In Our Nature

Summer and barbeque season are in full swing. Especially in Seattle, the summer months often provide the best weather to grill and host a party outside. Parties can be a tremendous amount of work and details that increase sustainability are often overlooked or cast aside for ease. Here are eight easy tips to help green your summer party:

1. E-Media Invites

Paper invites are the way of the past. E-media invites are much greener and often provide automatic reminders to your guest. One option would be to use Facebook and create an event....

This fall, the Environmental Science & Resource Management program is offering ESRM 320: "Sustainable Markets," an online class open to all students.

The course introduces business concepts relating to marketing, human resource management, small businesses and entrepreneurship, and economics in the context of environmental resource management.

Time Offered: Online course with two in-person exams on 11/8 and 12/8, 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Credits: 5
Professor: Dorothy Paun
General Education...

This fall's course "Sustainability: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts" (ENVIR 239) will present frameworks of sustainability via exploration of key pillars of sustainability, the history of sustainability movements, and sustainability in action. Students examine personal and global aspects of sustainability through issues such as smart growth, environmental and natural building, green business and energy, ecotourism, and international policy

This course has no prerequisites, and the only section currently open is for...

Atmospheric Sciences (ATMS) 111 will give students a board overview of the science of global warming. The class is open to all students, and will discuss the causes, evidence, future projections, societal and environmental impacts, and potential solutions to global warming. Students will also study the debate on global warming with a focus on scientific issues.

This course also includes an optional linked writing course. For more information, see ENGL 199 H...

BSE 150: The Bioresource Science and Engineering (BSE) program has an introductory seminar every fall to introduce students to the science and technology of bio resources, including paper. Faculty, advisers, and guest lectures present on topics throughout the quarter. BSE 150 will be offered on Tuesdays from 2:30-3:20 p.m.

Fall 2016 information
Credits: 1 CR/NC
Professor: Michelle Trudeau
Time Offered: Tuesday 2:30-3:20 p.m.
...

It's time to think twice about your carpet.

For well over 100 years, carpet has been the single most popular choice for American floors, but not without its drawbacks. Producing carpet requires the use of a host of harmful chemicals, and each year landfills acquire millions of tons of carpet that will take thousands of years to decompose.

Most carpets are made with synthetic products like polypropylene, nylon, polyester, and acrylic. The synthetic fibers are then backed with adhesives made from latex, PVC, or polyurethane, all of which are non-renewable materials and require...

Tucked behind an assortment of trees along UW's Stevens Way is a garden unknown to many. The UW Medicinal Herb Garden is home to about 1,000 plants from around the world, spread out across seven plots, and provides a relaxing escape from the surrounding campus.

The garden hasn't always been as richly populated as it is today. There's one man in particular who has doubled the plant collection over the last 20 years.

Keith Possee is no stranger to horticulture. Along with growing his own fruit, medicinal plants, and vegetables at home, he has been with the UW Medicinal Herb...

Americans only make up five percent of the world’s population, yet we produce about a quarter of the world’s garbage.

UW Environmental Studies Lecturer Kristi Straus is here to help. During a...

I was surrounded by a row of fields covered with a variety of crops, ready to learn what the UW Farm was up to this summer. Ellie Garcia handed me a tiny plum, one of the many fruits available at the farm, before detailing her experiences working there.

The UW Farm was holding its regular summer volunteer hours at the Center for Urban Horticulture. Student workers, including Garcia and Francis Olson were busy tying string to surrounding plants to maintain their posture and growth. All were smiles, considering it was overcast with a few...

Update: UW Recycling and UW Sustainability have decided not to continue a pilot program to recycle nitrile lab gloves. The pilot program, which took place over the course of spring quarter of 2016 in nine labs in the Molecular Engineering and Sciences (MolES) department and Materials Science and Engineering department, reduced the proportion of lab waste that gloves made up from an average of 23% to 7%. However, while the pilot program diverted a significant amount of lab waste from the landfill, the program could not confirm that the overall carbon footprint of recycling the gloves...