SEED
Sustainable Environments and Ecological Design
SEED is a student based group at the University of Utah. We are currently working on the Sustainable Campus Initiative and we recently had our first on campus forum to discuss a more sustainable University of Utah campus.
Our service focuses on education about sustainability - the search for balance between economy, society and the environment. SEED has two primary focuses: 1) SEED is part of a movement to transform the University of Utah into a more sustainable campus through the Sustainable Campus Initiative; 2) SEED also promotes sustainable environments by helping students explore our interaction with the land. By building community gardens, such as at the Realms of Inquiry School and the Day Riverside Library, students learn about sustainable environments as they help the garden grow.
Please feel free to share with us your ideas, comments, and suggestions. This Blog will serve as our online forum. We also have a website in the works, so stay in touch!
3 comments:
This is great, I want to volunteer now!
I like the sustainable campus idea. As a biology student I totally understand the concept and think it is a must for our campus. I also feel there is a strong need to market this idea effectively to the students of the campus. I went home and told my wife about the Sustainable Campus conference and she had a puzzled look on her face. She didn't know what that meant. I spent a while explaining the concept to her and she sort of got it, but then I told her basically we are trying to make the U a GREEN campus. Immediately her eyes lit up and she understood. She thinks that's a great idea and wants to be involved too. The point is, that we need to make the concept accessible to the average student. These days green building and green companies have become very popular. Refering to the sustainability issue by calling it a Green Campus might get faster and better results because people instantly understand it and relate to it.
Thanks Michael for your advice on ways to properly convey the complex and relatively confusing idea of sustainability. I agree that the term "Green" has more popularly caught on to the public mindset more so than the 6- syllable long word...teehee. Still, among our main goals with the forums is to facilitate a campus-wide dialogue that particularly focuses on defining what "sustainability" means, emphasizing that it is the search to find a balance between our environmental as well as social and economic health needs. The term "green", however to most people seems to only address the environmental needs without directly giving much attention to the other two factors. Given that we live in a fairly conservative state and attend a university that is beholden to a legislature that does not particularly care for environmental concerns, giving credence to the economic side of sustainability can help to draw-in those individuals who have not yet understood the inherent links...that an economically prosperous community must have an environmentally and socially healthy system. I look forward to your response.
thanks much,
SEED-Alexandra Parvaz
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