Sustainability Career Expo is Thursday

Hey, sustainability-related CFAES students and sustainability-related companies and agencies interested in hiring CFAES students: Our college’s annual Environmental and Sustainability Career Expo is from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Thursday, Feb. 16.

Admission is free and open to all current Ohio State students. Bring your BuckID. Employers, you can register to attend through the Hireabuckeye website.

Of note: This year, for the first time, we’re holding all three of our career expos — the Environmental and Sustainability Career Expo plus the Food and Agricultural Sciences Career Expo and the Construction Career Expo — at the same time. You can get further details on all three here. Also: Get tips for success.

‘A Race Against Time’ to grow the world’s solar

Race Against Time stillNext in Ohio State’s 2017 Environmental Film Series is “A Race Against Time,” which looks at global solar energy development. David Letterman, retired host of “The Late Show,” explores how India is using solar to expand its electrical service, power its economy, and bring electricity to 300 million people who’ve never had it before. In Florida, “Saturday Night Live” cast member Cecily Strong gets the inside story on what’s been blocking solar’s growth in America. The film is an episode in the National Geographic Channel’s “Years of Living Dangerously” series. It screens at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, in Columbus. Free admission. Location and other details here.

Hey, Ohio natural resource pros: Check out this conference on water, woods, wildlife

Bluegill Silhouette - Vortex Springs DockWhy we need spiders, how a disease that kills trees could help forests, and what’s really going on when people and wildlife butt heads are just a few of the topics at the Ohio Woodland, Water and Wildlife Conference. It’s March 1 in Mansfield. Registration is $60 by Tuesday, Feb. 14, $80 by Feb. 22.

What farmers can do to fight food insecurity: OEFFA conference preview

vegetables into the old basket and feet in rubber bootsMike Hogan, an educator with CFAES’s OSU Extension outreach arm, will discuss hunger, food insecurity and food system inequities in the U.S., how those challenges are changing, and what farmers can do to help in a session at the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association’s annual conference, which starts today in Dayton.

Hogan is based in the Columbus area, where he works a great deal to assist local food production and urban farming“Understanding Food Insecurity in the U.S.,” Session V, 1:30-3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11. Complete conference schedule. Other presenters from Ohio State.

Building a ‘just and sustainable’ food system for Ohio: OEFFA conference preview

Adult hands holding kid hands with red apple on topYou can help build the Ohio Food Policy Network at this week’s annual conference of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association.

The network is a “group of food policy stakeholders committed to the development of a just and sustainable food system,” according to the conference program. They’re “engaging concerned citizens across the state to map a vision for the future” — and a session at the conference will do just that. Two of the facilitators are from Ohio State“Ohio Food Policy Network: Mapping the Vision for Ohio’s Food System,” Session V, 1:30 to 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11. Complete conference schedule.

Solar’s sunny outlook on jobs

The solar energy industry created one out of every 50 new jobs added in America last year, or 2 percent of all new U.S. jobs, according to the 2016 National Solar Jobs Census. Now in its seventh year, the annual census was released by the Washington, D.C.-based Solar Foundation, a nonprofit solar energy advocacy group.

The census also reported that jobs in the U.S. solar industry now total more than 260,000 and have nearly tripled since 2010. Read more.

See examples of Ohio State’s solar efforts here, here and here.