Climate change mitigation is a global struggle. Communities worldwide face the repercussions of climate change, some of whom find themselves at a higher disadvantage than others. Historically, communities of color have been prone to exclusion and dismissal when discussing climate change and decision-making that impacts their lives. The Hispanic community in the United States makes up a significant portion of the population, but is underrepresented in policymaking and project funding. These communities face higher health risks, as well as property and opportunity loss due to the deteriorating state of the climate around the globe, but also struggle to engage with activism as a privileged action. Inspiring individuals to come together to support change is challenging, especially as young adults learn to work and evolve alongside older generations. This study focuses on the relationship dynamics encountered by young adults in navigating issues of climate change and sustainability with their family members across multiple generations. Using a mixed-methods approach, young Hispanic adults between the ages of 18-25 completed a survey asking about their family dynamics, their understanding and perceptions of climate change, as well as their attitudes and feelings on mitigation participation. This project is being conducted to better understand the knowledge and mitigation efforts of young Hispanic adults, and how they engage their families in those efforts with the goal to create more localized and authentic methods to engage with climate change mitigation efforts.

Soil is the largest terrestrial stock of carbon, containing twice as much carbon as the atmosphere. Current land use degrades and threatens this critical carbon pool, and future climate change will only amplify these losses. Retaining and building soil carbon is therefore essential to a multi-pronged natural climate solution strategy. Sequestering carbon in the soils of crop and grazing lands—and preserving it in grasslands—are key pathways for land-based climate action. The relationship between grassland management and soil carbon sequestration remains unclear. While overgrazing consistently reduces soil carbon, it is less certain whether well-managed grazing reliably increases it. The effects of prescribed fire on soil carbon are similarly ambiguous. Because sequestration rates depend on rainfall, vegetation type, and soil texture, there is a need for regional data in the absence of globally consistent predictive models. This project aims to address that gap by analyzing how land management practices affect soil carbon across Texas grasslands. We collected soil samples from eight sites in Central and Eastern Texas that span a rainfall and latitudinal gradient. We will use random forest models to correlate soil carbon values with management history (plowing, fire, and grazing), vegetation vigor (NDVI), climate, recent rainfall, and soil moisture. We will present preliminary findings focused on climate and recent rainfall.

Environmental justice is a growing area of research that explores how environmental issues connect with racial and economic inequality. One key issue that has not been fully addressed is how accessible state-level renewable energy programs are in low-income neighborhoods. Although much work has been done on topics like clean energy and environmental equity, there is still a gap in understanding how these programs perform for the people they are meant to help. This project examines how accessible and effective state-level renewable energy programs are in low-income communities by conducting a comparative analysis of five states: California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and New York. It focuses on key factors such as economic benefits, community involvement, affordability, long-term impact, environmental outcomes, and how well each program reaches low-income communities. The purpose of this research is to identify patterns, gaps, and successful strategies in program implementation. In doing so, the project will highlight how policy design and outreach methods affect which communities will benefit from clean energy programs and which remain underserved. By comparing a variety of program models across regions, this study provides insight into what equity looks like in practice. The findings may also inform how future programs can become more inclusive and impactful by reducing barriers such as cost, ownership requirements, and limited awareness. Ultimately, this research contributes to the broader conversation on environmental justice by helping to shape cleaner and fairer energy transitions nationwide.

In New Jersey, the explosive population growth of the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) has led to several negative effects on the environment due to overgrazing, which decreases the forest understory and species evenness. We lack a strong understanding of the link between the presence of deer and plant species biodiversity, as it relates to species evenness (Ang et al., 2022). This study is to assess understory species diversity in the presence or absence of deer in the Loveless Nature Preserve, adjacent to Rider University. We employed a 5-year deer fence and observed a total area of 24 square meters of the understory, 12 square meters was in the fencing and 12 square meters was outside the fencing. We hypothesize that the species diversity will be greater in the deer fencing than outside the deer fencing, providing greater insight into the role of deer management in forest ecosystem health.