I am so excited about my proposal for electric lawn and garden equipment for UNE! I received littlefeedback on my proposal because it was spot on from the beginning. I tidied up a few minor errors in grammar throughout the proposal, and I sent it back to Alethea for be submitted to the Environmental Council!
Upon presenting it to the EC, I hope that my project can follow a timeline similar to the one I set in my proposal. If it does, by this time next yeah, UNE grounds could be getting their first electric pieces of equipment! This change would greatly improve the air quality and noise pollution, as well as reduce our fuel consumption, and therefore our carbon emissions.
Moving online with college courses from on-campus learning was tough–most notably, keeping motivated and staying on track. One of the biggest helps to staying on task with my schoolwork was staying in tough with my peers and professors throughout all this havoc. In sustainability lab, I made sure to check in occasionally on Zoom during class time. Here, I listened to what my classmates were up to and any class related conversations. I discussed my project proposal a few times as well. This was really helpful for not only helping me to understand the proposal better, but also to encourage myself to actually get it done.
Zoom is an incredible platform that I believe will continue to be used long past this pandemic. It enables people from anywhere to meet within seconds, as opposed to traveling tens to hundreds of miles. A difficulty I noticed with Zoom is paying full attention to the screen while I am in my room. I tend to wake up a little late, so I usually keep my camera off because I sit in my robe. I’m starting to try to at least get dressed for my meetings and turning my camera on.
I have had an interest in blogging for quite some time now. It is a terrific tool for spreading information and ideas with a range of people. But i was never able to start a blog on my own. I’ve had a lot of fun and learned a lot from playing around with the WordPress website.
First, keeping up with regular posts can be difficult. While for the semester I knew what I had to write about, it isn’t always the easiest staying up to date with the posts. I overcame this though by sticking to deadlines, as these deadlines typically overlap with the project due dates. I also tried writing my posts soon after I complete my work so the details are fresh in my mind.
The second thing I learned from posting on ePortfolio is that writing can be fun! Blogging is all about having your own voice and style of writing. This way of writign for me is so much easier, and it is something I haven’t really done before. I can stress myself out a lot with large writing assignments, and blogging is a much shorter, relaxed form of writing; I finally enjoy writing again! Who would have thought!
I hope to use my website building skills to make a blog about environmental awareness and advice to minimize ones impact. The internet is the largest platform for spreading ideas today, so building an online presence is an absolute must. Eportfolio is a great place to start building that presence.
Keeping track of project tasks is crucial to success and organization. My partner, Lily, and I chose to use the project management tool, Asana. This task tracker allows the user to create tasks which can fall under sections. Each task can further be organized by due date, contributor, assignee, and more. Asana also sends notifications out to the users involved in a task. We first outlined our class projects through the course of the semester within the sections: the STARS report, the case study, and final project. Beneath each section, all the tasks we had to complete for each project was listed below.
This isn’t actually my first time using Asana. I began using Asana as an Eco-Rep last rear during earth month. Asana is a really efficient tool that helps to keep organized among a group of people. But using it last year, I wasn’t as familiar with it as I am today. Asana has turned out to be really helpful for me, as I demand all my tasks and work to be organized, or else I go a little crazy. This tool made it really easy to communicate with my partner on which parts of the project were completed, which is an issue I have experienced a lot in the past.
STARS Asana management tasks!Case study and final project tasks!
The program itself functions really well. I didn’t run across any issues while using it, although it would be even better if the tool could send out reminders before the due date. But overall, I can definitely picture myself using this tool in the future, especially when engaging in group projects. Organization is a key component of project planning, and Asana enhances it greatly.
A lot goes into prepping an idea for a proposal. The idea I proposed for the Environmental Council green sheet was electric lawn and garden equipment: a solution for local air pollution, noise pollution, and carbon emissions. I’m shocked the university hasn’t already implemented a policy similar to this, as it is a simple change that solves a number of problems. But after reviewing the requirements for submitting a proposal, I can see that there are a number of factors that go into implementing a project.
Outlining the goals and objectives for this project was a little tricky. The switch to electric lawn and garden equipment can be either a lengthy or short process, depending on the priority placed on the switch. I chose to outline my proposal based on a lengthy switch to electric by UNE’s carbon neutrality goal in 2040. The goals are based on achieving a full fleet of electric backpack leaf blowers, push lawn mowers, weedwhackers, and riding mowers, among other tools, by 2025, 2030, 2035, and 2040. These goals are hopefully attainable, especially if at least one or two pieces of equipment are purchased each year.
The budget was also a little tricky to figure out. I have a pretty good idea of the type of equipment the grounds typically uses because I worked with them. I looked for electric alternatives online that seemed to be at least somewhat comparable to their gas powered friends. I also looked for pieces of equipment which were of the same brand so the equipment can share batteries. I estimated over the course of the entire project that the equipment and upgrade costs should be around $45,000 over the next 20 years. That number doesn’t include the incredible fuel savings which would procure each day.
The process of writing this proposal demonstrates many of the crucial concepts demonstrated in Thomashow’sNine Elements of a Sustainable Campus. The university values sustainability, however there are a number of factors that go into making these decisions. The grounds department on campus, though, has much room for sustainable improvement. And according to the Strategic Plan, the university’s goal is to improve in this way.
His first guideline for creating “evocative interpretation” is to “ask relevant questions”. Imagine yourself as a visitor to UNE and develop some questions that you think would evoke an interest in you to learn more about the sustainability at UNE.
When I was visiting UNE for the first time, I was interested in neuroscience. But I quickly became interested in the environment once I realized its importance in my and everybody’s lives. Questions relevant to my first visit had to do with the Arts and Science department, specifically neuroscience and anatomy. But with questions answered in such a way where sustainability was relevant to my major really had me interested. My interpretation of these answers had me wondering more about sustainability. Thomashow’s evocative interpretation is challenging for sustainability interpreters to “encourage those responses in informal settings” (177). Good sustainability questions framed relevant to people’s majors or experience such as what sustainability initiatives will make a student’s life easier and less expensive, or how their major fits into our school’s theme, “innovation for a healthier planet”.
Dr. Thomashow’s fifth guideline is to “balance the visceral and the virtual”. What does he mean by this? Give some examples of how we might do that with the creative project in this class?
To “balance the visceral and the virtual,” means to incorporate the biosphere and natural world around us with technology to create an interpretive experience.
UNE does this with quite a few things, and there’s no end for what you can do to accomplish this. Some examples of existing interpretive experiences include the signs around sustainable initiatives, the sustainability blog, and the energy TVs in the commons and marine science center.
But other way that sustainability can be portrayed interpretively though technology (in balance with the viceral world) may be to map the campus’ trees as a campus arboretum, inclusive too, possibly of the campus’ edible plants inititive.
My group is proposing electric landscpaing equipment for the grounds department on campus. This inititive would help us achieve the carbon neutrality goal as well as increase our sustainability on campus. This proposal can be “viscerally and virtually” portrayed using graphs and videos, as well as other case studies.
Some times I wonder why sustainable initiatives aren’t always put in place, even when I know that they are extra beneficial in areas other than sustainability. All the pieces finally made sense after talking with the grounds department managers: maybe they have misunderstandings or don’t know enough about sustainability. Talking with Greg and Shawn, both with landscaping background, I realized they didn’t know of many sustainable strategies to minimize energy or water use, or the solid difference between organic and non-organic landscaping. Because of some of their hesitancy, I am rather unsure of the 100% accuracy of some of the STARS fiends under landscape management.
It was fascinating discussing this with these men, as I was almost under the impression that these were strategies they were familiar with. This didn’t turn out to be the case, and I was rather surprised. I anticipated more knowledge being spread about sustainable initiatives to operations like grounds due to its ability to maintain itself better and be more cost effective. It was more of an ah-ha moment because I realize now why an increase in sustainable initiatives hasn’t happened: there isn’t enough awareness and understanding.
Sustainability is having difficulty cathcing on in some places because people aren’t taught well enough the importance and benefits of living a sustainable lifestyle and career. This wasn’t the case, obviously, when talking with environmental professor, Pam Morgan, as she is incredibly familiar with the idea of sustainability. But for those who are not so informed on the subject, it can be difficult to rationalize such changes. It is important to encourage spreading awareness about sustainability to help it progress into other areas of the campus.
The STARS reporting system is quite impressive in terms of covering all the sustainability bases. The credits my group was responsible for was Grounds landscape management and biodiversity. I chose these credits because of my past connection to the grounds department as a summer position in 2019. I enjoyed my time in grounds, and I was curious about the sustainability of the department.
Upon beginning this project, I outlined several steps for Lily and myself to accomplish in the coming weeks. These include:
Read all credit questions
Identify people on campus able to help answer questions
Contact these people with their credit questions attached & meet
Enter answers on the STARS database
The Asana task tracker was used to organized the progress of completion of our credits by entering these tasks.
I met with my professor, Pam Morgan, for the biodiversity credit during my lab a few weeks ago. She was able to help me with many of the research initiatives taking place on campus which relate to significant species and habitats as well as sustainability and climate change. Pam was very helpful in filling out the STARS report as far as research goes. But there are definitely other research and sustainability initiatives for biodiversity that could be elaborated.
For landscaping, I met with both Greg McKellar and Shawn Descoteaux. They helped me understand the basis of the sustainability of the grounds department, however it wasn’t as sustainable as I would have hoped. Sustainability seemed of lower importance to them, however there were certain sustainable landscaping strategies used that were quite beneficial. Both Greg and Shawn were pretty helpful in obtaining the information for STARS, but I noticed, though, that the grounds department may not have a good understanding of what sustainability entails for landscape management.
The process of finding the information and filling out the STARS database was rewarding, in the sense that I gained experienced searching for information from specific people across campus. I enjoyed learning about the sustainability of grounds, given my history with them, and it has encouraged me to really think about all the sustainable initiatives the grounds can implement.
Yale is among the few universities stepping up to lower their carbon footprint in the Grounds and Landscaping department. They have implemented a proram in which landscaping equipment like lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and weedwackers were replaced with electric alternatives. The school has seen several benefits from the use of electric landscaping equipment:
Improved air quality
Reduced noise pollution
Reduces emissions
Helps achieve carbon neutrality goals
One of the major setbacks in implementing electric equipment is the concern whether they will work with the same power or to the same degree. But electric tecnology is getting better everyday, and it will be what helps us make a difference in climate change.
Here are a few articles about Yale’s new sustainability initiative implementing electric landscaping equipment:
Parkhurst, I have come to learn, puts a lot of energy into making sure that we eat fresh, sustainable food here on campus. Know Your Source is a program intended to inform consumers of where their food is coming from: local sources. Their program for locating and acknowledging local food sources is much more complex than I thought “local” foods entailed. The majority of foodstuff on campus comes from local sources, which implies a certain distance depending on the product. Milk, for example, I believe is delivered locally within 250 miles of the source. Some dining services go even farther, and even attempt to find products that use local ingredients. Parkhurst’s sustainability director, Jamie Moore, thinks that taking this extra step is far more challenging and nearly impossible.
While I have once researched the agriculture and animal agriculture industries, the depth of my findings weren’t comparable to what Jamie had to show us. The chicken industry was most shocking, especially finding out that “cage-free” eggs isn’t actually an improvement unless they are certified organic. Homogenized milk also intrigued me, as I probably drank it for the majority of my life. I am curious if drinking those hormones has impacted my body in any way. Agricultural pesticides on non-organic produce have always been distasteful in my opinion. It wasn’t until this year that I truly began enjoying fruits when I first tried organic. Organic fruits didn’t have the bitter, sour taste I associated with normal fruits, which is why I know there’s a difference.
Culinary services seem like a solid ground to implement numerous sustainable initiatives. Parkhurst takes any attainable step in furthering the sustainability of the services, from low impact take-out containers to local foods. I am confident in Parkhurst’s ability to continue striving for sustainability along with the rest of the campus.
