students about the importance of conserving water, UNT’s Science Education Research Lab earned the 2016 Texas Environmental Excellence Award from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In partnership with the city of Dallas, educators from the lab developed and taught water conservation lessons to more than 97,000 students since 2006. After reviewing water bills by specific neighborhoods, researchers found that education translated into water savings of more than 500 gallons per month. “This demonstrates the difference individuals can make in saving water,” says Ruthanne “Rudi” Thompson, below, director of the lab and associate professor of biology.
UNT RESEARCH
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