Students at Charles Sturt University in Albury-Wodonga will meld care for the environment with music when they stage the ‘Un-Earthed Hour’ event on the Albury-Wodonga Campus on Tuesday 29 March. CSU registered to take part in Earth Hour on Saturday 26 March and encouraged students and staff to support this initiative by turning off all non-essential lights and equipment when they headed home on Friday. To also celebrate Earth Hour, the CSU Division of Student Services and CSU Green supported a number of events around its campuses, and at CSU in Albury/Thurgoona there will be live acoustic music (‘Un-Earthed Hour’) and pizza on the oval between residences from 7.30pm on Tuesday 29th March. The University is attempting to measure its energy savings achieved during Earth Hour this year.

Students from Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) School of Environmental Sciences will give high school students from around Albury-Wodonga a personal experience of study at CSU on Thursday 10 March. The 11 high school students will work with CSU undergraduate students for the day, following them through lectures, laboratory study and fieldwork, as the CSU students go about a ‘normal day’ in their studies as part of the University’s MyDay program. Head of the School of Environmental Sciences, Associate Professor Ben Wilson, said open days can only show a snapshot of university life, but “you have to ‘be a student for a day’ to see what it is really like. This is particularly important for such a ‘hands-on’ degree as environmental sciences.”

A Charles Sturt University (CSU) student will present a seminar on Wednesday 16 March at CSU in Albury-Wodonga about how she is using her research experience in the USA to monitor threatened species in Australia. Last year, environmental sciences student, Ms Gaye Bourke, spent the final semester of her degree working as a fieldwork biologist with the Cascades Carnivore Connectivity Project in Washington state, evaluating how highways act as barriers to the movement of American black bears in the North Cascades Mountains. Ms Bourke lived in the tiny community of Newhalem (population 27) in the centre of the spectacular North Cascades National Park. “The three months were a steep learning curve, especially given the lack of large carnivore species in Australia. There were some magic moments, like our first close-up ‘bear encounter’ where we stood watching a female foraging for berries while her cub bounded playfully from rock to rock in front of us,” she said. “The techniques we used with the US black bears are applicable in Australia and they have already been used to monitor populations of threatened species here.”

Local radio station ABC Goulburn Murray and The Border Mail will host a political forum at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury-Wodonga on Wednesday 23 March. CSU political commentator Dr Troy Whitford will be a guest speaker for the evening event, which will be facilitated by ABC morning show presenter Mr Joseph Thomsen and Border Mail journalist Ms Di Thomas, who will take questions from the floor and online. The public forum will be an opportunity for the Albury community to meet with candidates for the coming NSW election and question them on their policies and plans for the state seat of Albury.

International students at Charles Sturt University (CSU) will host an annual Harmony Day event in Albury-Wodonga to recognise and celebrate cultural diversity in Australia and the Border. Activities will include tasting food from around the globe (including an Aussie barbeque), as well as demonstrations of Tae Kwon Do, cooking and traditional Chinese dance, organised by the CSU International Club. The event will commence at 1pm today, Monday 21 March, outside the Gums Café on the University’s Albury-Wodonga campus at Thurgoona.

A visiting international academic to Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury-Wodonga throws new light on climate change by asserting the gradual breakdown of the Earth’s water cycles caused by land clearing is playing a major role in climate change. Hosted by CSU’s Institute for Land, Water and Society, Professor Jan Pokorný, a plant physiologist from the Czech Republic will present his controversial views in a meeting to be held in Albury starting at 3pm on Wednesday 23 March. “The circulation of water in nature is driven by solar energy and takes place through 'large' [global] and 'small' [local] water cycles. Humanity, through activities such as agriculture and forestry systematically transforms natural land into cultured land, which accelerates the runoff of rainwater from land and increases the temperature of the land,” says Professor Pokorný. “The local water balance is disturbed and gradually breaks down over land. Global climate change is seen to be caused by human activities, where land clearing affects water drainage which causes temperatures to rise and trigger more climatic extremes: more frequent flooding, longer periods of drought and an increase in the water shortage in regions worldwide.”

Students with Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury-Wodonga will take a break from the normal mental challenges of study to pit themselves against fellow students from CSU in Wagga Wagga and La Trobe University in Wodonga in some physical competition in the annual Southern Zone Challenge this Thursday 24 March. The students will commence playing mixed netball and mixed touch from 3.30pm at Thurgoona Football Oval and Netball Courts, Tabletop Rd, Thurgoona, followed by presentations, a barbeque and music at ‘The G’ on the University’s Thurgoona campus. Student services adviser, Ms Kerry Read, said the event gives students the opportunity to travel to other universities and campuses and socialise with their peers.

A Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer who will be a guest speaker at a political forum at CSU in Albury-Wodonga on Wednesday 23 March is predicting the NSW election could be an acid test for the role of independents in Australian politics. Dr Troy Whitford, from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at CSU, is keeping a close watch on the performance of independent candidates in regional electorates. "The federal scene may have people second guessing the role of independents and their ability to contribute to good government," he said. With widespread predictions of a Coalition victory in the Saturday 26 March poll, Dr Whitford says the makeup of the NSW Legislative Council could be interesting. "It really depends on how much of a mandate voters want to give the prospective coalition government," he said. "A new government won't want to be stuck in negotiations with minor parties and independents." Read more here.  

How native freshwater fish are affected by hydro-electric turbines for electricity on major rivers is a global concern. A fish researcher, who studies the ecology of migratory fish in the Lower Mekong River Basin in South-East Asia, is visiting southern NSW to investigate how Australian native fish can live with similar plants on major dams in the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Dr Phousavanh Phouvin, from the National University of Laos in Laos Peoples Democratic Republic, is currently on a three-month study tour in Australia, investigating aspects of hydro plant design that cause fish injuries and deaths. Dr Phouvin will present results from his findings at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Albury from 12noon on Thursday 15 November. He has worked mainly at the Narrandera Fisheries Centre as a Crawford Fund Fellow.