University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Michelle Huneven and Mona Simpson will read from their new novels at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, in a free reading at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City. The reading also will be streamed live on the University of Iowa Writing University website.

University of Iowa alumni can make career contacts in a new online networking series from the alumni association.

Update 4/9 9:09 a.m.-Postponed. UI Facilities Management Landscape Services staff intend to conduct a prairie burn Wednesday, April 9, starting at 8:30 a.m., weather permitting. The prairie burn will occur adjacent to Hawkins Drive and west of the Ronald McDonald House.

As part of a heightened focus on fire loss prevention and risk reduction, the University of Iowa Facilities Management Department launched an extensive and systematic approach to extend fire system protection into its non-protected buildings and building spaces.

The new UI Mobile Museum, sponsored by the Old Capitol Museum, Museum of Natural History, and Office of the State Archaeologist, features exhibits about Iowa's ice age mammals, the founding of Iowa, and the state's "ancient agriculturalists" based in the Loess Hills.

UI alumnus and craft-chocolate maker Michael Mast will speak about his new cookbook Thursday, April 10, at 6:30 p.m. The first 100 people to arrive at Shambaugh Auditorium for the presentation will receive a small sample of Mast Brothers chocolate.

The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop will present a free reading by poet, performer, and librettist Douglas Kearney at 8 p.m., Monday, April 14, in the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Glenn Schaeffer Library, adjacent to the Dey House.

A group of UI students will take their ideas from the classroom to the community through a new Engaged Social Innovation track within the interdepartmental studies major; up to 12 honors students will be selected for the three-year program.

The University of Iowa will host a range of activities and events to commemorate Earth Month, which runs for most of April. A selection is highlighted below for the media, while the events, where noted, are open to the public.

UI graduate student Andrew Nelson examined the effectiveness of several methods of measuring radium levels in flowback water, including gamma-ray spectroscopy, emanation techniques, and EPA method 903.0.

The process of 3-D printing of living organs will be the subject of the 2014 Paul D. Scholz Symposium on Technology and its Role in Society to be held from 5 to 5:50 p.m. Thursday, April 10, in Lecture Hall 1, Van Allen Hall.

University of Iowa student Erin Church discusses the undergraduate research opportunities she's had working with associate professor Teresa Treat in the UI Department of Psychology.