In Our Nature

By Mishu Pham-Whipple

The “Carbon Challenge” at the UW Tacoma campus, led by professor Ellen Moore, was part of a project funded by the Green Seed Fund. The Carbon Challenge consisted of three tiers of challenges: 1) professor to student ("lose 5,000 pounds"); 2) professor to professor competition; and 3) student to other members of the UW community. The multi-faceted project incorporated the classroom carbon reduction competition, data analysis of written reflections by students, faculty support of sustainability principles through revised syllabi, and...

By Mishu Pham-Whipple

In 2013, a team from the Green Futures Lab in the Department of Landscape Architecture designed and oversaw construction on the UW Biodiversity Green Wall on the side of Gould Hall. Funding to build the wall was secured through the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF), which is supported through student tuition. The wall was originally planned to be built to study the potential benefits of green walls, which include increasing biodiversity, reducing the heat island effect...

Coming up on May 6 and 7, the UW Botanic Gardens invites you to join our 2016 BioBlitz at the Washington Park Arboretum! A BioBlitz is an intense period of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists and community volunteers conduct an intensive field study over a continuous time period. Sign up this year and help us look for bats, birds, insects, lichens, weeds,...

The UW Botanic Gardens is hosting the 8th annual Urban Forest Symposium on May 17: "Sustaining the Urban Forest During Densification."

Explosive population growth is underway in the Puget Sound Region. The 2016 Urban Forest Symposium will explore approaches to sustaining the urban forest in the face of this rapid densification. Speakers will introduce the tenets of Smart Growth initiatives which have been widely adopted by policy makers, influencing land use decisions and the urban forest in Seattle and around the...

There is a secret and unassuming energy hog lurking throughout our campus, consuming vast amounts of electricity. They are out of sight, but can be found in our buildings’... server rooms. Wilson Waldrop, IT Director of the Department of Physics, has been working with his team to make the Physics server room dramatically more efficient. 

As Wilson put it, leaving a server on is like “leaving a car running”. Not only are they always plugged in, but the room has to constantly be cooled to keep the servers from overheating. Many servers, like the one that hosts the department’s website...

Jessica Kaminsky is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Washington. A scholar of engineering projects and organizations, she conducts research on infrastructure for developing communities with a particular interest in topics of social sustainability. As part of the UW's Earth Day celebration, she gave a talk on how cultural values impact sustainability. Read the text below:

My name is Jessica Kaminsky; I am a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering. Welcome to our Earth Day Celebration! And another...

UW Earth Club president Aaron Tam introduced the club's "Tap That" campaign during the Earth Day celebration, a project that is working to reduce the use of plastic water bottles on campus. Tam is a currently a senior at the University of Washington studying Environmental Science: Wildlife Conservation and Political Science. He's passionate about environmental and socioeconomic justice, and is proud to have contributed greatly to climate action in Washington and campus sustainability efforts. As President of Earth Club, Aaron...

The UW Society for Ecological Restoration's Native Plant Nursery is hosting a Native Plant Sale this weekend. On Sunday, May 1, come out to the Douglas Research Conservatory at the Center for Urban Horticulture from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and support your local, student-run nursery. They will be selling a variety of native plants, including Douglas Fir, Vanilla Leaf, Salmonberry and many more!

Barbara Clabots of the Seattle Surfrider Foundation was the introductory presenter at the University of Washington's Earth Day celebration. Clabots is a social scientist focused on improving ocean conservation. Locally, she serves the community as Seattle Surfrider's Volunteer Coordinator to improve water quality in the Puget Sound, leading a program to eliminate cigarette litter. When she's not in the water or in the mountains, you can find her on Twitter ...

By Mishu Pham-Whipple

Nearly all of Tacoma’s energy comes from renewable hydroelectric power, making the UW Tacoma campus a relatively green one. However, the overwhelming majority of students commute to campus, making transportation the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. To target the largest source of emissions, a team of researchers at the Tacoma campus received funding from the Green Seed Fund to understand the barriers to student use of public transportation. The Husky Lines team - comprised of Dr. Britta Ricker, Surtida Shelton, Alexa Brockamp, Elizabeth Leaf...