Advanced projects

        

        Intriguing environmental projects can distinguish your club and attract new members. Creative and well run events spread your message and stick in the minds of your fellow students. Trash pickups, movie nights, and recycling games work well at first, but eventually become repetitive. Advanced projects tell environmental stories and create a lasting impression. They can be as part of an earth week or as stand alone events. 

Earth Week:

        Earth week is a series of earth days designed around an environmental theme. In my senior year of high school the environmental club hosted an earth week. On meatless Monday, we eliminated meat from the dining hall menu and ran  a community dinner which featured an interactive slideshow and trivia game. On Wednesday we broke ground on a community garden and Friday capped off the week with showing of a new film made by an alumni of my school: “Happening: A Climate Revolution.” We also removed the paper take-out cup option for hot drinks in the dining hall for the earth week.

Dark Day of Enlightenment: ( or A Day Without Light )

        In my ninth grade year, a friend and I organized a “Dark Day of Enlightenment.” This is a school day run without the use of electricity. The event had a memorable impact on students and therefore proved it to be totally worth the effort. A school day without lights, printers, computers, and projectors requires planning and compromise. A simplified dark day could be the turning off of lights at meal time to convey the idea. Here is the outline we used to plan the event:

Logistics: 

• Pitch idea to administration and facilities team
• Decide which buildings to include and duration of event
• 8:00 start of school day to 3:00 end of school day
• Best done in spring of fall
• Design safety protocols
• Spaces like staircases must be lit

Planning:

• Inform teachers ahead of time so they can adapt lesson plans
• similar to teaching class outside

Results:

• Interesting and memorable class, a school day still talked about!
• Relaxed students
• Reduced CO₂ emissions
• Total emissions of 1 building: 100 lbs of CO₂    
• Calculate energy saved and present to school
• Compare day with monthly average

Recruitment strategies to attract guest speakers:

1. Attend local environmental events
1. Talk to local people
2. Work with alumni department
1. Search for alumni
2. Reach out by email with no specific request, just to say hi
1. Say that you are interested in what they are working on and that you wanted to introduce yourself
1. If you have a specific request, openly state it at this time (see suggested details below)
3. If think possible event, email alum again to pitch idea
1. In second email: connect on personal level, teachers, clubs or sports in common
1. Weird but real example: “A funny coincidence, I believe my dorm room was given by your family”
3. Plan and research like crazy
1. Do your homework
1. Favorite two pre interview questions are: “Looking back at this event in 6 months, what would it look like if it were successful, what would hit it out of the park?”
2. “what areas would you like to talk about or that you would like to avoid? Remind them that they have the final cut during the edit
2. Be engaged with university events

Community Computing and Carpooling:

1. Carpools and buddy walking programs for safety
1.  Create community experience while being eco friendly
1. Make walking or biking easier by helping people who live in similar areas to connect and travel together
2. Create groups of people to promote green travel in more dangerous road conditions
2. Rewards program and incentives for sustainable travel
1. Encourage and support people who don’t travel sustainably or who are slightly too far away to bike or walk
1. Discounts on food or environmental gifts like water bottles if shown effort to sustainable travel
2. Reimburse people who often travel sustainably to continue that practice even in difficult weather conditions
1. Make their efforts recognized
2. Post a photo of them walking or biking on website
3. $10 reward for their effort
3. Eco map
1. Map out where people live and travel routes to create community experience
2. Message board forum to create peer pressure to continue activity
3. Cumulative points and final end prize

Divestment campaign from fossil fuel industry:

        Divestment campaigns are used to create economic pressure in favor of a cause. The mechanism of change is the selling of stocks or bonds invested in businesses which should no longer be supported. Loss of equity from investors puts financial pressure on these establishments. Divestment can be seen as solving a problem at the root cause because it threatens the financial security of the problem itself.

 Divestment was used extensively on college campuses in 1985-6 to protest apartheid in South Africa. (1) The anti apartheid divestment movement was successful because it attracted apolitical students, brought people together from different backgrounds and views, and each campaign, although separate and run privately, was still part of a larger social movement. (2)

        The divestment strategy can be applied to the energy sector to put pressure on fossil fuel companies. The hope is that divesting from fossil fuel will help accelerate the transition to an electric economy. 

        There are many reasonings for divestment. The most important being the moral issue of supporting fossil fuel companies during a time where the effects of climate change are becoming more apparent. The more quickly we transition to clean energy, the lower number of climate issues will occur. The moral logic of supporting fossil fuel companies at this time is questionable because we understand burning fossil fuels is a direct cause of climate change. School values should reflect their actions and use of money. The priority of any organization is directly reflected in how they choose to spend their money. Large amounts of money should promote a better future, not a polluting industry.

        Economic factors also play a role in divestment tactics. One argument against divestment is that institutions will lose money when they leave the fossil fuel industry. This is not always the case. Each campaign is different and the purpose is to sell holdings because of a moral obligation to the future and in an ideal situation it preferably should be done whether or not money is lost. The opposite of divestment is investment. These funds can be used for buying stock in companies who are positive agents of change or where these investments are profitable in the green energy sector. Money could also be used to buy solar panels or wind turbines in order to set up a microgrid for the school. Similarly, the funds could be used to purchase renewable power. Because it is now less expensive to purchase renewable power, the university can lower its electricity cost and get green power. 

        There is similar logic to investing in clean energy now as there was when institutions first invested in fossil fuels. Energy production for the foreseeable future be important and the divestment campaigns merely reflect the changing of one technology to another. It is important to notice future trends and selling fossil fuel stocks today may avoid losing money in the long run. A good campaign anticipates opposing arguments and develops eloquent counter responses.

        Arriving at positive divestment results take many months of campaigning. Running sustained projects requires consistent effort and long term thinking. At the same time as the campaign is in session, there should also be a side project for club members not interested in divestment. The main lessons from the anti apartheid divestment campaigns were that side projects were necessary for retaining members only interested in divestment. (3) Showing that the environmental club is continuing environmental projects in other areas shows the commitment to the sustainability cause. Another strategy is that while spreading the message of divestment on campus, an effort would be made to suggest the idea to a select few trustees early on. This way there can be administrative support during the campus discussion phase. Sharing progress reports of your campaign and talking with other colleges about their work can help tie the cumulative successes into a broader national effort.

Extra reading- counter arguments and tool kits:

        The Washington Post has a great article about why divestment may not be the best course of action for many universities. This is because universities are not required to take any action. Not divesting is a legitimate option and continues to keep the university a place of debate without taking a side. Divestment can be a slippery slope and sometimes it is better to be nonpartisan and focus on delivering the best education possible. Divestment should only be considered once a university has put in the hard work of becoming green. 

Link to Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/demanding-universities-to-divest-is-often-bad-policy/2015/03/27/1382fbe4-d401-11e4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.784032c528f3

Websites like Fossil Free.org have starter kits to help your divestment campaign. https://gofossilfree.org/#signup

Citations: 

(1): Countryman, Matthew. "Beyond victory: lessons of the divestment drive." The Nation, March 26, 1988, 406+. General OneFile (accessed December 6, 2018). http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A6485507/GPS?u=s0937&sid=GPS&xid=24d51898.

(2): Countryman, Matthew. "Beyond victory: lessons of the divestment drive."

(3): IBID

PJ Yesawich- The Climate Reality Project and finding the truth to make an impact

                                                                                               [1]

PJ Yesawich is a film producer, marketing strategist, brand developer, media creator and entrepreneur. He has worked with numerous people and organizations on branding and marketing. One of his most recent endeavors was working with Al Gore on the Climate Reality Project as the   project’s creative director. PJ Yesawich is also an alumni of Cheshire Academy.

Mr. Yesawich was exciting and I hope you feel inspired by his message and take a small step towards reducing your carbon footprint.

Podcast episode: https://soundcloud.com/zach-pine-maher/pj-yesawich-the-climate-reality-project-and-finding-the-truth-to-make-an-impact 

Listen for:

• The Climate Reality project is and An Inconvenient truth sequel
• Al Gore's thought process on talking about the environment
• Effects of climate change happening now
• The best steps you can take now to help the environment
• How and which countries have gone green
• The effects of large corporations on the climate
• How PJ works to promote eco-friendly companies
• How the government can promote sustainability

Thank you for reading!                                                                                                         [2]

[1]: https://www.unbridled.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/PYesawich-e1491600339801.jpg

[2]: PJ Yesawich's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pyesawichjr/?hl=en

Environmental Fundraising

Fundraising is an important activity for all organizations. Environmental groups need money to buy things for projects and help pay for guest speakers. It can be challenging though to raise money through sustainable means. Charging a small amount of money for your event can raise the audience's expectation level while raising the bar on your own presentation. This blog post will outline five ideas on how to do green fundraising.

1.     Selling food is a great way to raise money. One idea is to buy fresh fruit and use a juice press (like this one) to create fresh fruit juice with reusable plastic cups to serve the juice in. This idea has a high initial cost, but would make money in the long run. A similar idea is to sell produce from a club garden.

Initial purchase:

• Fruit press
• Plastic cups (or borrowed from dining hall)

Subsequent purchases + time:

• Buying and washing fruit 
• Washing cups

2.     Selling items like T shirts, apparel, reusable water bottles, or mugs which advertise the school or club are a great way to raise money. Make sure to check that these items are not sold in the school store.

Here is a well worn water bottle from middle school which was created by the environmental club: Reusable water bottles always make great gifts!

3.     Replacing old appliances with energy efficient ones can create long term savings for the institution. Similarly, having a dark day of enlightenment series could also save large amounts of power.

                                                                                                     [1]

         

4.     Fair Trade is company which promotes sustainable and ethical farming. Hosting a fair trade campaign is a great way to generate revenue. In middle school, my club and I organized a Fair Trade campaign. This was a huge hit and we sold many of their goods while raising money for the club.

5.     Redeeming bottles may seem like a good idea and perhaps it is for your group, but I have always found it to be too time intensive. For example, on four occasions, a friend and I collected a full recycling bin of only redeemable bottles and cans and brought it to be redeemed.

It took 30 minutes of sorting beforehand, 30 minutes to bring to a store, and 30- 60 minutes in the store. The local store we used always had a line for the machines. Also, the machines would get filled and have to be emptied, or jammed which would cause further delays. Another problem was the messiness of the bottles. For example, unfinished bottles would leak making our clothes and the bin dirty. Perhaps your experience will different. Each trip made about 15 dollars. If you can incorporate redeeming into another store trip, this avenue may be worth exploring. Even if you can not redeem the bottles, it is still important to keep recycling!

Total profit from glass bottles:

Our full recycling bin:

Thank you for reading and I hope these ideas will help you raise money!

Citations:

[1]: https://twitter.com/ftcampaigns Accessed 12/30/17.

(Podcast show notes) Yale Sustainability Leadership Forum

This podcast is my notes on two lectures given by Yale professors in the sustainability field on science and innovation and green design. I try to recreate the main points of their talks in an audio format.

Here is the podcast link:

Listen for:

Ways to store energy

Approaches to team research

How environmental progress changes the status quo changes in industry

The unseen consequences of environmental policy

I would like to thank Daniela Czerwinski for helping me attend the event. Hope you enjoy the podcast!


Citations:

https://sustainability-forum.yale.edu/agenda/

https://energysciencesinstitute.yale.edu/

https://inconvenientsequel.tumblr.com/

Environmental competitions in dorms

     Dorms on a school campus are great places to host environmental competitions. They are educational, green the campus, and show that sustainability can be fun and easy.

Competition ideas for dorms:

• First dorm to organize a recycling schedule
• Dorm with the most “eco rooms”
• Dorm with the least electricity and water usage per capita
• Dorm with the least number of take out orders per capita
• Number of people in the dorm who participate in other eco projects

     Each dorm is different in design, year built, and type of people living there. It can be fun to look at how these factors influence competition winners. Would it be easier for a small dorm to get a recycling center online first because there is less recycling? Would having more people in a large dorm make it easier because their schedules would not overlap as much?

     The winning dorm for each competition would receive a prize and a final prize could also be awarded for the dorm which wins the majority of the competitions. Gift cards to local stores and online relators are great environmental prizes. Walking to a store and ordering online have less of an impact than driving to the store or mall. [1]

Citations:[1]: Pennybacker, Mindy. Do One Green Thing. St. Martin’s Press NY. 2010. Print

Thank you so much for reading.

How to make a recycling center

Recycling centers in dorms are an interesting way to grow community while teaching about recycling, add value to buildings, and become locations visitors love to see. From a community perspective, the centers are a place where people can work together and think about the environment.
One successful system can lead to another and when managed properly can continue for long periods of time. My school began with only one dorm recycling center in April of 2016 (the one featured in the photos). Because of the success of the first one, five more dorm recycling programs were added by October 2017 of similar design.

With six easy steps you can quickly design and begin operating your recycling center!

Step 1: Talk to dorm parents or school administration who are interested in sustainability about creating a center. University students can try talking to resident assistants and other students to create a core group.
Step 2: Work with dorm parents, school administrators, and the fire marshal to find a location to have the center. Good locations have lots of space around them, are easy to get to, and follow building code. An example of a bad location would be on a staircase landing.

Track your recycling on campus to see how it is managed. Before creating the center, make sure that the recycling is being taken out and how it is stored on campus.

When choosing a location for your center, take into account how far the large recycling storage is from your building. It is also important to determine how the recycling is kept in the big bin in order to ensure that the recycling from your center matches in how it is collected with the large school wide bin.
Is it in bags or open in a dumpster? Is this single stream or separated? How you organize your dorm setup should match the storage unit/s for ease of compatibility.

This is an example of a large recycling bin which my school uses:

Collection bin for the first floor:

Step 3: Attract people who want to help out. Starting out we only had a few people, all part of the environmental group. Each of us had to take out the recycling for the whole building on their day. Now we have enough people to man each floor everyday separately. Create a schedule and buy bins for both the center and ones to put around the dorm. Depending on the size of the dorm and the number of people, it may not even be necessary to even have collection bins. Having people bring their recycling directly to the center may work too.

Step 4: Determine how to empty the trash from the collection bins into the recycling center. I recommend bringing the collection bin bag to the recycling center and then sorting it into the larger bins.

An alternative is to bring the bin from the center to the collection bins and transferring the bag contents into the center bin. It is easy at this time to look in the trash to find any recyclables which were misplaced.
Sometimes the bags get full of liquid and have to be replaced. Make sure to have garbage bags available in case some are broken. Oftentimes bottles are not empty. This is a good step to empty bottles.

Step 5: Educate! Hold dorm meetings and show what to recycle and where it goes. Create posters to remind people of what is recyclable.

[1]

Here is one of the signs we made to show what can be recycled: 

Step 6 (optional): Personalize and decorate your recycling center!

Here are the bins when empty:



When full!



















Thanks for reading!
Citations:
[1]: https://www.lakelandgov.net/publicworks/solid-waste/commercial/commercial-recycling Accessed May 4th 2017.

How to make a green dorm room

Although it might seem difficult to stay green when living at school, there are some easy ways to stay green. This blog post offers ideas on how to reduce your carbon footprint while living at school.

1. Reusable water bottles: Buying a filter can provide a convenient way to get clean water.

[1]

2. Power strips are an efficient way to organize your cords, protect your devices from surges, and reduce your environmental impact. It is really easy to turn on and off power strips and save lots of energy when not charging your devices.

3. Get some plants! Plants also make rooms look much better. Indoor air pollution can greatly affect your health and plants are great for filtering air.

4. Use eco friendly soap and toothpaste. Look for products free of fluoride, gluten, sodium sulfites, and preservatives. Not only will this make you healthier, but it will also help the planet by reducing the amount of pollution in our water system.

[2]

5. Cook your own meals or eat in the dining hall instead of ordering takeout. Cooking for yourself is a great way to be healthier, save money, and reduce your carbon footprint. It is also a fun activity to do with friends.

6. Buy local, green, or second hand material. An example would be purchasing second-hand textbooks from former students.

Ideas for college housing:

1. Bike to school if you live off campus. This is a great way to get exercise, reduce your carbon emissions, and have fun.

2. Buying second hand furniture. This is also a great way to save money.

3. Use organic fabrics. This means that the material was grown according to organic standards.  More information on sustainable cotton can be found here.

4. Use rugs to insulate instead of heating. There are many companies which sell carpets free of formaldehyde, benzene, and other toxins.

Check out these brands which offer eco-friendly fabric:

Mohawk Everstrand

Nature's Carpet

5. Share appliances. Examples of this could be a shared fridge, printer, or microwave. Even doing communal laundry can save lots of water, electricity, and most importantly time.

Dorm project ideas:

1. Monitor lights and create a habit of turning off the lights when leaving a room. Reducing light use during sleeping hours could also save power.

2. Start a recycling program.

3. Modernize facilities. This can be replacing old toilets with efficient ones during a renovation.

4. Create a model dorm room to show others how to create a similar setup.
Check out this Duke University model room: http://sustainability.duke.edu/campus_initiatives/buildings/GrnDrmRm.html [1]

A similar idea would be to make signs which educated about the environment near appliances.

This one is positioned next to a printer:

Thank you for reading and if you have any ideas for green dorm rooms, please let me know!

Citations:

[1]: Level one homemaker.com. Accessed 4/5/17. http://level1homemaker.blogspot.com/2013/09/false-economy-review-of-great-value.html

[2]: Duke University. Accessed 3/22/17. http://sustainability.duke.edu/campus_initiatives/buildings/GrnDrmRm.html