CALS News and Announcements

  • Credit-Wise Cats Teach Kids About Finance

    The UA’s Credit-Wise Cats live by one motto: There’s no crying in finance.

    The organization began with just five members in 2000, and aims to improve the financial literacy of young adults in local schools. The group now includes 15 ambassadors that partner with programs and community businesses to put on interactive personal finance workshops. On Saturday, the Credit-Wise Cats invited 14 high schools in Tucson to take part in a competition that challenged their financial literacy.

  • Yuma Area Farmers Betting on Olives

    In the constant search for new crops that fit the area and fill a niche market, a handful of growers in the desert Southwest are turning their attention to an ancient agricultural product with a promising new future.

    With Americans in pursuit of healthier living, there's a growing demand for high-quality olive oil, said Glenn Wright, a University of Arizona researcher with the Yuma Agriculture Center. And it's a crop he thinks would do well here.

    “I think there's a big future here, based on what I know so far.”

  • Super Tomatoes

    UA scientists are growing tomatoes that have a high concentration of lycopene, an antioxidant compound. By adding salt to the soil, the tomatoes experience stress, which causes them to produce more lycopene. The study could lead to improved food growing techniques in the U.S. and better nutrition.


    See the WebMD video featuring Chieri Kubota, CALS Controlled Environment Agricultural Center, at http://www.webmd.com/diet/video/super-tomatoes

  • Fund Gives Green Light to Sustainability

    The University of Arizona Green Fund Committee has selected 16 projects to receive nearly $400,000 in the coming year that will make the University a more environmentally sustainable institution.
     
    The Green Fund Committee is comprised of nine UA students responsible for soliciting, accepting, reviewing and funding sustainable project proposals on the UA campus and beyond. The committee received 34 proposals this year from a variety of projects looking for funding for the 2012-13 academic year.

  • CALS Professor to Head National Group on Adolescent Research

    The Society for Research on Adolescence, or SRA, has named University of Arizona professor Stephen T. Russell its new president.


    Russell is director of the University of Arizona's Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families, housed in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences.
     
    He also is the associate editor of SRA's Journal of Research on Adolescence and the Fitch Nesbitt Endowed Chair. The McClelland Institute that he heads is a catalyst for research that addresses social, emotional and physical issues that families face.

  • Conference to Explore 'Love Affair' Between Retailers, Customers

    The University of Arizona's Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing will hold its annual Global Retailing Conference April 12-13. This year's event will be at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort in Tucson.
     
    A number of the retail industry's innovators will present during the two-day conference, the 16th in the series. Among the speakers will be senior executives from Macy's, Home Depot, Walmart, PetSmart, General Growth Partners, Kraft, Nielsen and Li and Fung.
     
    UA alumnus Terry J.

  • Deconstructing Dengue

    Scientists can spend years working on problems that at first may seem esoteric and rather pointless. For example, there's a scientist in Arizona who's trying to find a way to measure the age of wild mosquitoes.


    As weird as that sounds, the work is important for what it will tell scientists about the natural history of mosquitoes. It also could have major implications for human health.

  • Know Garden's Zone When Picking Plants

    What zone is your landscape in? If you knew that, you might get a better understanding of what can grow in your yard.
     
    You can figure out your landscape profile by using a number of plant-hardiness maps available to gardeners.
     
    In January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released an updated Plant Hardiness Zone Map that tells growers how cold it gets in their neighborhoods.
     
    Some of the zones were adjusted to reflect new data that cover a 30-year period instead of a 13-year period.
     

  • Arizona SciTech Festival Events Throughout February 2012

    The Arizona SciTech Festival showcases Arizona as a national leader in science, technology and innovation through a series of events taking place January 25-March 14, 2012.  The Festival is a grass roots collaboration of over 200 organizations in industry, academia, arts, community and K-12, geared to excite and inform Arizonans ages three to 103 about how science, technology and innovation will drive our state for the next 100 years.
     

  • UA Revamps Minor to Focus on Fashion, Retail

    Trendy UA students might be able to turn their love for fashion into a degree with a proposed minor.

    The fashion and consumers minor, if approved by the UA, will start this summer with online courses that deal with fashion economics and research through the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences with the help of the Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing.