NC Science Blogging Conference: EPA Tour Cyndy Yu-Robinson hosted this fabulous tour of the EPA's facility here in RTP. First Cindy took us to hear from Pete Schubert who told us about how they designed, built, and maintain the buildings to be as green as possible. Many of the green building techniques really weren't around when they started, and now they have an Environmental Management System to help them make continuous improvements. They have a few brochures and more information here.

Next, Debbie Janes took us around to a few of the labs. Zora (?) told us all about the wind tunnel that they use to study how aerosols interact with people and objects (please forgive anything I get wrong here -- others on the tour took notes).

Later, Ron Williams told us about his work looking at how point or regional measurements of air quality correlate with personal measurements. He has a participant wear a vest that has various devices to sample the air for all sorts of pollutants. This, along with a time use diary, allows them to study what and individual has been exposed to.

Dr. Nicolle Tulve told us about her work in studying what pollutants children are exposed to around the house. She samples the surfaces with wipes, looks at the foods the children eat, and various other things to get a picture of what the child has come in contact with.

Debbie led us over to the areas in which they look at diesel exhaust and also how to incinerate contaminated stuff (everything from furniture to carpet and more).

I feel like I'm forgetting an entire lab.

This was a great tour and the EPA folks took a lot of time to answer our questions and show us around. I really appreciate it! They do amazing stuff here and good science.

Labels: scienceblogging.com, sciencebloggingconference

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