Friday, October 22, 2010

Our School is Green!

I love the University of Washington. There was never a doubt in my mind that this was going to be my school. One of the things I love so much about this University is that it is so dedicated to sustainability- in fact, we are included in the top 10 environmentally friendly schools in the entire United States!


Some great examples of sustainable programs here at the UW:

1. SEED (Students Expressing Environmental Dedication) is an environmentally-focused student organization at the University of Washington. Their main focus is promoting sustainability in the campus residence halls and dining operations. Visit the SEED website.



2. With the help of SEED, WashPIRG, Earth Club, the Sierra Student Coalition, and light bulbs donated by Seattle City Light, the UW exchanged more than 4,000 incandescent light bulbs across campus to improve campus energy efficiency. Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) use 75 percent less energy than incandescents.

Chris Bruno, former UW student. The campus-wide light bulb exchange was his idea.
3. "New technology of the ultra-modern salt-power generator. Instead of solar or wind power, which rely on certain weather conditions to produce a consistent output of energy, or corn energy systems, which require massive amounts of resources to produce usable amounts, salt power offers a consistently accessible source of green energy. It is, in short, a mechanism that harnesses the energy produced when salt water meets fresh water. This technology remains the first of its kind" (The Daily <http://dailyuw.com/2010/1/11/salt-power-leads-new-energy-sources/>).



4. Composting/ recycling! I'm sure you've noticed all the different containers around campus dedicated to composting and recycling.


5. The UW held its first Sustainability Summit yesterday, organized by the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF). Read the Daily article here.


I'm looking forward to everything else our campus can accomplish through environmental social movements.

-Alice S.
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. EcoSocMovementsNovember 29, 2010 at 7:43 PM

    To add to your post, the UW curriculum has added many green aspects to the community. In the Environmental Studies major students are requried to take classes focused in experiences and perspectives in the environmental community. In doing this, they are forced to interact and sometimes create ideas or try to implement new ideas to better help the environment. One great example of this is the Environmental Innovation Practicum class that is offered.

    In the class, students have to come up with some idea or prototype for something that has environmental value and "makes the world a better place." A cash incentive and a competition are offered in order to make these ideas come to life. It is a very interesting concept to make class actually implement environmental changes and movements in our very community instead of waiting until you graduate.

    The only upsetting part is that a cash incentive is required to get the business students to work together with the environmental students and engineers in order to make this feasible.

    -Kellen F.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)