The sixth annual Verdantix Summit convenes Health, Safety and Environmental professionals from diverse industries to share insights on how to improve HSE outcomes with innovative technologies such as software, mobile apps, drones, in-vehicle monitoring, virtual reality training, smart PPE and data analytics. For more information and to register, visit www.verdantixsummit.

H-GAC is hosting a series of seminars and hands-on workshops to learn to use H-GAC’s interactive web applications for community and transportation planning. Participants will have access to computers to participate in an interactive session to master the use of these online applications.

A webinar option is also available; however, hands-on activities will be presented to in-person attendees only.

• Seminar 1: Demographic Explorer and Snapshot - Thursday, March 22
  
• Seminar 2: Regional Employment Snapshot & Commute Patterns - Thursday, April 26
• Seminar 3: Activity-Connectivity Explorer - Thursday, May 24

Seminar 1 focuses on the Demographic Explorer and Snapshot which provides quick and easy access to US Census American Community Survey data

Learn how to customize the data displayed to fit your needs:

• Draw and select an area of interest
• Query the data for more information
• Perform market analysis
• Summarize and download data
• Directly use the demographic snapshot tool and maps for presentations

For more information, visit h-gac.com.

Get an up-close look at what it takes to manage a healthy forest, prairie, and bayou shoreline. Volunteers are crucial to Memorial Park Conservancy’s mission to preserve, protect, and enhance Memorial Park for Houstonians of today and tomorrow. Work includes invasive species management, trail work, native prairie plant grow out, seed collection, and more. Join the front lines of our volunteer force today!

Get an up-close look at what it takes to manage a healthy forest, prairie, and bayou shoreline. Volunteers are crucial to Memorial Park Conservancy’s mission to preserve, protect, and enhance Memorial Park for Houstonians of today and tomorrow. Work includes invasive species management, trail work, native prairie plant grow out, seed collection, and more. Join the front lines of our volunteer force today!

Volunteer to help clean up litter at the Milby Park riparian restoration area!

Please email Naturalresources@houstontx.gov to let them know you are planning to help. They would love to see you there!

They are  hosting a quick Plogging( jogging and picking up plastic as you go) session at the Day Use Beach for a short 1/2 mile jog (or more….) to rid the beach of trash and warm up for the long summer days. Hit the beach during the cool morning hours for stretching, jogging, lifting, and bending.

Where: Day use picnic area to begin
Who: Park Ranger Lisa Reznicek is inviting everyone to join

Before you can join us:
• Park entry fee paid before trip (park permit on vehicle, received at front office or self-pay booth)
• All children must be accompanied by an adult

What to expect:
• Family fun for all ages.
• Prepared for physical activity: light jogging, bending, lifting, and stretching
• Small group instruction and guide
• Beach conservation and debris information on a short jog
• Restrooms available
• Camera-worthy shots of a great Texas beach

Lone Star Legal Aid’s Environmental Justice Team and the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cordially invite you to a FREE webinar to learn the basics about converting Brownfields to Healthfields (B2H).  Learn how Houston-based community organizations might be able to apply a disaster recovery lens to this existing EPA program (B2H) towards an equitable and just transition post-Hurricane Harvey.

Citizen Science Lunch and Learn Series Webinar that will focus on the broad topic of citizen science and education.

Topic: Using Citizen Science as an Education Tool.

This webinar will feature an overview of 3 citizen science programs with a focus on how they use citizen science as an education tool.  Four speakers will give speed talks that describe their programs and how citizen science is used to engage students.  We will also cover the following topics in the talks and/or the discussion section that follows:

• Best practices (e.g., for using citizen science to engage students, collecting high quality/usable data)
• Outcomes of the citizen science efforts on students
• Challenges they’ve had to overcome
• Validity of data collected by students and whether it is usable for research purposes

This webinar is part of the NOAA Citizen Science Lunch and Learn Webinar Series and will feature 3 speed talks on the topic of “Using Citizen Science as an Education Tool”.

The 3 talks are on:

1) LiMPETS: Long-term Monitoring Program and Experiential Training for Students (Claire Fackler, National Education Liaison and National Volunteer Coordinator, NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries): A unique youth-based citizen science program, which gives students an opportunity to conduct real scientific observations by monitoring sandy beach and rocky intertidal ecosystems along the California coast that resource managers can use for ocean conservation efforts;

2) Marine Debris Toolkit for Educators (Alyssa Nally, Program Coordinator, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries): The Toolkit provides useful marine debris resources and adapts the Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project, a robust citizen science monitoring initiative, for classroom use. This toolkit is designed to assist teachers in educating their students about marine debris and involving them in scientific monitoring, research, and community outreach; and

3) Lake Champlain Sea Grant – UVM Watershed Alliance (Ashley Eaton, Watershed and Lake Education Coordinator and Kris Stepenuck, Extension Leader): A Collaborative K-12 education program focused on increasing watershed awareness and stewardship throughout the Lake Champlain Basin and Vermont.

Webinar #2: Cumulative Adverse Effects of Pipeline Development on Wetlands and Other Aquatic Resources

PRESENTER

• Wing Goodale, Biodiversity Research Institute

ABSTRACT

This webinar will provide an introduction about how CAE can be conceptualized, the language used to discuss CAE, and the legal basis for CAE. The presentation will discuss a framework for considering adverse effects, including a review of general approaches for CAE assessments and ways to address these effects. The webinar will conclude with the presentation of a thought-provoking approach to conducting simple assessment of CAE that could be adapted for use by wetland professionals as they work to identify and address CAE for projects they are planning and/or permits they are reviewing. The webinar will end with information about the Association of State Wetland Managers’ recent pipeline permitting project and forthcoming resources on CAE that will be available on ASWM’s website.