Serving the Public

Enviable as it looks from other parts of the country, the state of Washington has its share of problems and challenges. In virtually every area, the UW is contributing expertise and manpower to the task of making this a better place to live. Here are a few examples.

Included on this page:: K-12 Education; Health Care; Traffic; Environment

K-12 Education

Over the next few years, Washington teachers must incorporate the state's new "essential learning requirements" into their classrooms. To help teachers on the Olympic Peninsula cope with this change, the UW's Olympic Natural Resources Center in Forks has been running week-long Summer Science Institutes.

Last year, 52 teachers from the Quillayute Valley district studied and practiced hands-on, inquiry-based methods of teaching science, working with UW faculty and staff.
This summer's session drew 40 teachers from smaller districts around the peninsula, while 48 of last year's teachers came back to learn about using science to teach writing.

"Teachers learned a lot," says science coordinator Sherry Schaaf of the Quillayute Valley district, "and they really have been implementing it. If you're going to make a big change in your curriculum, you have to do this for your teachers."

The UW's K-12 Institute coordinates more than 30 UW programs designed with and for school districts around the state. Such programs

pair teachers with UW researchers on exciting projects
bring K-12 students to campus and send UW scientists into schools
train teachers in new methods of teaching science and math (two major NSF grants)
through the new, on-line Teaching, Learning, and Technology program, give teachers everywhere access to the latest ideas about using technology in the classroom

Health Care

Caring for patients at the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic is very different from running a suburban medical practice. "Having a medical school in this state with the best rural and family medicine programs in the country makes a big difference in what we can do," says Dr. Nancy Foote, clinic director. Without even pausing for breath, she can tick off numerous ties to the UW: Dr. Foote and patient

Medical students in the UW's Rural and Underserved Opportunities Program work at the clinic every summer. "They've been excellent, and they've done research that's had direct benefits for our population."
The UW's local MEDEX program trained three of the clinic's nurse's aides to become physician's assistants. "They all grew up here, they've been farm workers themselves, they're all bilingual, and they're a unique resource for our clients."
The clinic relies on the UW and Children's for consultations in difficult cases; UW rheumatologist Dr. Joyce Gauthier even visits the clinic once a month for consultations.
"Our doctors love the opportunity to work with UW students. It's fun to teach--it helps keep our people interested and keep them here."
The clinic has just been linked into the UW's regional telemedicine program, allowing access to specialists for patients who cannot easily travel to Seattle.

"Everyone knows about the UW Medical Center and Harborview in Seattle," says Dr. Foote. "Not so many people realize all the UW does across the state."

Traffic

Seattle-area traffic congestion ranks among the ten worst in the nation. Building new highways is one expensive option. Making more efficient use of the roads and transportation systems we already have is less costly and quicker. This is the approach behind Intelligent Transportation Systems, a program of the UW College of Engineering. "Intelligent" solutions may one day include fully automated highways; meanwhile, the UW team experiments with near-term improvements.

One such improvement, new last June, is Traffic TV: live video images of traffic snarls around Puget Sound, along with current travel speeds on area highways, broadcast real-time over cable TV. It is the only such broadcast in the country and uses data-dissemination technology pioneered at the UW. A collaboration with the state Department of Transportation, Traffic TV is meant to help people dodge problems, cut their own rush-hour commutes, and reduce general congestion.

Traffic TV is part of an $18-million, four-city initiative of the U.S. Department of Transportation called Smart Trek. UW electrical engineering professor Dan Dailey, an expert in transportation technology, is the project leader for Seattle. In addition to Traffic TV, he and his team have developed two new real-time information programs for bus-riders, Bus View and Transit Watch. "What Smart Trek is all about," says Dailey, "is using technology to provide information that helps people make better travel decisions and reduce stress."

Environment

Puget Sound is a beautiful, complex, and threatened ecosystem. Human inhabitants enjoy, use, damage, and try to protect its forests, rivers, fish, and the Sound itself. The latest alarm bell is a notice from the federal government that it will likely add Puget Sound Chinook salmon runs to its list of endangered species.

One challenge, as governments and citizens work to preserve the Puget Sound environment, is the sheer number of human and natural systems that interact here. "A lot of smart people have worked hard to assemble information on key pieces of the Puget Sound ecosystem," says UW oceanography professor Jeff Richey, "but no one agency or organization has been able to pull the data into a cohesive whole."

This is the ambitious goal of a new UW program called PRISM--Puget Sound Regional Synthesis Model. Richey heads the program, one of the first projects supported by the new University Initiatives Fund. In the effort to gather and integrate a vast range of data, PRISM will draw on interdisciplinary research strengths across the campus, from urban planning to forest resources, and will also work with community partners.

A key part of the project will be its "virtual Puget Sound": a powerful computer model in which all the data interact. This model will let researchers and policy makers "see," for example, how new land use policies in one part of the Sound ecosystem would affect water quality in another. As a tool--both precise and comprehensive--for making these kinds of calculations and decisions, PRISM will help shape the future of the Sound.

1998 Report to the State Previous Next