This year, Interns from the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology will participate in Science City at the Tucson Festival of Books with an outreach booth that will highlight intern projects and environmental partnerships in Southern Arizona. Located in the Science of Everyday Life “neighborhood,” kids, families, and community members can come create and play with paper pulp while learning about how waste paper based fibrous concrete is used for building in Arizona and Sonora. Visitors to the booth will also be able to “plant” a summer or winter garden and hear how BARA interns are maintaining a garden plot at Las Milpitas de Cottonwood farm in Tucson while studying issues of community identity and food insecurity. Be sure to stop by and see us!
 
The School of Anthropology table, also in Science City, will display recently published books from faculty and provide anthropology-related activities for children or anyone else interested in learning more about anthropology. One activity centers around the concept of stratigraphy by asking participants to remove layers of sediment (or in this case colored sugar) to uncover “ancient artifacts” and relay which object is older and why. The second activity provides a life-sized two-dimensional laminate version of the famous Laeotili footprints so that participants can “walk in the footsteps of their ancestors.” The SoA is expected to be a big hit, as it was last year at the Tucson Festival of Books.
 
SoA undergraduate Nicolas Alexandre will represent the University of Arizona’s Palm Oil Initiative, which was founded by Ph.D. candidate Kim Kelly and Assistant Professor Stacey Tecot, at a table in Science City, as well.
 
Mimi Nichter, Professor of Anthropology, will be showcasing her new book, Lighting Up: The Rise of Social Smoking among College Students (NYU Press, 2015), at a table in the Social and Behavioral Sciences tent on Saturday from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. Dr. Nichter encourages people to stop by to discuss her work! You can find out more about her book in this Daily Wildcat article from February 25th.
 
Professor of Anthropology Thomas Sheridan is scheduled for three Festival of Books events. Dr. Sheridan will be signing books at the University of Arizona Press booth from 12:00 to 12:30 pm on Saturday. Then, from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm on Saturday, he will join fellow panelists Paul Minnis and Maria Elisa Villalpando and moderator Christine Szuter (Ph.D. Arizona, 1989) for “Writing across Borders in the Southwest” in the Henry Koffler Building, Room 216. Finally, on Sunday, Dr. Sheridan is a panelist along with J. Edward de Steiguer and Courtney White for “Conservation, Landscape, and the West.” Kirk Emerson is the moderator for the discussion, which will take place in UA Library Special Collections, from 10:00 am to 11:00 am.