Student Organizations

The UW EcoCAR team is working to replicate last year's success with competition here in Seattle starting May 29. The team took second place in the EcoCAR2 competition in 2014, and is nearly completed with the first year of EcoCAR3 which requires the team to complete their design to convert a Chevrolet Camaro to be as energy efficient as possible while keeping its performance.

Read the full story on the In Our Nature blog: sustainability.uw.edu/blog/2015-05/uw-ecocar-prepares-competition

For the third straight year, the University of Washington will be competing in RecycleMania, a friendly tournament where national college campuses compete during the course of eight weeks to see which can reduce, reuse and recycle the most on-campus waste. The UW will take on nationwide universities, including Pac-12 rivals Arizona State University, Stanford, University of Oregon and Washington State University.

If you missed the Sustainability Summit events at the SustainableUW Festival, you can now watch the Husky Highlight keynote speech and Huskies for Humanity Speakers panel online at UWTV.

The ASUW has announced that the Student Food Cooperative (UWSFC), previously a Registered Student Organization (RSO) at the UW, will become an ASUW entity beginning in June.

UWSFC is an RSO that, for the past several years, has reached out to students at the UW to teach them about making better and more sustainable food choices.

“We’re really excited to be an entity of ASUW,” UWSFC director Matt Wildey said. “It’s a really great opportunity to reach out to a significant group of students that we weren’t able to reach out to before.”

Network with representatives of environmentally minded campus units, learn who won this year’s Husky Green Awards and watch a “Conservation Runway” fashion show during Earth Day activities Tuesday, April 22, on the HUB lawn.

The activities are the centerpiece of more than two weeks of activities for the campus surrounding Earth Day 2014.

The University of Washington (UW) EcoCAR 2 electrical team’s main goal for Year 3 is to make the vehicle’s high and low voltage wiring systems both more serviceable and more compact. The electrical team lead, Brian Magnuson, comments, “Our goal is to have zero time troubleshooting in the pits and move directly into Safety Technical Inspection at the competition.”

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.