This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
In this award, research laboratories of the Urban Environmental Biogeochemistry Laboratory (UEBL) will be renovated. The rooms were built in 1976 and have never been renovated. The renovation will convert a sample preparation laboratory, a nearby rock preparation room, and adjacent support spaces into an integrated suite of research laboratories that include, at one end, a sample intake laboratory and a sample processing laboratory, and at the other, two new culture and organismal experimentation laboratories and a high-tech chemistry instrumentation laboratory.
Towson University is located in the middle of an urban-to-rural gradient, which provides an ideal setting to study the effects of urbanization on natural systems, including their modification by humans and interactions with human social systems. Faculty members and students from Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geosciences and Environmental Science focus in a multidisciplinary way on the functional interrelationships between chemical, physical, geological and biological processes that control the sources, transport, cycling and fate of elements and compounds in urban/suburban systems. Towson University faculty members are research active with federally funded programs. Towson University is one of NSF's REU sites.
The renovation will enhance the safety of students conducting research while providing an efficient work space that will enhance research productivity and the research experience of students engaged in these programs. Towson University has a highly diverse student population with minority retention and graduation rates that exceed the national average.
NSF grant #0963263 provided for the renovation of dilapidated research space in the ground floor of Smith Hall, Towson University’s science building which was built in 1975. The main goal of the project was to provide a modern research environment to support faculty and student research and instruction in biogeochemistry, with a focus on the urban environment. The groups of multidisciplinary faculty members and their students doing this research are known as the Urban Environmental Biogeochemistry Laboratory (UEBL). Towson University is well situated to carry out this type of research, because it is located in a suburban setting midway between rural Baltimore County and urban Baltimore City. The rural-to-urban gradient provides a natural laboratory for asking and answering a wide array of biogeochemical questions. The UEBL was designed to accommodate a logical workflow where laboratory activities move from general use to progressively more specialized and stringently maintained spaces. Samples requiring initial processing such as drying, sieving, grinding or centrifugation enter from the field to the Sample Intake Laboratory. Large exhaust hoods vent heat and odors and control dust. Large, open bench surfaces support a wide variety of activities by multiple users. After initial processing, samples require further preparation for detailed chemical analysis. At this stage, samples are relocated to the next laboratory which is maintained as a clean room facility. Here, multiple fume hoods allow for acid digestions, organic extractions and related preparation for subsequent instrumental analyses. This laboratory also houses a seated-height bench for biological preparations including dissections and microscope work. Next, prepared samples can be taken to the adjacent Instrumentation Laboratory. Due to this workflow, raw sample materials never enter the same room as the instruments, minimizing the potential for contamination. Parallel to these three facilities, the Exposure Laboratory is utilized for organismal work that requires tightly controlled temperature, light cycle and humidity conditions. The Exposure Laboratory contains a terrestrial room used for earthworm and isopod cultures and bioassays and is currently maintained with dim lighting, low temperature and high humidity as is appropriate for soil invertebrates. The aquatic exposure laboratory contains cultures of algae and aquatic invertebrates that are used in bioassays. It has also been used for ant and larval amphibian bioassays requiring higher temperatures and brighter conditions than are present in the terrestrial laboratory. The UEBL has been in full operation for one year. In that time period, UEBL faculty members have obtained four extramural research grants totaling $572,832. These grants are from Baltimore County, the National Science Foundation, the Maryland Industrial Partnership, and the International Copper Association/Copper Development Association. UEBL faculty and students have published one journal article and five abstracts of talks or posters presented at professional meetings of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, the American Public Works Association, and the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. Much of the research that takes place in the UEBL is applied research, designed to help solve problems. Society is the cause of urbanization, pollution, and environmental degradation. Current research in the UEBL is investigating urban heavy metal and salt pollution, the fate of nanoparticles in the environment, and nutrient pollution. Each of these projects seeks to understand the biogeochemical processes with an eye toward funding solutions to the problems brought about by pollution.
