The salinity of freshwater ecosystems caused by road de-icing salts, agriculture fertilizers, mining operations and climate change is increasing worldwide and current water quality guidelines don’t do enough to address the issue, an international study led by The University of Toledo and Queen’s University in Kingston has found.

The research, conducted in collaboration with dozens of scientists across North America and Europe, shows significant damage is being done to freshwater lakes by salt concentrations that are below ranges government regulators have deemed safe and protective of freshwater organisms.

Using an experimental network of 16 sites in four countries, the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates freshwater salinization triggers a massive loss of zooplankton and an increase in algae — even at the lowest chloride thresholds established in Canada and the U.S. and throughout Europe.

Zooplankton are a critical food resource for many young fish, and changes caused by rising salinity could alter nutrient cycling, water quality and clarity, and instigate growth and population declines in economically important fish species.

Researchers say the results indicate a major threat to the biodiversity and functioning of freshwater ecosystems and the urgency for governments to reassess current threshold concentrations to protect lakes from salinization sparked by sodium chloride, one of the most common salt types leading to the salinization of freshwater lakes.

Dr. Bill Hintz, assistant professor of ecology at The University of Toledo

“Salt pollution occurring from human activities such as the use of road de-icing salts is increasing the salinity of freshwater ecosystems to the point that the guidelines designed to protect fresh waters aren’t doing their job,” said Dr. Bill Hintz, assistant professor of ecology at The University of Toledo, author of the paper and co-leader of the project. “Our study shows the ecological costs of salinization and illustrates the immediate need to reassess and reduce existing chloride thresholds and to set sound guidelines in countries where they do not exist to protect lakes from salt pollution.”

The lowest threshold for chloride concentration in the U.S. established by the Environmental Protection Agency is 230 milligrams of chloride per liter. In Canada, it’s 120 milligrams of chloride per liter. Throughout Europe, thresholds are generally higher.

It can take less than a teaspoon to pollute five gallons of water to the point that is harmful for many aquatic organisms.

In other countries such as Germany, chloride concentrations of between 50 and 200 milligrams per liter are classified as “slightly polluted by salts,” and concentrations between 200 and 400 milligrams per liter are classified as “moderately polluted by salts.” The drinking water guideline is 250 milligrams per liter across much of Europe.

But as the study shows, negative impacts occur well below those limits. At nearly three quarters of the study sites, chloride concentration thresholds that caused a more than 50% reduction in zooplankton were at or below the governments’ established chloride thresholds.

The loss of zooplankton triggered a cascading effect causing an increase in phytoplankton biomass, or microscopic freshwater algae, at almost half of the study sites.

“More algae in the water could lead to a reduction in water clarity, which could affect organisms living on the bottom of lakes as well,” said Dr. Shelley Arnott, professor of aquatic ecology at Queen’s University and co-leader of the project and paper. “The loss of zooplankton leading to more algae has the potential to alter lake ecosystems in ways that might change the services lakes provide, namely recreational opportunities, drinking water quality and fisheries.”

The scientists chose to study zooplankton communities from natural habitats instead of short-duration, single-species laboratory studies because such an approach encompasses a greater diversity of species and naturally occurring predator-prey and competitive interactions over a six-to-seven-week timespan within the zooplankton community.

The study was designed to better understand how the chloride thresholds would hold up in a more natural ecological setting.

They focused on determining if current chloride-based water-quality guidelines protect lake organisms in regions with different geology, water chemistry, land-use and species pools.

“Many salt-contaminated lakes with chloride concentrations near or above thresholds established throughout North America and Europe might have already experienced food web shifts,” Hintz said. “This applies to lakes across the globe, not only among the study sites.

“And the variability in our experimental results demonstrate how new thresholds should integrate the susceptibility of ecological communities at the local and regional scale. While the government guidelines may protect freshwater organisms in some regions, that’s not the case for many regions in the U.S., Canada and Europe.”

Solutions also include finding ways to strike a careful balance between human use of salt responsible for freshwater salinization with ecological impacts, such as reducing the amount of road salt used to melt winter snow and ice to keep people safe and traffic moving. A previous study led by Hintz suggests best management practices.

Scientists across the globe contributed to the new project, from the University of California Irvine, University of Barcelona, Ohio Wesleyan University, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ryerson University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Purdue University, University of California San Diego, Dartmouth College, University of Évora, University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia, University of Helsinki, Ontario Tech University, McGill University, Linnaeus University, Uppsala University, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Karlstads University, Montclair State University, Wayne State University, Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Lund University and Université du Québec à Montréal.

Additional papers led by other authors from the 16-site study as part of the Global Salt Initiative led by Arnott and Hintz include:

• Marie-Pier Hébert et al. 2022 in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters, titled “Lake salinization drives consistent losses of zooplankton abundance and diversity across coordinated mesocosm experiments.”

Returning for the fifth year, The University of Toledo College of Engineering’s award-winning Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day will welcome 750 seventh and eighth grade girls to campus.

Traditionally a one-day event during National Engineers Week, this year organizers switched it to three days to better manage the growth in 2022 and inspire the next generation of women in engineering.

Media are invited for a photo op between 10:30 a.m. and noon on Thursday, Feb. 24, Wednesday, March 9, and Tuesday, March 22, on the first floor hallway of Nitschke Hall. The event is closed to the public.

Girls will work with women engineers from local companies and engineering students on a variety of hands-on activities to better understand water treatment, transportation network designs, basic coding and programming, structural design principles, mechanics of propulsion, genetic engineering and cyber security.

UToledo’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day has twice won the National Women in Engineering Action Committee’s Girls Day Event of the Year award.

Since the program began, more than 2,500 girls from 32 school districts across northern Ohio have participated in the event at UToledo along with more than 30 companies, 10 student organizations and individuals from multiple professional leadership groups throughout the region.

Studies have found that girls tend to lose confidence in math and science and lose interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in early adolescence, so the event targets girls in middle school and connects them with role models.

“By creating programs that show individuals that they are not alone in their interest in science and technology, while also giving them examples of individuals who have succeeded in their own careers in the industry, we believe we can help reinforce that interest in the STEM fields during a stage in their lives that studies have shown it to wane,” said Bryan Bosch, manager of diversity, inclusion and community engagement initiatives in the UToledo College of Engineering.

“Our goal is to create an environment where we can build interest in the field for any young person, while developing programs that can nurture and grow that interest into a career for anyone.”

As companies that drill for oil and natural gas using hydraulic fracturing consider recycling and reusing wastewater that surfaces from wells during the fracking process, chemists at The University of Toledo discovered that the new and unexplored waste contains many environmental contaminants including organic chemicals and metallic elements.

Research scientists at UToledo’s Dr. Nina McClelland Laboratory for Water Chemistry and Environmental Analysis in collaboration with the University of Texas Arlington achieved a comprehensive characterization of the chemical composition of produced water samples extracted in Texas, indicating the presence of toxic and carcinogenic contaminants in untreated samples, which can pose a threat to wildlife and human health.

Unraveling the complex composition of produced water by specialized extraction methodologies, the results published in Environmental Science and Technology provide critical information that can help regulatory agencies fine-tune proposed guidelines related to the safe treatment and disposal of fracking wastewater to protect drinking water sources.

Dr. Emanuela Gionfriddo, assistant professor of analytical chemistry in the UToledo Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

“The discovery of these chemicals in produced water suggests that greater monitoring and remediation efforts are needed since many of them are listed to be dangerous for human health by the World Health Organization,” said Dr. Emanuela Gionfriddo, assistant professor of analytical chemistry in the UToledo Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the School of Green Chemistry and Engineering. “Our comprehensive characterization sheds insight into the processes taking place during hydraulic fracturing and the nature of the geologic formation of each well site.”

Drilling operations are often performed by injecting treated water into the subsurface that contains various publicly undisclosed additives to assist in the drilling process. The injected water mixes with groundwater and then resurfaces as waste byproduct containing contaminants both from the drilling site and the additives used.

The chemists used an approach developed by Gionfriddo’s research team in 2020 called thin-film, solid-phase microextraction to extract organic solubles from eight produced water samples from the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford formation in Texas.

Analysis found a total of 266 different dissolved organic compounds, including a pesticide called atrazine; 1,4-dioxane, an organic compound that is irritating to the eyes and respiratory tract; pyridine, a chemical that may damage the liver; and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have been linked to skin, lung, bladder, liver and stomach cancers.

Using a new polymer developed in 2021 at UToledo, the team also confirmed the presence of 29 elements, including rare earth elements, selenium and hazardous metals such as chromium, cadmium, lead and uranium.

The researchers also suggest the technology used for their comprehensive analysis of produced water is essential for proper reuse or disposal by oil and gas producers.

“We found a way to use more accessible instrumentation in the analysis of such complex samples compared to more expensive workflows involving high-resolution mass spectrometry,” said Dr. Jon Kirchhoff, Distinguished University Professor and chair of the UToledo Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

On Random Acts of Kindness Day, The University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University are teaming up to donate more than 4,000 kits containing coloring books, cookies and hand-written positive messages to the Cherry Street Mission.

Students on both campuses will write positive messages for the kits in dining halls on Thursday, Feb. 17.

The event called Delight-ful is organized by Chartwells Higher Education, the food service management partner at both UToledo and BGSU, and will take place at more than 300 universities across the country with the goal of completing 500,000 random acts of kindness.

At UToledo, Rocket Dining will host activities, giveaways and tables to write messages at The Eatery in Thompson Student Union from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and in the dining hall at Ottawa East from 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. As part of the event, Rocket Dining also will donate 100 residential meal vouchers to Rocket Fuel, UToledo’s student food pantry.

At Bowling Green State University, BGSU Dining will be hosting a special lunch at the Oaks Dining Center with free yoga classes, giveaways and a meal swipe drive for the FalconCare Food Insecurity Program from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Bringing a bit of joy to our students and community is the reason why we do what we do,” said Jon Zachrich, director of marketing and communications for BGSU Dining by Charwells. “It’s been a hard-last couple of years in so many ways, but kindness always shines through. We are excited to collaborate with Rocket Dining at UToledo with this donation to the Cherry Street Mission and host these events on behalf of our guests, community and Chartwells Higher Education.”

“Our students have dealt with some difficult circumstances over the last two years,” said Aaron Skees, director of marketing for Rocket Dining at UToledo. “We’re overjoyed to be able to give them a special, memorable, safe and impactful experience that celebrates being back on campus while also making them feel part of a bigger movement to bring some kindness to the world.”

The University of Toledo will celebrate the heritage and history of African Americans with a series of virtual events and activities for students, faculty and staff throughout Black History Month.

“This year the Office of Multicultural Student Success, The Black History Month Committee and other campus partners have compiled a great list of programs to celebrate Black History Month,” said Kyndra Gaines, African American initiatives coordinator in the Office of Multicultural Student Success.

“A goal of the committee was to ensure that the programs created were events that students would enjoy and events they could relate to and learn from as well. Our campus partners hosting events this month have made some great programs that tie in the Toledo community and The University of Toledo. We have reached out to minority vendors to cater like Jera’s Heavenly Sweets for many of the hosted events that will be having food.”

The celebration begins with the Black History Month Kick-Off Event from 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1, in the Thompson Student Union Trimble Lounge and Ingman Room.

Hosted by the Office of Multicultural Student Success and the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership, the event begins at Trimble Lounge with opportunities to meet and join Black student organizations, followed by card games and activities — tunk, spades and dominoes as well as a DJ and raffles — in the Ingman Room. A local Black-owned restaurant will provide treats. For more information and to RSVP, visit the event’s Invonet page.

Additional Black History Month events include:

Thursday, Feb. 3

• Talented Aspiring Women Leaders Meet and Greet: Vision Board, 6 p.m., via Webex. Learn how to connect with a mentor and other powerful women on campus through Talented Aspiring Women Leaders and create your own vision board.

Tuesday, Feb. 8

• Lunch Vibes: Colin Kaepernick in Black & White, 11 a.m., Thompson Student Union Room 2500. Colin Kaepernick narrates this drama series recounting his formative years navigating race, class and culture while aspiring for greatness. After the screening, there will be a conversation about the various discussion points from the series.

Thursday, Feb. 10

• “Sons of Toledo” Community Screening, 6:45 p.m., Center for Performing Arts. This short film chronicles a day of obstacles that a barber faces before he goes to the funeral home that night to give his brother a final haircut. After the film, there will be a mediated discussion, led by Interim Vice President of Student Affairs Valerie Walston, with a panel of community and political leaders including Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, with members of the audience invited to share thoughts on the film and the issue of gun violence.

Tuesday, Feb. 15

• How to Talk to Your Kids About Race, 5:30 p.m., Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women. Alexii Collins, racial justice director at the YWCA of Northwest Ohio, will discuss talking to children about race. The conversation will be tailored for parents, but all are welcome to attend. All families in attendance will receive a Black Lives Matter coloring packet for their children.

Saturday, Feb. 19

• OE 5th Floor Living Legacies, 11:30 a.m., Toledo Museum of Art. This exhibition highlights the recent additions to the Toledo Museum of Art’s Collection from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting the artistic production and cultural traditions of Black artists from the rural South.

Monday, Feb. 21

• Diversity Connections: African American Professionals Panel, 6 p.m., via Webex. Hear about the experiences of African American professionals in the surrounding area and learn more about African American professional associations and organizations.

Tuesday, Feb. 22

• Lunch Vibez: Black International Students Discussion, noon, Thompson Student Union Room 2500 Lounge. Come and hear more about the experiences of international Black students. This event is open to all.

Wednesday, Feb. 23

• Celebrating bell hooks featuring Kevin Powell, 1 p.m., Thompson Student Union Room 2500. A discussion celebrating the life and legacy of bell hooks.

Monday, Feb. 28

• Black Student, Faculty and Staff Mixer, 6 p.m., Thompson Student Union Room 2500. Join other Black students, faculty and staff members in fellowship and community building. Attend this mixer to build relationships with your peers and network with faculty and staff members. Food will be provided.

Also, Black Student Union Week is Monday, Jan. 31, through Friday, Feb. 4, with an event scheduled for each day. There will be general student body meetings and other Black Student Union activities as well throughout Black History Month.

“Black Student Union is extremely excited for Black History Month,” said Nyreisha Tevis, a junior studying social work who serves as Black Student Union president. “We are looking forward to attending the events planned by the Black History Month Committee and carrying out events for Black Student Union.

“Black History Month means a lot to me,” Tevis added, “just for the simple fact that I can learn about the generations before me and how they paved the way for why I am here today.”

For more information, including a full list of events, visit the Office of Multicultural Student Success website.

Planning committees for the 2022 and 2023 Black History Months also are open to all UToledo students, faculty and staff. Those interested in serving on a committee should email omss@utoledo.edu.

Hill Harper, an actor on ABC’s “The Good Doctor” and best-selling author, and Jeff Johnson, an award-winning journalist and alumnus of The University of Toledo, will speak at UToledo’s 38th annual Conference for Aspiring Minority Youth.

The event sponsored by Toledo Excel, a longtime scholarship incentive program at UToledo, and Owens Corning is 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 29, in the Thompson Student Union Auditorium.

Advance registration is required for the free, public conference for seventh- and eighth-graders, high school students and parents; go to the event website to register.

All attendees will be required to wear face masks regardless of vaccination status.

Established in 1988, Toledo Excel helps underrepresented students, including African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, achieve success in college. Through summer institutes, academic enhancement activities, and guidance through the admission process, students increase their self-esteem, cultural awareness and civic involvement.

“Every year this conference aims to educate and motivate underrepresented youth, their parents and the community,” said David Young, director of Toledo Excel and special projects. “The ultimate goal is to influence youth to pursue higher education and be persistent no matter what barriers or challenges they may face.”

This year’s speakers advocate youth leadership, unlocking opportunities and financial literacy to close the racial wealth gap.

Harper, known for his roles on “The Good Doctor” and “CSI:NY,” is founder of the Black Wall Street app, a digital wallet and cryptocurrency exchange platform to empower the financially excluded in remembrance of the race-fueled Tulsa Massacre in Oklahoma’s Greenwood district, which was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the nation, on May 31, 1921.

Harper also is the founder of the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering underserved youth through mentorship, scholarship and grant programs, and the author of four New York Times bestsellers: “Letters to a Young Brother,” “Letters to a Young Sister,” “The Conversation,” and “The Wealth Cure,” which chronicled his diagnosis with thyroid cancer and his journey to health. Former President Barack Obama appointed Harper in 2011 to the President’s Cancer Panel.

Johnson is president of the Baltimore-based strategy firm JIJ Communications. He previously served as national director for the Youth and College Division of the NAACP and vice president of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network.

Johnson interviewed Obama during his administration as a journalist for BET and regularly provides content on The Root and the nationally syndicated Rickey Smiley Morning Show.

He serves on several boards including the Morehouse Research Institute, The Cleveland Foundation’s African American Philanthropy Committee, and the historic Lincoln Theatre in Columbus.

While a UToledo student, Johnson served as president of the Black Student Union and Student Government.

Across the U.S. road crews dump around 25 million metric tons of sodium chloride — much like table salt — to unfreeze roads each year and make them safe for travel.

Usage varies by state, but the amount of salt applied to icy roads annually in some regions can vary between approximately 3 and 18 pounds of salt per square meter, which is only about the size of a small kitchen table. 

As the use of deicing salts has tripled over the past 45 years, salt concentrations are increasing dramatically in streams, rivers, lakes and other sources of freshwater.

Overuse of road salts to melt away snow and ice is threatening human health and the environment as they wash into drinking water sources, and new research from The University of Toledo spotlights the urgent need for policy makers and environmental managers to adopt a variety of solutions.

The study titled “Road Salts, Human Safety and the Rising Salinity of Our Fresh Waters” is published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment and presents how road salts hurt ecology, contaminate drinking water supplies and mobilize harmful chemicals, such as radon, mercury and lead, and then lays out suggested best management practices.

Dr. Bill Hintz

“The magnitude of the road salt contamination issue is substantial and requires immediate attention,” said Dr. Bill Hintz, assistant professor of ecology at UToledo and lead author of the research based out of the UToledo Lake Erie Center. “Given that road deicers reduce car accidents by more than 78%, we worked to strike a careful balance between human safety and mitigating the negative environmental and health impacts triggered by dumping salt on our streets and highways to keep people safe and traffic moving.”

In one major example, the researchers say overuse of road salts likely contributed to higher levels of corrosive chloride in the water supply in Flint, Mich., in 2014, leading to the release of lead from water distribution pipes.

Another example shows that high concentrations of deicing salt typically occur in private wells located near roads in lower elevations or downhill from highways.

The most common deicers are the inorganic salts sodium chloride, calcium chloride and magnesium chloride, all used both in solid and liquid or brine form.

The study examines how current federal safety limits for salt concentrations established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1988 to protect fish, plants and other aquatic life in freshwater ecosystems are commonly surpassed.

Particularly alarming is the number of salinized streams. The research highlights recent studies that show urban streams with salt concentrations that are more than 20 to 30 times higher than the EPA chronic chloride threshold of 230 milligrams per liter.

“Current EPA thresholds are clearly not enough,” Hintz said. “The impacts of deicing salts can be sublethal or lethal at current thresholds and recent research suggests that negative effects can occur at levels far below these thresholds.”

The research suggests several solutions, including:

• Proper storage facilities — covered structures with a concrete base;
• Anti-icing, the application of liquids such as salt brines to road surfaces prior to winter storm events, which prevents ice from bonding to surfaces and aids removal operations;
• Live-edge snowplows composed of multiple smaller plows on springs, which better conform to road surfaces compared to conventional plows with a single fixed edge, to increase the efficiency of snow and ice removal and reduce the need for deicing salt; and
• Post-storm performance assessments to determine whether the treatment used was appropriate for the weather system and if it should be modified in the future.

“Given the lack of ecologically friendly and cost-effective alternatives, broad-scale adoption of best management practices is necessary to curb the increasing salinization of freshwater ecosystems resulting from the use of deicing salts,” Hintz said.

Hintz collaborated with scientists from Montana State University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on the study.

The University of Toledo will host multiple in-person ceremonies to celebrate the success of the graduating Class of 2021 at fall Commencement.

The ceremonies for undergraduates will be 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18, in Savage Arena.

The 9 a.m. ceremony recognizes graduates from the colleges of Arts and Letters; the John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation; Judith Herb College of Education; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and University College.

The 1 p.m. ceremony recognizes graduates from the colleges of Engineering; Health and Human Services; Natural Sciences and Mathematics; and Nursing.

Graduates receiving doctoral degrees will have the opportunity to participate in a separate hooding ceremony at the graduate commencement ceremony 6 p.m. Dec. 17, in Savage Arena.

“The Class of 2021 has demonstrated such focus, perseverance and strength throughout the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to celebrating their achievements and resilience,” UToledo President Gregory Postel said. “We are proud of their successes to date, and we can’t wait to see all that they will accomplish as alumni.”

Tony Bova

UToledo alumnus and entrepreneur Tony Bova will deliver the keynote address at the undergraduate ceremonies.

Bova is co-founder and chief executive officer of Mobius, a startup focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions by transforming industrial waste into a valuable resource that can be sold to manufacturers as raw material.

Bova, who graduated from UToledo with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2013, will address 1,401 candidates for degrees, including 1,360 bachelor’s and 41 associate’s candidates.

Dr. Kelli R. Brown, chancellor of Western Carolina University and a UToledo alumna, will address 567 candidates for degrees at the graduate commencement ceremony. The graduate ceremony will celebrate graduates with master’s degrees, as well as doctoral hooding for Ph.D., Juris Doctor and other doctoral degrees.

Dr. Kelli R. Brown

Brown received a bachelor’s degree in 1982 and a master of science and education in public health 1984 at UToledo. She also served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Georgia College and State University.

Tickets are required for admission for all ceremonies. All attendees will be required to wear face masks regardless of vaccination status.

All ceremonies will be livestreamed at utoledo.edu/video.

Making it safer for pedestrians to cross Monroe Street in front of the Toledo Museum of Art. Reducing recovery time for a broken bone by stimulating muscle movement. Programming an autonomous drone to identify and record security concerns in a building.

These are just a few examples of projects engineering students at The University of Toledo will present to the public at the Senior Design Expo from noon to 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, on the first floor of Nitschke Hall.

“The Senior Design Expo is a tradition in The University of Toledo College of Engineering for decades as a showcase of student creativity and ingenuity in collaboration with community partners,” said Dr. Mike Toole, dean of the UToledo College of Engineering.

As part of required senior design/capstone projects, about 50 UToledo engineering teams worked with local businesses, industries and federal agencies to help solve technical and business challenges.

Students will present their final prototypes, provide hands-on demonstrations and answer questions about their experiences at the expo.

On the project to improve bone fracture recovery time, Logan Dabney’s five-member team created a device and sleeve for immobilized muscle stimulation that is designed to reduce the amount of muscle atrophy that occurs while wearing a cast, which will decrease the time needed for physical therapy.

“I actually pitched the idea to our group after conferring with one of my bioengineering friends because I’ve always been interested in creating products that could help ease day-to-day life or benefit someone’s health,” said Dabney, who is a dual major in electrical engineering and computer science and engineering and plans to pursue a career in software engineering after he graduates in the spring.

“I had to learn an entirely new framework and coding language to create our mobile application for our prototype. Overall, this experience gave me a better perspective on working from start to finish on a project that had multiple people working asynchronously.”

Other projects that range from automotive and environmental to medical and motivational include:

• An alarm clock attachment for a dumbbell that provides accountability to complete a customizable, pre-set workout every morning — the alarm pauses during the workout and is only disabled upon completion;
• A uniform magnetic field using Helmholtz coils to test sensors and other parts that will be used in space applications where Earth’s magnetic field does not interfere;
• A necklace for people with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease that serves as an invisible guardian by sending a notification to the caretaker’s phone or designated devices whenever the patient gets too close to an exit of the home;
• Designs to make it safer for pedestrians to cross Monroe Street in front of the Toledo Museum of Art without lowering the speed limit, such as reducing the number of lanes to one in each direction and adding a speed table;
• A spare tire deployment system for pick-up trucks and SUVs that allows people to replace their flat tire without getting their hands dirty or bending down;
• A phone app that helps individuals who are blind and visually impaired navigate within buildings, responding to vocal requests and audibly directing the path tracked by Bluetooth beacons placed in hallways;
• An automatic cereal and milk dispenser operated by a mobile app intended for dispensing food in a convenient and sanitary manner;
• A hydropower source that uses a river or stream to create enough wattage to power a cell phone; and
• A new process for ball joint assembly at the Dana Toledo Driveline facility that will not fully depend on the operators for lubricating the ball joint socket yokes on the tube of an axle.

“We are very excited to return to our first in-person Senior Design Expo since the start of the pandemic,” said Dr. Matt Franchetti, associate dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Engineering and coordinator for the Senior Design Expo. “Our students and senior design instructors have worked very hard on their projects.”

All attendees of the Senior Design Expo will be required to wear face masks regardless of vaccination status.

The University of Toledo Ritter Planetarium is showing “Santa’s Secret Star” in full dome for children throughout the holiday season.

“Santa’s Secret Star” is featured 7:30 p.m. on Fridays through Dec. 17 and 1 p.m. on Saturdays through Dec. 18.

“Santa’s Secret Star” is a story about Santa and Rudolph learning how to find their way back to the North Pole using constellations. After Santa finishes his Christmas deliveries, he and his reindeer become lost. Without a compass, he and Rudolph turn to the constellations for help, and the stars lead them to the North Star, which guides them home.

“ ‘Santa’s Secret Star’ was written and produced right here at The University of Toledo and has an original soundtrack written by UToledo music professor Lee Heritage,” said Dr. Michael Cushing, professor of physics and astronomy and director of Ritter Planetarium.

Admission to the programs is $8 for adults and $6 for children, senior citizens and UToledo community members. Doors will open 30 minutes prior to the show.