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Cheryl Charles, leader in education, environment, and communication, will present on "Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" on April 22 at 7 p.m. at Pacific Union College. The lecture is part of the college's celebration of its second annual Green Week, April 22-25. Green Week is one way the college community hopes to increase commitment to good stewardship of the environment and to inform students and community members about local and global ecological issues. In addition to Charles' lecture, the campus will enjoy other Green Week throughout the week. Charles' lecture will be the keystone presentation of the week. A leading figure on environmentalism, Charles is president of the Children and Nature Network and co-chair of the Education for Sustainable Development Working Group of the Commission on Education and Communication, World Conservation Union (IUCN-CEC). She will share her thoughts on why the health of children and the health of the earth are inseparable matters and what we can do to secure the future of both. Charles will speak at Dauphinee Chapel. To learn more about the lecture or other Green Week activities, call 707-965-7362....

Last year, a student movement called Revo swept the Pacific Union College campus and raised over $10,000 for a shelter and vocational center for trafficked and abused children in Lima, Peru. This year, Revo is back - but students have decided to raise money for a Napa Valley cause. "After a few weeks of researching, asking social work professors, and praying about it, we decided to support the Napa Valley Food Bank," says student Revo leader Grace Jung. The reasons for the choice were numerous, including a timely response to the economic downturn, emphasis on the fact that you don't have to travel oversees to help those in need, and the hope of involving the wider community in the Revo movement. But the foremost motivation for supporting the Food Bank is hunger. "There are people in our own backyard that desperately could use our help," Jung says. "The issue of hunger is becoming very real to more and more Americans. It is not a poverty issue anymore; it is creeping its way into the middle-class, forcing children, single mothers, businessmen, senior citizens, and many more to go to bed hungry at night." As Jung reports, the number of individuals experiencing...

Each year, the Napa Valley Dirt Classic mountain bike race takes place on 22 miles of Pacific Union College's trails through its undeveloped property. Prizes include a purse to each first, second, and third finisher in male and female pro categories, and trophies to top finishers in all categories. For the 2009 Dirt Classic, Aren Timmel took first place in the male pro category, finishing in 1 hour, 27 minutes, and 57 seconds. Katerina Nash came in first for the female pros, at 1 hour, 40 minutes, and 5 seconds. There were 469 racers who finished. "It was a great day," race director and PUC professor of physical education Michael Hellie was glad to report. "We didn't have any large accidents." PUC has been hosting an annual mountain bike race on its property since 1991. A NORBA (National Off-Road Biking Association) cross country race, the Dirt Classic offers riders hilly, smooth to medium-rough trails, service roads, and double track and single track, all through PUC's wooded property. Funds raised from the event benefit PUC recreational projects....

"My job is just to be an athlete," said Erica Davis, a 2004 Pacific Union College graduate. And an athlete she is. Erica's time is almost completely devoted to her love of sports. She is persistent when it comes to her goals. In March, Erica spoke at PUC for an all-school colloquy, wheeling herself onto the stage to share with students the story of her life as an athlete, including the drastic change that landed her in a wheelchair a few years ago. Her journey began at Lodi Academy. Erica played every sport Lodi Academy had to offer, her favorites being softball and football. Her senior year of high school she scored 48 touchdowns during the season. PUC was the next step in her life, a logical decision for a young woman whose parents had both graduated from its campus. Her major of choice was physical education, something she had wanted to do since she was in third grade. "You change your major five times, but I just always wanted to do P.E.," she declared. "It was an easy choice." She actively participated in intramurals and helped run them. "My teachers were good mentors," she noted. In 2005, Erica's life...

Can you measure the cross section of an electronic CT (charge transfer) in an isotopic system? Can you employ a variety of lasers and beams to generate specified molecular activity? Unless you are part of the research of Dr. Vola Andrianarijaona or researching experimental physics at the postgraduate level, chances are you cannot. This is just a sampling of the many-faceted research Andrianarijaona, who teaches in the physics department at Pacific Union College, is conducting in association with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Andrianarijaona's work is entitled "An Investigation of Charge Transfer in Low Energy D2+ + H Collisions using Merged Beams" and is scheduled to be presented at the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) convention at the University of Virginia later this year. He is joined by senior physics major Jerilynn Rada, who helps analyze data and compare it to previous experimentation. Rada, who plans on attending graduate school, understands the importance of participating in such a project as an undergrad. "It really helped introduce me into the world of research and I was able to get my name out," she says. Andrianarijaona agrees and feels all science students should look for similar research...