Have you seen the blue Artisan Electric trucks outside of Mercer Court recently? An uncanny number of men and women in hard hats and construction vests? The orange tape flying from penthouses on top of Mercer A? UW-Solar’s construction is well underway!
On an overcast fall afternoon, UW Farm Manager Sarah Geurkink pulls bright red radishes from the ground at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture (CUH), and bands them into tight bundles. The radishes, along with mixed greens and carrots, are harvested to be sold at Alder Hall’s District Market. Geurkink, who moved to Seattle from Michigan, became interested in farming food after seeing the poor diets of inner city youth. She saw local and sustainable food production as a means to better peoples’ diet and lifestyle.
A new partnership between UW Housing & Food Services (HFS) and Students Expressing Environmental Dediciation (SEED) is allowing students living on-campus to be recognized for their sustainability efforts.
The Green Endorsement program offers a certification for residents in on-campus residence halls and apartments if their room meets a number of sustainability standards.
SEED provides the endorsement. Residents who meet the requirements are given a placard to post on their door acknowledging their sustainability efforts.
A major part of our new on-campus sustainability initiatives focuses on green residence halls, dining facilities and classrooms -- the places where our students spend most of their time on campus.
Nurturing this clean and cutting-edge environment requires major creativity and a tremendous commitment to the future. And, from our perspective, the most important thing we can do, when it comes to sustainability, is to focus on creating and sustaining delivering a healthy living and work environment for students, faculty and staff.
Beginning this fall, students interested in food studies will have a new option to explore the many aspects of food, ranging from environmental impact to health to culture to eating.
A new food studies living and learning community, located in the Mercer Court Apartments, will be offered to students for the 2013-14 school year.
“The food exploration students will literally be able to grow food, harvest it, cook it, eat it,” said Julia Parrish, associate dean for academic affairs and diversity at the College of the Environment.
As the Apple Cup approaches, the UW and Washington State University (WSU) rivalry strengthens. This rivalry isn’t just limited to sports. Most recently, it has extended to environmental issues. UW and WSU are currently competing in the One Thing Challenge, a competition to get students to pledge to change one thing in their daily routines to help the environment.
The One Thing Challenge began in 2008 when Clive Pursehouse, diversity initiatives administrator for UW Housing & Food Services (HFS), created the challenge and circulated it through the residence halls.
The Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project inaugurated its first widespread demonstration project Oct. 24 at Alder hall. The event marked the official beginning of UW’s effort to install a campus-wide smart grid that tracks power output in every building.
Approximately 90 people attended the event, with U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray, and UW Provost Ana Mari Cauce among the speakers.
The University of Washington marked the start of the data-gathering phase of the UW Smart Grid Project with an event featuring Washington’s two US Senators.
The UW is one of 11 sites in the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project, made possible by an $89 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (supplemented with matching funds) and managed by Battelle. The overall project goals are to identify opportunities to help save energy, make the power system more reliable and incorporate renewable energy into the power generation system.
