Community Flood Risk Assessment from Rising/Surging Seas Project part of CUREnet:Institutes:Other Institutes (2019-2020):Examples
Globally 634 million people, 10% of the world's population, live in coastal areas less than 10 meters above sea level. According to 2010 census data, 123 million people, 39% of the United States population, live in coastal counties with an estimated increase to this number by 8% in the 2020 census. As natural disasters have been seen to increase in frequency and severity in the past five years coupled with expected sea rises from climate change it is important that anyone involved with the safety and resiliency planning of their organization/community have an understanding of how to scientifically assess risk from flooding in order to mitigate and recover from the effects. This project allows students the ability to develop skills to utilize computer modeling systems and to apply the data to real world communities in examining risk to structures as well as different groups in the community.

Karst Study Using Geophysics at Bracken Bat Cave Preserve​ part of CUREnet:Institutes:Ad-Hoc CURE Institutes:Examples
South Central Texas depends on deep seated aquifers to maintain a water supply for over 5 million people. Much of this water supply is recharged through karst features in the Texas Hill Country. Understanding the features on a property helps determine the appropriate level of development, but geophysical methods have limitations on interpreting feature size. Students in this project built on previous work to examine the error of two common geophysical methods when detecting humanly accessible shallow karst features. They gained skills in site analysis using spatial software and high-resolution GPS collection, field work planning, data collection and analysis.

Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria abundance and diversity in response to climate change part of CUREnet:CURE Collection
This CURE engages student in hypothesis-driven research to investigate how seasonal climate affects microbial diversity, particularly Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) communities found in environmental samples such as soil and water. The course focus on NTM diversity and physiology and its relationship with climate. Students are also introduced to climate change and how it may affect microbial diversity and abundance with implications to human health.