To whom it may concern,

ISAUW is a 501(c)(3) non-profit cultural organization dedicated to promoting the diverse Indonesian culture to the communities of the Greater Seattle area. ISAUW's vision is to become the leading Indonesian Student Association in the United States. We aim to achieve this by building a respectful, well-rounded, multifaceted, yet patriotic young Indonesian community in the Greater Seattle Area and across the United States. 

Throughout the years, ISAUW has always put a significant emphasis on creating great leaders in our community. Every year, ISAUW hosts a cultural event called Keraton to promote the unique and diverse Indonesian culture through different themes. Keraton is a massive event, hence, the amount of involvement and commitment delivered by our officers is extraordinary. 

With a shared vision to celebrate Indonesia's diverse culture and making Keraton a huge success, our 40+ members are involved in Event Organizing, Design, Creativity Management, Inventory Management, Sponsorship, Treasury, Fundraising, Marketing & Communication, Documentation, as well as Web Development. Ever since officers joined the organization in Fall, they have been committing their time and creativity to lead their teams successfully to gather what is needed for the success of Keraton; such as searching for funds, performances, food vendors, and many more. Established for over ten years, ISAUW would like to improve the legacy of our previous years and hold the most successful Keraton Indonesian Festival to date.

As the largest Indonesian cultural event on the West Coast and the second largest in the United States, Keraton has grown substantially, accumulating over 16,000 attendees since Keraton in 2019. ISAUW expects 5,000 visitors and will be showcasing the diversity of Indonesian culture through traditional food, dance, music, and art. Beyond ISAUW's purpose of entertaining and educating the community about Indonesia, we also wish to create a stellar and memorable Indonesian experience. This year's theme for Keraton is Indonesian Pasar, where we would get a glimpse of the authentic experience of Indonesian traditional markets, where the diverse culture and people of Indonesia interact in harmony. It will be an introduction to the cultural heritage of Indonesia. 

We are planning to have a Coffee-tasting booth and Batik Awareness and Creation booth that we have at the festival annually, and many more booths designed to enrich the visitors' knowledge about the diverse culture of Indonesia. With this, ISAUW would like to apply for CSF funding to make Keraton possible again this year.

Beyond ISAUW's purpose of entertaining and educating the community about Indonesia, ISAUW guarantees CSF that Keraton always has and will continue to foster a blossoming future of sustainability. This year, we have decided to take a greater step towards sustainability by collaborating with Solar Chapter, a 501(c), Indonesian, UW-registered student organization based in many parts of the world that aims to spread awareness on the environmental issues happening in Indonesia to educate our community on their projects of getting clean water to rural areas in Indonesia where resources are finite.

We will also continue to promote leadership, student involvement, education about Indonesian culture, reach out to the Seattle community, and encourage positive behavior change amongst our members and the campus community. Last but not least, throughout the years, Keraton has instilled important values and taught our members essential life skills such as accountability, teamwork, and respect, which we will continue to foster through this year's event.

The relationship between engineering and environmental sustainability and social justice has presented many challenges, which have been recognized almost since the inception of the engineering profession. As inventors and developers of technology, engineering professions are both criticized for exacerbating these challenges and sought after to solve them. Unfortunately, while many engineers are motivated to shape a more sustainable and just world, training in how to translate that into research, design, and development of technologies is not part of a typical engineering education.

Over time, there have been frequent and vehement calls to better educate engineers on the environmental and social implications of their work. Specific educational initiatives and frameworks developed to support these efforts include the UN-sponsored Education for Sustainable Development (Byrne et al. 2010, Desha et al. 2019), sociotechnical thinking (Johnson et al. 2022), corporate social responsibility (Smith et al. 2018), and societal embeddedness (Sprenkeling et al. 2022). Despite long recognition of the need, substantial research has shown that uptake of such initiatives has been uniformly slow and uneven (Gutierrez-Bucheli et al. 2022). The opposition to program reform is generally based on displacement of what are seen as essential technical training requirements, which are often based on industry priorities.

Based on the project team's experience, the University of Washington College of Engineering (COE) program faces similar constraints that limit students' ability to gain awareness and practical skills in the environmental and social implications of their work. To address this deficit, the proposed feasibility study will assess the current status of environmental and social impact awareness and training within the COE, and create recommendations to develop a societal embedding framework for sustainability and community oriented engineering at the University of Washington. The feasibility study will initiate with (i) an assessment of the existing education and training opportunities - both formal and informal - that are available to students. Formal opportunities include required or voluntary courses (e.g., sustainability, social impact, and ethics) offered for academic credit. Informal opportunities include extra-curricular activities that are sponsored or promoted by the University or student groups (e.g., DubHacks, Alaska Environmental Challenge). These opportunities will be researched and summarized for purpose, scope, the number of engineering students that engage, and reported learning outcomes. The feasibility study will (ii) conduct a survey to evaluate COE students' interest and current knowledge in environmental and social impact engineering, and whether there is unmet need for training. The final study component will (iii) conduct a survey of COE alumni to assess whether training at UW was and is sufficient for the environmental, sustainability, and social issues that alumni encounter in their careers after graduating.

The goal of the feasibility study is to identify specific gaps in engineering training, to support development of a societal embedding framework for sustainability and community-oriented engineering. The summary of current training opportunities can be compared against the frameworks listed above to assess the ability of students to access comprehensive training. Survey results will indicate student knowledge as well as interest in these areas, and whether these vary across engineering departments. The alumni survey will allow assessment of the sufficiency of current training opportunities. The results of the feasibility study and recommendations for program reforms will be shared with individual departments within and across the College of Engineering. They will also form the basis to develop subsequent proposals to pilot and test specific interventions for sustainability and community-oriented engineering. Such interventions could include (but are not limited to): development of a clinic or practicum program (e.g., School of Public Health, UW School of Law), development of new courses, updates or changes to curriculum requirements, development of new extra-curricular training opportunities (e.g., Hack-a-thons). The project team also intends to use the results of the feasibility study to support an application to PFE: Research Initiation in Engineering Formation, a National Science Foundation program geared toward engineering education reform.

The project team is comprised of a faculty PI and two graduate students with substantial experience in engineering education and research development in academic, government, and private industry labs. This includes experience with implementing a community-oriented research program in government labs. Importantly, the project team perspectives' are also informed by their direct experience of engineering programs in the Netherlands, where environmental and social learning is integrated throughout undergraduate and graduate curricula and research programs.

This work meets all four of the Campus Sustainability Fund Criteria and Preferences. The Sustainable Impact criteria are met in the goal of the feasibility study, which is to produce a strategic plan to realize a program where UW engineering students can gain improved training in the environmental and social impact of their work. The Leadership and Student Involvement criteria are addressed through strong student involvement in project design and implementation. A majority of the project budget will fund project time for two graduate students in the Illimited Lab, who will integrate the results into their PhD dissertation research. Students will also be broadly invited to participate in project components (i) and (ii). The focus of the project is on Education, Behavior Change & Outreach, which will include attention and awareness resulting from conducting the feasibility study. The project meets criteria for Feasibility and Accountability in multiple ways. The project team (a faculty PI and two graduate students) have the necessary skills and research experience to conduct the feasibility study. All surveys will be submitted for review by the UW Human Subjects Division. The project team is supported by other members of the research lab group (IllimitedLab), who are committed to engineering education for sustainability and social impact.

The feasibility study phase will be led by Ed Habtour, a faculty member in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department, who was embraced in the Netherlands Societal Embedding at UTwetne. We will utilize resources available at the Illimited Lab.  Campus sustainability funds will support graduate and undergraduate summer students ($11,719) to conduct the research, outreach, and survey, as well as the lead summer salary (40hr/$3,281). The study will take six months. It will conclude by the end of September 2024 if we start in April 2024.

Projects - Cycle 1
Contact: Lea Dyga (dygalea@uw.edu) or Joshua Kim (jkim07@uw.edu)

Summary of Project Proposal:

The Society for Ecological Restoration-UW Native Plant Nursery provides high-quality, local, sustainably grown native plants to the UW community. We work with UW undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of capacities and provide a unique educational experience that goes beyond the scope of the typical UW experience. The nursery provides an invaluable addition to students' academic journey through programs such as our for-credit undergraduate internship, our partnerships with the Community Engagement & Leadership Education Center and the UW-Restoration Ecology Network (REN) Capstone program, and by hosting tours and providing resources for UW classes (such as ESRM/ENVIR 362 and ESRM 412).

The SER-UW Native Plant Nursery seeks $66,250 in supportive funding to aid in routine administrative costs and infrastructure repairs, as well as to enhance our basic infrastructure and expand our keystone programs. This funding would be administered over 3 years, ensuring the SER-UW Native Plant Nursery and its flagship programming's stability and success.

The nursery operations are overseen by a full time AmeriCorps member and a paid, undergraduate student assistant. The AmeriCorps member serves as the Nursery Manager, and is essential to all facets of its success. The undergraduate student assistant gains leadership experience along with professional development as a budding horticulturist. We are requesting $51,000 to provide partial staff funding for these positions. Securing partial support for three years will allow the team to focus their time and energy towards furthering our nursery's mission and enhancing our students' educational experiences. The remainder of the staff funding will be secured through plant sales, external grants, etc.

Each quarter, the SER-UW Native Plant Nursery hosts at least five UW undergraduate interns. These interns earn credit toward their degree and produce individual, hands-on projects that are published on the nursery website and displayed at the Miller Library Student Plant Research Exhibit. We would like to enhance the intern experience and quality of the projects by providing project/research funding. By providing a $100 project budget to each intern, the scope of each intern's individual project can be exponentially expanded and those credits will have even more meaning.

We also seek support for a short-list of priority infrastructure improvements and repairs. Our primary facility, an outdoor hoophouse, does not have access to electricity. Solar panels and associated batteries would provide a sustainable source of lighting and enable us to no longer be limited by short winter days. Further, our facilities are largely unmarked and thus underappreciated. We seek funding for navigational and educational signage to support self-guided tours of our facilities. In regards to repairs, we are due to replace our hoophouse polycover (wintertime plant protection) and shade cloth (summertime plant protection). Our facilities also need a handful of general repairs, mainly irrigation hoses and rabbit fencing, which are important to plant production.

Each of the items listed in our budget will increase our ability to meaningfully engage UW students in ecological horticulture, supporting their environmental education and building tangible horticultural career skills.

Sustainable Impact:

Projects must improve the sustainability of UW's campus and/or operations. Sustainable impact encompasses both social sustainability - cultural awareness & preservation, representation or engagement of underrepresented communities, diverse and interdisciplinary collaboration - and environmental sustainability - reducing carbon emissions, energy use, water use, waste, pollutants, and toxins, as well as improving living systems, biodiversity, environmental justice and equity. Projects focused on social sustainability should also include an environmentally sustainable component, although this part does not have to be the project's focus.

Our student assistant and AmeriCorps member are critical to the nursery's keystone role in ecological restoration on the university campus. Our nursery leads the production and procurement of native plants for contracts and orders with the SER-UW student organization and REN Capstone restoration sites, and supports UW Grounds. Nursery practices, including sexual propagation and integrated pest management, support principles of ecological horticulture, preserving biodiversity and fostering plant-wildlife interactions on campus. These practices cannot be sustained without relationships built with the broader restoration community on campus and in King County, including student organizations, student volunteers, faculty, other nurseries, and interested community members. These relationships are primarily and critically supported by, and cannot be expanded without funding longevity and staff stability through our student assistant and AmeriCorps member.

Leadership & Student Involvement:

Staff and student roles must be clearly outlined and reflected in the proposed project budget. Projects must demonstrate some substantial degree of student leadership or student involvement throughout the application and implementation process to be considered for funding. Additionally, projects initiated by students will be prioritized.

The nursery provides multiple avenues for student leadership and development. Our internship intentionally fosters leadership, with each intern undertaking a project of a topic of their own initiative, often having interns reaching out and collaborating or networking with, for example, other labs for guidance on research focused projects, or other nurseries for industry knowledge. Often, interns will stay for multiple quarters, allowing for expansion of responsibilities and peer teaching-a cornerstone to maintaining operations. Our student assistant position provides an opportunity for high-level student involvement and leadership on grant-funded research, horticultural operations, key partnerships with other organizations, and management of interns and volunteers.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change:

Projects must include educational and outreach components that help cultivate an aware and engaged campus community.

Our Nursery Internship offers UW undergraduates the opportunity to gain hands-on horticultural education while earning credit towards their degree. This unique experience is supported by our AmeriCorps member, who acts both as a nursery manager and an environmental educator. For several of our current/recent interns, their Nursery Internship project is their first experience with leading a research initiative. The requested funding for individual projects will also enhance the internship program by expanding the scope of the research interns may pursue.

Feasibility & Accountability:

Applicants must demonstrate that they have or can attain the technical knowledge, necessary approvals, and project management skills to complete projects successfully. The Fund encourages the use of a faculty or staff mentor, appropriate department support, and/or a line item in the budget for project management.  CSF monies must be used in a socially responsible manner--to be determined by the Committee.  Projects requiring ongoing maintenance or staffing not funded by the CSF should demonstrate a plan to meet long-term needs.

The SER-UW Native Plant Nursery's success and longevity is stewarded by SEFS professor Jon Bakker and is supported by the UW Botanic Gardens. Project management is the responsibility of the full time AmeriCorps member and is supported by the student assistant. The nursery can seek further technical knowledge and necessary approvals through existing communication channels at the Center for Urban Horticulture, including the UW Farm, or within the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Upon approval of the LOI, we intend to seek technical support for UW Solar as well. Our nursery has successfully completed three large CSF projects in the past and our key stakeholders are familiar with the process via other CSF funded projects.

Core Project Team

• Jon Bakker (jbakker@uw.edu) - Faculty Advisor
• Lea Dyga (dygalea@uw.edu) - Nursery Manager
• Joshua Kim (jkim07@uw.edu) - Student Assistant

Key Stakeholders

• Society for Ecological Restoration UW Student Organization
• UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
• UW Terrestrial Restoration Ecology Lab
• UW Restoration Ecology Network Capstone Class
• UW Botanic Gardens
• UW Solar (upon successful LOI)

Itemized Budget - Initial Estimation

AmeriCorps Member (Full Time, 1700 hours/year) - Staff
$9,000 x 3 years
$27,000

Student Assistant (Part Time, 3 quarters/year) - Staff
$8,000 x 3 years
$24,000

Internship Project Funding (5 interns/quarter @ $100 each)
$500 x 10 quarters
$5,000

Hoophouse Lighting (Solar Panels, Batteries, Lights) - Infrastructure Improvement
$8,500

Navigational/ Educational Signage - Infrastructure Improvement
$750

Hoophouse Polycover + Shade Cloth - Infrastructure Repair
$500

General Repair Supplies -  Infrastructure Repair  
$500

TOTAL
$66,250

Timeline for Project Completion

[Spring 2024 through Spring 2027]

• Spring 2024
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
  • Hire 2024/25 AmeriCorps Member ($9,000)
  • Hire 2024/25 Student Assistant ($8,000)
• Summer 2024
  • Complete Hoophouse Shade Cloth Infrastructure Repair ($250)
  • Complete General Infrastructure Repair ($500)
• Fall 2024
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
  • Research hoophouse lighting (ask UW Solar & UW Farm)
  • Begin drafting Navigational/ Educational Signage
• Winter 2025
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
  • Finalize Educational Signage
• Spring 2025
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
  • Finalize hoophouse lighting plan
  • Print + Instal Navigational/ Educational Signage ($750)
  • Hire 2025/26 AmeriCorps Member ($9,000)
  • Hire 2025/26 Student Assistant ($8,000)
• Summer 2025
  • Begin installing Hoophouse Lighting Infrastructure Improvement ($8,500)
• Fall 2025
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
  • Finalize Hoophouse Lighting Infrastructure Improvement
• Winter 2026
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
  • Complete Hoophouse Polycover Infrastructure Repair ($250)
• Spring 2026
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
  • Hire 2026/27 AmeriCorps Member ($9,000)
  • Hire 2026/27 Student Assistant ($8,000)
• Summer 2026
  • --
• Fall 2026
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
• Winter 2027
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)
• Spring 2027
  • Fund 5 Nursery Intern projects ($500)

see attachment

March 10, 2023

Dear Campus Sustainability Fund,

The ASUW Shell House is located on the edge of campus along the shores of Lake Washington at the eastern end of the Montlake Cut. The site has always been a gathering space. Within its walls and on the waters of Lake Washington, generations of people gathered to collaborate, celebrate and connect to the water. Generations ago, the Duwamish people would come here to portage across the narrow isthmus that spanned the waters of Lake Washington. The site’s Lushootseed name, stəx̌ʷugʷił , translates o the place to “carry a canoe,” indicating their reverence for the shores of the lake that supported their livelihood.  Today, on the site of the Historic ASUW Shell House, we continue to respect these indigenous traditions of reverence for land and water, and have new histories to add to the narrative. Following its short use as a a seaplane hangar for the U.S. Navy during WWI, it housed the UW rowing team for decades, including George Pocock’s shop, the world-renowned boat builder who built rowing shells for teams across the world.  It recently has become a legend, thanks to the book (and soon-to-be-movie, “Boys in the Boat”) that chronicled UW men’s unlikely gold victory at Hitler’s 1936 Olympic Games.

As the very first Seattle historic landmark on campus, this building with its glorious location on the shores of lake Washington will soon be renovated into a dynamic space for the campus community, with gathering spaces for students, places for events, and exhibits to illustrate its characteristics of history, sustainability, beauty and community. As the UW Historic Shell House begins to implement designs for building renovation and landscape design, and in concert with the goals the UW established as a certified ‘salmon safe’ institution, this proposal seeks funding to develop a feasibility study for sustainable onsite stormwater harvesting and treatment at the Shell House site.

Sustainable Impact

The ultimate goal in sustainable water in urban sites is to be like a natural ecological system, balancing intake with outflow of waters of similar or better quality – but that is rarely the case in urban environments.  For example, when it rains on campus, the rainwater runs into a network of storm drains that lead directly into local bodies of water. Along the way, rainwater picks up contaminants such as heavy metals, oil, toxins, pathogens, chemicals and trash, which goes untreated and flows directly into fish and wildlife habitat. This stormwater falls on various surfaces including buildings, roads, parking lots, sidewalks, loading docks, and landscaped areas. While some of the water may be absorbed by the soil, most of it ends up in the nearest storm drain, and ends up in Lake Washington. Additionally, stormwater runoff can cause erosion and sedimentation, which can negatively impact salmon habitat by filling in the spaces between rocks where salmon lay their eggs. This can prevent the eggs from hatching, and reduce the amount of available habitat for juvenile salmon. It can also increase the water temperature of streams and rivers. This can be harmful to salmon, as they require cool water temperatures to survive. Warmer water can reduce the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water, making it more difficult for salmon to breathe and survive. Untreated polluted water can also reduce the amount of available habitat for salmon, and can also make it more difficult for salmon to find food and avoid predators.

With the ultimate goal of treating all onsite water sustainability, we will study the feasibility of how the Shell House site can treat stormwater through:

• Constructed wetlands- engineered marshlands that replicate the functions of natural wetlands by filtering pollutants and improving water quality and by the hydrology and vegetation of a natural wetland. They also provide a habitat for diverse plant and animal species while providing ecosystem services such as water purification and flood control.
• Bioswales - a landscape element designed to manage and treat stormwater runoff through shallow, vegetated drainage ditches engineered to slow down and filter stormwater as it flows through the landscape. Also designed to mimic the functions of a natural wetland, they are typically located in areas with high levels of stormwater runoff, such as parking lots, roadsides, and other paved areas.
• Rainwater collection - a water cistern collection system involves the collection and storage of rainwater for later use by installing a cistern or storage tank, which captures rainwater from the roof of a building, then treated and filtered to remove any debris or contaminants before it is used for non-potable purposes such as irrigation, cleaning or toilet flushing. Greywater systems: This is the use of a close-looped water system treating grey water used from sinks, dishwashers, water fountains, etc., for building uses such as toilet flushing.  By using a filtration and disinfection process to remove any contaminants and ensure that it is safe for use, reusing greywater to flush toilets can reduce water usage up to 30% in a building.

Student Leadership & Involvement

Our proposal during the feasibility phase for students will include a graduate Master of Landscape hired to assist in project feasibility management, along with the 12 students in Professor Merlinos Spring undergraduate architecture design studio. The studio will be focusing on the adaptive reuse, preservation and landscape design of the Shell House. Students will be presenting at the end of the quarter their projects and proposals to reviewers, stake holders, and the ASUW Shell House board as well as additional outreach presentations.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

With the upcoming renovation of the ASUW Shell House, and its prominent site on campus near the light rail, stadium and shore front, this building will be a destination for both the UW community, locals and visitors for years to come. It will be a dynamic student center, and already gets plenty of traffic both on foot during stadium events and by boat during the spring and summer months. By creating a visible, sustainable onsite water treatment and educational display, we will be showing visitors how both saving an existing building and treating its onsite water in a way that respects the environment and salmon is the highest level of sustainability.

Feasibility & Accountability

The feasibility study phase. will be led by Faculty member in Architecture and Director of the Center for Preservation and Adaptive Reuse, collaborating with the Green Futures Lab and students of the College of Built Environment. Funds will be used for a Licensed Landscape Architect Consultant (approx. $20,000), a graduate research summer assistant (200 hours/ $8000) and studio supplement ($1000) for a total of $29,000 (est).

Thank you for your consideration,

Kathryn Rogers Merlino

First Nations is a Registered Student Organization who aims to promote Indigenous culture through events such as Taking Back the Dinner and the annual UW Spring Powwow. First Nations also advocates for Native students’ interests, needs, and welfare, supplements and complements the formal education of Native students at UW, expresses our collective Native student opinion and interests to the University and community at large on issues affecting Native student life and culture, and implements the American Indian Retention and Recruitment (A.I.R.R.) Program. We are requesting financial support for the 52nd Spring Powwow occurring this academic year.

A powwow is a gathering of Native American, Alaskan Native, and First Nations peoples. Powwow consists of cultural Native American practices such as dancing and singing. People from all tribes and nations are welcome to partake in these cultural practices, and non-natives are welcome to join and watch the performances. Powwows are considered celebrations of culture for Native people. Historically, First Nations hosts our Spring Powwow at the Hec Edmundson Pavilion. It is a tradition we value as our families and communities local to Seattle and Washington had the privilege to attend previous powwows in Hec Edmundson and we desire to celebrate our culture in the same manner. In keeping with the Native American powwow circuit, First Nations hosts our Spring Powwow during the second weekend of April. It is attended by UW students, both Native and non-Native, and Indigenous communities within and outside of Washington State, resulting in over 4,000 attendees. First Nations also invites local organizations led by and committed to Native communities, such as the Urban Indian Health Institute and Urban Native Education Alliance, to share their resources and network within our community. The Spring Powwow is fully organized and supported by UW students and volunteers. This gives our members the opportunity to develop their event planning, coordination, and communication skills.

We are requesting funding to support our remaining event costs, which include but are not limited to: Culinary equipment rentals to prepare cultural concessions ($1,328); transportation expenses ($200); office and communication expenses ($400); materials to prepare our traditional Elder’s Dinner ($4,000); and honoraria for drummers, singers, and other performers who are a major factor in the Powwow’s success ($3,150). Based on the 51st Spring Powwow’s actual budget, and our revised budget to reflect First Nations’ appreciation of performers who attended the 51st Spring Powwow at rates lower than their value to help the event return successfully from pandemic hardships, we estimate our remaining costs at $9,078. Beginning in Winter quarter, First Nations’ Powwow Committee will meet weekly to execute the planning and coordination of the event. This allows us four months to prepare for the event, held during the second weekend of April.

The University of Washington Q Center is requesting an additional $3,000 from the Campus Sustainability Fund Mini-Grant to purchase and distribute sustainable, eco-friendly menstrual products to 100 UW students in need. The products—reusable cotton panty liners, reusable cotton pads, and menstrual cups—will be purchased from GladRags as part of the Q Center’s continuing initiative called the Menstruation Station, whose launch was generously funded by CSF. The Menstruation Station program, led by Graduate Program Coordinator Joie Waxler, has been successfully advancing menstrual justice for over a year by providing wraparound services that center the experiences, needs, and desires of bodies that bleed. The Q Center’s Menstruation Station program aims to undo and mitigate the structures of oppression that impact menstruating bodies with a focus on the needs of queer and trans folks who are often left out of menstruation discourse and care. Our goal is to re-empower bleeding and alleviate the financial and emotional burdens experienced by people who menstruate. The funding we received to from CSFto launch this initiative, as well as the support we received from the UW DEI Blueprint to maintain this program as allowed us to meet this community need and fulfill many of our programmatic goals. As we have this program grow and flourish thanks to the generosity of grant programs like CSF, we have also seen a steady increase in engagement and need. We are requesting these funds in order to keep up with student need, and ensure that all bodies that bleed are able to access the care they need through sustainable methods and community care.

Menstruation is a nearly ubiquitous experience for people who have uteruses, but it is often not discussed or tended to in the ways people with uteruses may need in order to thrive alongside this bodily process. Everybody experiences the menstrual cycle differently, but menstruation and ovulation can often be painful, fatiguing, emotional, and expensive. Over the course of their life, a person who menstruates will have around 456 periods and will spend upwards of $18,000 on menstrual care. And the issue is not just financial, it is also deeply environmental. Each year, menstrual products account for 200,000 tons of plastic, and most menstruators will generate anywhere from 250-300 pounds of plastic waste over the course of their lifetimes. As we continue moving through the social and physical consequences of Covid-19, the stigmatizing ramifications of the current outbreak of Monkeypox (MPV), and the historical and present the burdens of White Supremacy, colonialism, and hetero-patriarchy, queer and trans menstruating bodies continue to be disproportionately impacted. Menstrual wellbeing remains under-funded and menstrual stigma continues to create hostile environments for bodies that bleed. Providing free and environmentally-conscientious menstrual products to menstruators is an important step towards eradicating the economic and environmental burdens of menstrual care.

The Q Center has continued fostering our partnerships with GalPalz, Hall Health, the Counseling Center, the D Center, and the UW Food Pantry. Our partnerships ensure that our menstrual health initiatives reach a diverse swath of the UW community, and that our programming compliments already existing resources, such as UW Food Pantry’s disposable menstrual product distribution services. Our partnerships have also allowed us to collaboratively build out our supportive programming; we are continuing to work with Hall Health and the D Center on our Reproductive Justice Programming, launched last year with our ‘Abortion Care for Queer and Trans Bodies’ workshop. These partnerships are vital to the wellbeing of our programming, and more importantly, to the wellbeing of our community. Our collaborations through the Menstruation Station have helped nurture a supportive network for the community we serve, and we are looking forward to advancing sustainable menstrual equity through these community oriented collaborations.

Joie Waxler has been overseeing the creation, implementation, and maintenance of the Menstruation Station program since 2021. They are a professional sexual health educator, and have been published on both national and local stages on the topic of building effective means to provide affirming and accessible health care to queer and trans individuals and communities. They successfully built the first menstrual equity and access program for the Ryan Health Network, a major Federally Qualified Health Center in New York City, as well as one of the first pregnancy and parenting programs that centers queer and trans homeless youth in NYC. Their experience building sexual health equity programs that center the experiences, identities, and voices of communities that are often overlooked in this field are continuing to flourish as a Graduate Program Coordinator at the Q Center.

The Menstruation Station initiative is in part inspired by, and deeply aligned with the Q Center’s mission to engender a brave, affirming, liberatory, and celebratory environment for UW community members of all sexual and gender orientations, identities, and expressions. We approach our work with intentional interpersonal processes that strive to create holistic, culturally embedded, and appropriate services. Menstrual health and equity is imperative to maintaining emotional and physical wellbeing, and the funds from this CFS Mini-Grant will help the Q Center continue to engender equitable, sustainable, menstrual wellbeing for all bodies that bleed. Thank you for your consideration, and for the sustainable community you are helping to build with this funding. Please reach out to Joie Waxler at jwaxler@uw.edu or budget administrator Lindsey Mitchell at lchale@uw.edu with any questions regarding this application.
 
Sincerely,
Joie Waxler
Graduate Program Coordinator
Q Center, University of Washington
They, them, theirs
jwaxler@uw.edu

Budget Proposal and Timeline

• Amount Requested: $3000
• Q Center Contribution: $1500

Description: Our partnership with GladRags allows us to purchase reusable menstrual products at wholesale prices. We are currently providing each participant with either one menstrual cup and one reusable menstrual pad, or three reusable menstrual pads of any variety. The maximum amount per student we are currently allocating for each student is $40.00 in products, not including shipping and tax costs. The aggregate average cost per student we have provided menstrual products for thus far is $35.00 including tax and shipping. The minimum possible cost per student is $6.25. Based on the aggregate average of costs over this past year, we estimate we will be able to provide about 125 UW community members with menstrual products with the funds from this grant and the additional funds from our discretionary budget.

We are currently working from a separate grant which we anticipate will finish in December 2022. With a projected 35% increase in engagement, we anticipate these funds will allow the Menstruation Station to serve the UW community from January 2023-July 2023.

UW Athletics has an active sustainability program that engages with the campus and surrounding community on many levels. This includes UW student-athletes, who use their voices and outreach to promote sustainability though a variety of platforms.

The Student Athletes at UW for Sustainability (SAUWS) group was formed in 2019 with the intent to organize student-athletes to complete projects that make an impact in the athletic village, on campus or in our surrounding community. Sustainability has become a priority of UW student-athletes, and this group provides a framework to work together on projects they are passionate about.

This year, SAUWS is planning a restoration/education project along the waterfront next to the Conibear Shellhouse and Dempsey Indoor Facility. The project encompasses wetland restoration and removal of invasive species and garbage.

The project also provides an opportunity for UW’s student-athletes to create an educational program to share their knowledge and passion. We plan to partner with Pine Lake Middle School’s YESC group to take on this restoration project and create a fun, interactive education sessions for the middle school students presented by the student-athletes and supported by experts in the field. SAUWS is especially interested in connecting with youth in the community on environmental education, and this is a unique opportunity for them to share mutual interests in sports and the environment.

We also plan to create a video summarizing the event that can be shared on UW, Pac-12, and student-athletes’ media platforms. Our hope is that the video demonstrates our athletes’ commitment and passion for sustainability, and that others will be inspired to do similar work and create programs like these in their communities.

UW student-athletes are invested, and want to be leaders in sports sustainability, and foster healthy and sustainable communities where we live, learn and play. This project is hopefully the first of many collaborative community projects lead by UW student-athletes.

To whom it may concern,

ISAUW is a 501(c)(3) non-profit cultural organization dedicated to promoting the diverse Indonesian culture to the communities in the Greater Seattle area. ISAUW’s vision is to become the leading Indonesian Student Association in the United States. We aim to achieve this by building a respectful, well-rounded, diverse, yet nationalistic young Indonesian community in the Greater Seattle Area and in the United States. Established for over ten years, ISAUW would like to carry on and improve the legacy of our previous years and hold the most successful Keraton Indonesian Festival to date.

As the largest Indonesian cultural event on the West Coast and second largest in the United States, Keraton has experienced high growth, culminating in 2019’s event that attracted over 12,000 people. ISAUW expects 13,000 visitors and will be showcasing the diversity of Indonesia’s many islands through traditional food, dance, music, and art. Beyond ISAUW’s purpose of entertaining and educating the community about Indonesia, we also wish to create a memorable Indonesian experience. This year, the theme for Keraton will be Indonesian Retro Films. In addition, we are planning to have a coffee-tasting booth and batik awareness and creation booth that we have at the festival annually and many more booths designed to enrich the visitors’ knowledge about Indonesia and Indonesian retro films. With this, ISAUW would like to apply for CSF funding to make Keraton possible again this year.

ISAUW guarantees CSF that Keraton always has and will continue to deliver a sustainable impact. We will also promote leadership, student involvement, education about Indonesian culture, reach out to the Seattle community and encourage positive behavior change amongst our members and the campus community. Last but certainly not least, throughout the years, Keraton has instilled important values and taught our members essential life skills such as accountability, teamwork, and respect.

Sustainable Impact

Social Sustainability

Keraton promotes volunteerism and community engagement between ISAUW members tasked with planning Keraton and the Seattle community. In preparation for this annual event, ISAUW has created many different opportunities throughout the academic year for volunteering and engaging the Greater Seattle community to make this event possible.

Keraton aims to build awareness of Indonesian culture and showcase the diversity of the University of Washington. Through the celebration of Indonesian Culture at Keraton, ISAUW can empower and educate the Seattle community, paving the way for empowerment, equity, and inclusion which are foundational for social sustainability.  

Environmental Sustainability

ISAUW members are also highly concerned about the environment, thus making environmental sustainability a top priority for our organization and this event. Following past years, Keraton will be held in an outdoor location, Rainier Vista, to utilize less energy than an indoor space. This location would also encourage the use of public transportation such as the bus, metro, and bikes due to the location’s accessibility to the metro station, bus stations, and the availability of bike racks close by to the location. Moreover, ISAUW assures CSF that Keraton is 99% compostable. We require all of Keraton’s food vendors to use compostable and sustainable packaging supplies and limit food waste at the event. We would also reduce waste by providing recycling, composting, and landfill bins to collect waste. Therefore, in preparation for Keraton, ISAUW members will focus their efforts on reducing carbon emissions, energy use, water use, and waste in this event.

Leadership and Student Involvement

Throughout the years, ISAUW has always put a huge emphasis on creating great leaders. The enormous commitment expected of our members prepares them for real-life work experiences. Not only are they involved in initiating events to promote Indonesian culture, but members are also involved in marketing communication, information technology, creativity management, and many more. Beyond this, students in ISAUW have the opportunity to learn to communicate and partner with small and big businesses in the United States and Indonesia, allowing them to hone excellent interpersonal skills. In Keraton, ISAUW receives volunteers who are students from diverse community colleges and universities in the Greater Seattle Area, including Edmonds Community College, Shoreline Community College, Bellevue Community College, and more. Moreover, almost half of the food vendors in Keraton are contributed by other Student Organization Bodies from various Community Colleges and Universities, such as The Indonesian Student Association of Seattle University (ISASU), Bellevue Indonesian Club (BIC), Indonesian Student Association of North Seattle College (ISANS), Indonesian Student Association in the United States in Seattle (PERMIAS Seattle), and more. Hence, ISAUW members can expand their channels and meet new people from various backgrounds and create new experiences for students that would be useful for their future endeavors.   

Education, Outreach and Behavior Change

Keraton has consistently received critical acclaim from Indonesians who attend Keraton and non-Indonesians who took home knowledge about Indonesia’s diversely rich culture from Keraton. Beyond that, ISAUW members and volunteers have also been more active in the campus community as we enlist their collaboration and help while preparing for Keraton.

Feasibility and Accountability

ISAUW expects each member to fulfill their significant roles. We encourage our fellow ISAUW members to showcase their project management skills continuously. Members in different departments must work together and collaborate with other departments to achieve the vision and mission of ISAUW. They complete numerous challenging tasks, engage with real professionals, and are committed to lobbying for funds put into Keraton, allocating the fund appropriately, and using it as wisely as possible to make the execution of Keraton successful.

Estimation of Project Budget

Accommodation
  Event Reservation                                                  $3,580
  Event Insurance                                                      $435
  Honey Bucket and Water                                        $2,000                                                               
  Events Staff                                                            $2,400
  First Aid                                                                   $100
  Recycling                                                                $145
  Electricity                                                                $5,000
  Fire Extinguisher                                                     $300
  Transportation(U-Haul)                                           $250

Staging and Sound
  Stage, Lighting and Sound System                        $14,000

Food Vendors Area
  Equipment                                                            $1,000        
  Canopies                                                              $100
  Decorations                                                          $2,500
  Assembly Permit and Propane Permit                 $4,500

Volunteers and Performers
  Guest Star Fee                                                     $7,000
  Event T-Shirt                                                         $500
  Committee, Volunteers and Performers Consumption    $2,000

Marketing
  Newspapers                            $700
  Balloons                            $200
  Posters Printing                        $300

Total                                $47,010

Key Stakeholders and Core project team

Key Stakeholders

• Local Communities
• Non-profit organizations
• Registered Student organizations
• University of Washington
• Business partners, suppliers, and vendors
• Organization members
• Volunteers
• International and local students in Seattle

Core Project Team

Operations: Event Organizer, Creativity Management, Inventory
Finance: Sponsorship and Treasury
Communication Outreach: Information Technology, Marketing Communication, Design & Documentation

Project Timeline

Autumn 2021

• Event Organizers:
  • Start reaching out to artists to perform in Keraton (minimum 2 emails per week)
  • Planned to have a few known Artists to headline, and student performers from all over Seattle. Previous guest artists include: Andrew Garcia, Jeremy Passion, Leroy Sanchez, and more
• Creativity Management:
  • Decided the theme for Keraton 2022: Indonesian Retro Films (1960s - 1970s)
• Treasury and Sponsorship:
  • Start Fundraising events to raise funds for Keraton:
    • Boba Tour: City tour event, orientation for new students at UW
    • Seathrough: Social event for new and current UW students alike, primarly targeted towards Indonesians
    • Friendsgiving: Thanksgiving event, providing food, drinks, games, photobooths, and karaoke place
  • Sold ISAUW merchandise and food fundraising for Keraton:
    • Hoodie: 100% cotton hoodie designed by our design and documentation team.
    • Tote bag: Canvas tote bag designed by our design and documentation team.
    • ISAUW card: a student discount card which partners with over 25 restaurants around the Greater Seattle area.
    • Banana Pudding: Creating our signature dessert that is packaged in an environmentally friendly mason jar and sold to the student population around the Greater Seattle Area
  • Draft Keraton Sponsorship proposal
  • Draft rough budget plan to estimate the budget breakdowns for Keraton
• Information Technology:
  • Created a website to hold information about us, our events, our merch, and promote our sponsors

Winter 2022

• Event Organizers:
  • Continue reaching out to artists for Keraton
  • Finalize artists and performers for Keraton by the first week of February
• Creativity Management:
  • Draft designs for Keraton
• Treasury and Sponsorship:
  • Create a detailed budget plan of Keraton
  • Finished drafting Keraton sponsorship proposal
  • Look for sponsors from small and big businesses in Indonesia and the Greater Seattle area
• Fundraising:
  • Banana Pudding, Authentic Indonesian savory dish, ISAUW card
• Marketing Communication:
  • Create marketing campaigns for the event in social media and real life
• Design and Documentation:
  • Create T-shirt designs for Keraton
  • Create Instagram posts, poster designs, and video promotions for Keraton
• Information Technology:
  • Create a paying platform to be used in Keraton by our vendors

Spring 2022

• Executes Keraton on May 7th, 2022
• Event Organizers:
  • Finalize all logistics for Keraton by the end of April (equipment, set up, layout, artists, etc.)
• Creativity Management:
  • Complete Keraton décor by the end of April
• Treasury and Sponsorship:
  • Fundraising
  • Banana Pudding
  • Authentic Indonesian savory dish
  • Finalize list of sponsors for Keraton and communicate about their plans for Keraton
  • Create an actual budget breakdown of expenditure for Keraton
  • Handle all reimbursements in preparation for Keraton
  • Develop a payment system for Keraton
• Inventory:
  • Take count of inventory in office and other locations, gather items needed for Keraton
• Design and Documentation:
  • Finalize T-shirt designs for Keraton (Sponsors at the back of the shirt)
  • Create Instagram posts, TikTok videos, promotional videos and poster designs for Keraton
  • Print T-shirts for officers and volunteers
  • Print posters to be passed around campus
  • Document Keraton to be posted in all ISAUW’s social media and website
• Marketing Communication:
  • Market Keraton actively on all social media platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok, and on ISAUW’s website
  • Collaborate with other colleges in the Greater Seattle area to promote Keraton
  • Tabling to promote the festival at community colleges in the Greater Seattle Area (one week before Keraton)
  • Tabling to promote the festival at Red Square at the University of Washington (week of Keraton)
• Information Technology
  • Finalize the payment system and prepare a plan B

Primary Contact information

ISAUW President 2021-2022
Name: Amy Dharmawan
Contact number: +1 (206) 475-5141
Email: amyjd125@uw.edu

Secondary Contact information

ISAUW Director of Finance 2021-2022
Name: Natasha Valerie Sumarta
Contact number: +1 (541) 286-8727
Email: nvs8@uw.edu

Summary of Project Proposal:

The UW Farm’s efforts to engage the community and meet the demands of HFS, the Community Supported Agriculture Program, and the UW Food Pantry in particular are currently constrained by inadequate facilities and increasingly frequent and intense inclement weather. The Resiliency Tunnel team proposes a modified high-tunnel for the UW Farm to create conditions more stable than the natural environment as a means of providing more reliable, plentiful, and nutritious food to fill the pressing supply chain challenge. This system would include a solar installation and rainwater catchment system to limit inputs and provide cost-effective and renewable sources of energy and water. To enhance the community benefit of the system, the tunnel would be outfitted with furnishings to support UW faculty in offering opportunities to study a model agroecosystem to UW students and the general public alike. By conducting outreach within the UW community and beyond, our team is involving experts to inform our approach. We are looking for support from CSF in the form of $5,000 of funding to conduct a feasibility study as we continue to develop the project. This funding would permit our team to, if necessary, hire expertise such as a structural engineer in order to answer critical questions in the feasibility study. More thorough and informed estimates of the full cost of the project will be developed as well as a complete feasibility study to be provided at a future date.

Meeting CSF Requirements and Preferences:

Cultural Awareness & Preservation:

We consider this project a unique opportunity to strengthen the relationship between the UW Farm and local tribes by integrating feedback from meetings with Polly Olsen, the Tribal Liaison of the Burke Museum. Acknowledging that the site of our project is on unceded land of the Coast Salish and Duwamish people, our team intends to collaborate with members of indigenous communities on design and planning for produce. The UW Farm itself currently partners with many groups within the campus, such as the wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House as well as others from various cultures and communities to come together in a welcoming environment to share knowledge.

Engaging Underrepresented Communities:

The UW Farm struggles to meet community demand for produce, and the UW Food Pantry in particular receives exorbitant quantities of viable produce from the UW Farm during summer months when growing conditions in the natural environment are most conducive to successful and fruitful harvests, though its aim is to serve the food insecure members of the UW community primarily during the academic year. This results in a mismatch between the volume and timing of viable produce that the UW Farm produces and which the UW Food Pantry needs. Building the Resiliency Tunnel on the UW Farm would increase produce output by extending the growing season while simultaneously protecting crops from unpredictable and threatening weather.

Diverse and Interdisciplinary Collaboration:

The development of the Resiliency Tunnel brings together a wide range of disciplines. Our core team was formed by members of the RSO UW Solar, though we greatly expanded by conducting outreach through classes, professors, and LinkedIn to gather students from different areas of study, which has permitted us to engage 26 UW undergraduate and graduate students from the programs listed below:

• Architectural Design
• Electrical, Chemical, and Computer Engineering
• Environmental Science, Atmospheric Science, Chemistry, and Biology
• Construction Management
• Finance, Information Systems, and Business Administration
• Urban Planning
• Evan’s School Environmental Policy

These students are divided into smaller teams focused on design, outreach, funding, and finance. The design team collaborates on architectural design, energy generation, and hydrology, assisted by students from Construction Management specializing in feasibility. The outreach team has been in contact with far-reaching members of the UW community and beyond to gather sponsors and communicate with stakeholders, as well as to gather insight during the design phase. Once in service, the tunnel will provide opportunities for the UW Farm to increase overall campus awareness of an agroecosystem, and serve as a center for innovation, research, leadership, and access to organic fresh vegetables and a healthy lifestyle.

Environmental Footprint and Justice:

In 2020, over 1,800 pounds of produce at the UW Farm - roughly 15% of annual production - were spoiled by rainstorms and unexpected frost, conditions which are becoming increasingly frequent and intense due to climate change. During heavy rain events, for example, tomatoes absorb enough water overnight to swell and split open, deeming them no longer marketable. The short term solution is to quickly harvest produce and deliver it to the pantry in single-serve plastic bags, but this results in excessive use of plastic and produce that spoils quickly. Establishing a high tunnel will protect tomatoes and other crops from weather events, and control soil and crop moisture. This structure will prevent the use of over 1,000 plastic bags that go to waste after a single use each year on the farm.
This solution revolves around the structure of a high tunnel, which are USDA-approved methods for season extension, constructed on the farm, that protect crops and extend the production season by multiple months. Diverting the UW Farm’s spoiled produce from disposal in compost highlights one of the most ecologically-sustainable features of this project. Capturing produce with higher nutritional value in greater quantities, and ensuring it reaches food-insecure populations exercises a commitment to all individuals' right to fresh, healthy, and reliable food sources.

The inclusion of a solar installation and rainwater catchment system creates a net zero or even net negative impact from the structure, going beyond the efforts of carbon mitigation into true carbon reduction. This is a cost-effective solution that allows funds previously allocated to utilities to instead be utilized for improvement of the function and services offered by the farm, further promoting community well-being. The solar installation will provide power for electrical needs, and a surplus of energy that may be sold “back to the grid” in a practice known as net metering. The rainwater catchment system will mitigate the structure’s demand on natural resources for irrigation of crops, and provide resiliency during droughts when water savings are critical. Finally, the UW Farm produces locally-sourced produce for the Greater Seattle area, thus providing food with a higher nutritional value and a cleaner environmental footprint than traditional supermarket sources. Locally-sourced food reduces much of the supply chain emissions in food production as transportation, processing, packaging, and retail sourced emissions are reduced (Ritchie, 2019).

The execution and operation of this plan will notably contribute progress primarily towards action VI of the UW Sustainability Action Plan, involving a target that 35% of food is from local sources by 2025 (UW Sustainability). It additionally assists the campus in reaching actions VIII (15% lower energy usage intensity by 2025), IX (10% less solid waste by 2025), and X (45% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030). Produce from the farm is even desirable beyond that from local industrial farming as it does not involve unsustainable monoculture, and rather is NOP certified organic and salmon safe. Beyond that, the UW Farm received CSF funding in 2016 for a project titled the “Composting Toilet at the Center for Urban Horticulture”, which involves on-site vermicomposting and would provide soil amendments for the agriculture within the Resiliency Tunnel.

Leadership & Student Involvement:

The Project Manager for the project is undergraduate Emma Maggioncalda of Environmental Science & Resource Management and Urban Design & Planning. Emma is a fourth-year who originally partnered with Perry Acworth to identify several pressing needs of the UW community and associated proposed solutions as they pertain to the UW Farm. Student involvement greatly expanded this fall quarter as described above to constitute a highly interdisciplinary team, of which members are compensated with class credit. All team members attend Monday team meetings, share ideas, information, and responsibilities with team members, and participate in team meeting reports. We engage in ongoing efforts to involve even more students from different spheres on campus, with potential for paid positions through the UW Farm.

Directing UW Solar is Professor Jan Whittington of the College of Built Environments, who provides guidance and advice essential to using best practices in our project development process, outreach communications, grant applications, and team structure. Professor Jim Fridley of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences serves as an advisor to Project Manager Emma Maggioncalda, providing key insights into helpful resources, alternative approaches, and case studies. UW Botanical Gardens Liaison Wendy Gibble serves as the point of contact between the Resiliency Tunnel team and the Botanical Gardens, and facilitated the arrangement of an introductory presentation to the committee that resulted in ear-marking the site for the development of this project in particular. The site recently became available for use by the UW Farm after another party’s lease expired.

The UW Farm currently utilizes over 400 student volunteers every year that assist in all areas of farm labor, especially field work, planting, and harvesting, nearly year-round. Given the opportunity to increase the amount of usable crop produced at the UW Farm, this project may divert more student labor to harvesting and packing produce, and mitigate volunteer efforts spent on the disposal of unusable produce. The farm has an existing system with capacity for increased production within the current capabilities of the “wash pack” and dry storage areas. The farm also has an electric bike with cargo attachments for produce delivery, as well as a farm delivery truck for transporting larger produce deliveries. At this time, the storage and delivery systems are under-utilized. The farm has a permanent full-time manager and a seasonal full-time AmeriCorps member. Our partner Perry Acworth, the current UW Farm Manager, has a positive track record for receiving grants and completing grant reports that are well-documented, with support from an accountant and financial administrators. The farm also hires seasonal student farm staff every year and supervises up to twenty interns. One of the students will be assigned the waste reduction focus and will be in charge of tracking progress.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change:

The UW Farm as a whole engages the UW community through its demanding and rewarding culture of community. Students, community members from the surrounding neighborhoods, and visitors from outside the area all have the opportunity to volunteer at the UW Farm and engage in learning about sustainable agriculture, food systems and their role in the community when it comes to reducing produce waste.
This project would assist in strengthening connections between our growing spaces and academics on campus by supporting the over two-dozen courses and volunteer programs that already utilize the farm as an outdoor learning space, as well as educational opportunities including supporting the Nutrition Science Program, Environmental Studies Capstone Internships, Public Health Internships, and Biology Internships. The UW Farm hosts and instructs over 300 service learners per academic year, and is connected to many UW courses linked to farm-based work.

However, there are currently no truly accessible or sheltered large meeting spaces on the UW Farm where students or other community groups can gather and learn together, which highlights the need for a project of this nature and has led us to take ADA specifications into consideration during our design process. The Resiliency Tunnel would be outfitted with furnishings to support UW faculty and students in running labs and experiments while gathering to generally study innovative sustainable agricultural practices, and these courses would be open to students and the general public alike. We are reaching out and teaching a wide group of people growing and consuming a healthy diet.

Feasibility & Accountability:

While we remain in the planning stage of the project for the time being, by having frequent and ongoing conversations with advisors and other UW Faculty, we are utilizing an informed and adaptive approach to designing, funding, and implementing the tunnel. Our team is engaging necessary stakeholders by contacting UW Facilities, the Design Review Board, and other relevant departments to investigate site conditions, tribal relations, innovative system design, and groups involved in alterations to the physical composition of campus. The UW Botanical Gardens has offered the necessary approvals for this project to move forward as planned. Our overview of the diverse and interdisciplinary collaboration involved in this project is outlined above, with references to the range of expertise we have drawn.

The proposed site was selected partly due to its close proximity to a utility pole which we would pull from and contribute energy back to, water sources which would supplement additional irrigation needs, and a paved road that ensures it is accessible year round, even when much of the farm is waterlogged in winter months. Our pre-feasibility study informed us that we would need two 500 gallon cisterns, totaling to 1000 gallons. The main energy needs of the Resiliency Tunnel are germination lighting for the crops and a basic irrigation system. To fully meet those needs, we plan on installing around 20 solar panels. These would be roof mounted and installed on the archway at the entrance of the Resiliency Tunnel. At roughly 300W each, this would provide us around 6kW of power, with excess power being fed back into the grid through the utility pole next to the site. We estimate an installation cost of around $15,000. On Helioscope we created a design for the Resiliency Tunnel to account for shading and other obstacles that could be generated on site. A power production graph was created using that information. This information is provided in an attachment over email titled “Resiliency Tunnel Pre-feasibility Study”. During the formal design and construction phases of this project we will utilize early funding to access services of a formal feasibility study, project management, and detailed design work.

Key stakeholders

UW Solar - Working with a diverse group of students from across majors and grade levels to design and organize the Tunnel Project. Students joined the Registered Student Organization for the first time to work on this project, bringing different perspectives and ideas to the planning of the project. Students are compensated with academic credit and develop strong research, communication, and collaboration skills.

UW Food Pantry - Communicating with Sean Ferris to design the Resiliency Tunnel to best serve underserved students on campus with a sustainable and reliable produce source. Will be collaborating with the Pantry to determine plant selection and transportation of produce.

UW Farm - Receiving information and guidance regarding the existing site and nearby resources. Working closely with the UW Farm Manager to learn how to design efficient agricultural systems and on recommended components to use to achieve project goals.

UW Botanical Garden (UWBG) - Ongoing communication was established early on with our project liaison Wendy Gibble. Presented to the UWBG, receiving positive feedback and gaining approval for site use. The planned site has been ear-marked for this particular development.

UW Irrigation - Communicated with James Boeckstiegel to discuss existing irrigation systems and water pipes on site. Future communication is anticipated to receive feedback on our design and information on the process for contracting out components.

UW Sustainability - Notified of project as it pertains to a physical change to UW campus and an improvement to sustainability. Will engage further in the process as needed.

Planned Outreach

Eli Wheat, UW Farm Advisory Council -  We are currently in the process of scheduling a meeting to discuss how the tunnel and the future plans for the farm can be synced to mutually benefit each other.

David Zuckerman, Manager of the Center for Urban Horticulture (CUH) - Will engage after our initial meeting with the UW Farm Advisory Council once we are more informed on necessary proceedings.

Jeremy Parks, UW Electrical Utilities & Power Systems Manager -  Plan to hold a meeting to discuss our electrical design and advice for the implementation of our project, particularly with the integration of our electrical systems with each other. This also includes receiving information on the process for contracting out components.

Steve Tatge, Executive Director in UW Facilities Project Delivery - Will contact to discuss and review our cost-estimate and financial organization of the project, as well as to connect with other individuals that will be valuable in moving forward in our project design and construction phases.

UW Design Review Board - Presenting to the Design Review Board in late winter to review and receive feedback on the interior and exterior design of our tunnel and site for final revisions to the project.

Core Project Team

This information is provided in an attachment over email titled “Resiliency Tunnel Team Contact Information”, with team leads denoted with an asterisk.

Itemized Estimate of the Project’s Budget

This project is considered large (> $1,000), and for this cycle we are requesting $5,000 for a feasibility study as we continue to develop the project. This funding would permit our team to, if necessary, hire expertise such as a structural engineer in order to answer critical questions in the feasibility study. More thorough and informed estimates of the full cost of the project, including line budget items dedicated to project management and detailed design development, will be developed in this feasibility study and provided at a future date. We have, however, attached our best estimate of projected costs for your consideration in an attachment over email titled “Resiliency Tunnel Cost Estimation”.

Timeline for Project Completion

PHASE 1: Planning and Funding / Finance

• September - October 2021: Investigate proposed location and conduct site analysis
• Identify:
• Services we need aim to provide
• Stakeholders and possible sponsors
• Brainstorm system components to deliver services
• Conduct pre-feasibility study
• October - December 2021: Identify potential funding sources
• Request funding for a feasibility study during Cycle 2 of CSF funding (by December 1st, 2021)
• November - December 2021: Massing and defining purpose
• Use constraints (site, funding, etc.) for massing
• Name system components matched with purposes
• Identify how we are doing something different to solve a particular problem
• Consider how construction can be staged

PHASE 2: Design

• December 2021 - January 2022: Conceptual Design and Systems Diagram
• Use site information and general massing of structure to evaluate the variety of alternative system components in combination
• Utilize faculty to discuss ways to deliver different services
• Brainstorm possible arrangements of technology to satisfy purposes at appropriate scale
• Generate 2 or 3 scenarios of how system components can fit together to develop the first design
• Utilize faculty again to evaluate these proposed systems
• January 2022: Feasibility Study
• Describe a rough order of magnitude
• Further develop cost estimate accordingly
• Input into full proposal to CSF
• Spring 2022: Design Review
• Meet with the Design Review Board at UW
• Spring - Summer 2022: Schematic and Detailed Design
• Speak with UW Facilities and other UW administrative bodies for:
• Comments on the application for full project cost funding
• Investigating prospects for funding operations and maintenance
• Making “Make or Buy” decisions (in-house or contracted services)
• Defining UW Facilities role in contracting out
• Creating a scoring system for evaluating proposals
• Accepting bids and choosing award by ranking bidders
• TBD: Apply for funding for full project costs
• Expand and update proposal from January 2021 to submit during Cycle 3 of CSF funding

PHASE 3: Construction - GOAL: Late Summer 2022 (at the earliest)

• Receive an assigned UW faculty Project Manager
• In-house or contracted services serve to implement construction of system
• UW students shadow UW faculty and contracted bodies as further learning opportunity

PHASE 4: Operations and Maintenance (TBD)

• Utilize data collection services to evaluate functionality and impacts of system
• Third-party hired to check functionality of deliverable

References

• Ritchie, Hannah. 2019. “Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.” Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions.
• “UW Sustainability Action Plan”. UW Sustainability. University of Washington. https://green.uw.edu/sustainability-plan.

Dear Campus Sustainability Fund Committee Members,

During the past year, the historic Brockman Memorial Tree Tour, a campus tour of significant trees meant to promote interaction with the Universities green spaces and increase appreciation of said resources, has been undergoing a redesign process. The University of Washington has over 480 different species on the grounds, a valuable and generally unknown resource for our student body. The current renovation of the tour has already increased accessibility of the tour with a new updated website, reviewed the original trees to determine whether any specimens are missing, and submitted intent to lead guided tours during this year’s Dawg Daze Event as a means of increasing awareness about the tour. All this has been done with the intent of allowing greater access and education value of the campus grounds for students, professors and faculty, and the general public.

Our purpose for applying for a CSF Mini-Grant is to obtain the funds necessary to purchase high quality Arboretum Labels for each of the 80 trees on the tour, as well as a small amount of funds to create new signage at the starting point of the tour, the Anderson Hall Bus Shelter. Previous students working on the tour have included laminated tree labels, however these are difficult to read and the vast majority break down within a few years, making them unreadable and creating a source of litter. Our intention is to utilize high quality professional aluminum labels which attach via a wire or small nails to each tree. The labels will include the name of the tree, “Brockman Memorial Tree Tour”, and a QR code linking to the new tour website (which contains in depth information about each species on the tour).

In terms of project Criteria, we believe this project will meet the goals of CSF in the following ways:

Sustainable Impact:

The project leaders believe that this tour serves as a means of more intimately acquainting members of the University of Washington community with the natural world. Evidence suggests that opportunities to interact with and appreciate natural creations lead to a more sustainable mindset throughout life. It is our belief that these trees can provide students and others visiting the campus with meaningful outdoor experiences that will help them empathize more with efforts geared at protecting and restoring green spaces and human nature interactions. The new Brockman Tree Tour is also geared more towards cultural awareness than previous versions and includes local uses for each of the trees with a particular emphasis on indigenous usage for those trees native to the Pacific Northwest. The purchase of Arboretum tags would increase awareness of the tour, amplifying the afore mentioned effects, increasing awareness of native species and cultures, and providing greater access to more of the tour’s resources.

Leadership and Student Involvement:

The Brockman Memorial Tree Tour is overseen by the School of Environmental and Forestry Sciences SEFS. UW Grounds manages the landscape on which the tour is based. The work completed on this project has had the oversight of Dan Brown and Molly Hottle of SEFS, who have acted in an advising capacity. All of the work itself (the new design and construction of the updated tour) has been undertaken by Thuy Luu and Theodore Hoss, both students in the College of the Environment. Thuy Luu is a recent graduate but helped formulate the plan for labeling with tags while still enrolled and was instrumental in all the other completed components of the tour as well. Theodore Hoss is continuing the project on his own with the intention of concluding work by the end of December 2021.

Education, Outreach, and Behavior Change:

The newly revised Brockman Memorial Tour was created using input from a survey conducted prior to renovation work. This outreach provided the designers with an idea of what changes the student body would benefit most from. Additionally, the new tour was also designed with inputs from professors on how it may better serve as an educational resource for them in their classes. Thus, the new tour has added information which may allow it to be used as a physical resource for actual classes on campus. The tour website includes a survey and contact information whereby visitors to the tour may leave feedback and suggestions. As well as the outreach incorporated into this feedback survey and the original sent out prior to renovation, the tour designers’ intent to increase awareness of the tour via outreach at this year’s DAWG DAZE event with an in person guided tour event as well as through signage and possible display in the UW libraries. In addition to the education aspect achieved by designing the tour to appeal to professors as a class resource, the newly designed tour provides far more identification feature information and in-depth historical information for most of the trees on the tour. The proposed inclusion of tags on each tree would make each readily identifiable and allow a passerby to become aware of the tour when they might otherwise not notice it.

Feasibility and Accountability:

The majority of the renovation on this project has already been completed and the purchase and affixing of Arboretum tags is one of the few major tasks remaining to undertake. Contact with the most reasonably priced tag company has already been established, as has the discussion with a department budget advisor. The purchasing of tags will follow approval of this mini-grant and the tags will be affixed by Theodore Hoss with oversight by UW Grounds, as task which is estimated to take 2 to 4 hours which will be extremely feasible. Theodore Hoss will continue to work with all parties involved to ensure the work continues smoothly. The tags are designed to last long term; however, a plan is currently being compiled as part of this project to establish who within SEFS will have continued oversight on the project once Theodore Hoss is graduated. Once we hear back on whether we have been approved on this application we expect about a 3-week period after ordering the tags for them to be delivered. After this point affixing the tags can be completed in one day. The price of tags is expected to be about $845, with the required wire and nails for affixing them an additional $30. We also intend to create new signage at the tour initiation site which we expect to cost about $50.

Primary contact for this project is Theodore Hoss, who can be reached at tdhoss@uw.edu or at (661) 494-9585. Secondary contact is Molly Hottle, who may be reached at mehottle@uw.edu.

We hope you will consider funding this project and increasing our community’s ability to engage with the green spaces on campus, we appreciate your time on considering this proposal and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Theodore Hoss
Environmental Science and Terrestrial Resource Management and Biology
University of Washington

This project is led by Adithi Raghavan and Annalisa Mueller-Eberstein, freshmen at UW who have been tackling the pollinator crisis for the past 3 years. In January 2021, they joined the incubator program Dubhacks Next, part of the UW RSO Dubhacks with this project. Together, Adithi and Annalisa are part of an organization called BEEducated (www.thebeeducated.org) which Adithi founded her sophomore year of high school to raise awareness about the pollinator crisis. Adithi’s journey began in 2018 when she worked with Washington Native Plant Stewards to plant a sustainable pollinator garden at Ebright Park. Inspired to teach other students about the amazing effects of bees, Adithi then created an informative mobile application in partnership with MIT App Inventor developers. From there, both Annalisa and Adithi created a launch kit with a list of steps and resources that would help other schools plant pollinator gardens at their own schools.

Now a freshman at UW, and also a Presidential Scholar who was recognized for her work with BEEducated, Adithi is looking to pursue the research route by working with a team of UW students to mitigate the effects of a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The proposed idea is to create a low-cost BEEducated Hive Sensor for beekeepers which will increase bee health by using Computer Vision to monitor the hive condition, detect hive stressors, and alert beekeepers to intervene before colony collapse. As part of this project, they will also be developing a low-cost SMART bee hive and distributing free pollinator garden kits to underserved communities in the greater Seattle area, especially in communities prone to food deserts, to help members of these communities better engage with beekeeping and community gardening practices. By doing so, they hope to increase access to homegrown, fresh produce that the entire community can benefit from. At the core of their initiative, they hope to empower youth to work with their communities to help bees thrive once again, for every single individual on Earth is a stakeholder in the pollinator crisis. Bees are the backbone of the agricultural system. Without bees, no one would have access to a third of the food supply. Honey, apples, peppers, almonds, and so many more products would disappear.

In fact, pollinators contribute over $24 billion to the U.S. economy by pollinating 71 of the top 100 crops. However, bees have been facing declining numbers since the mid-1900s. In fact, the leading causes of death include insecticides (especially Neonicotinoids), parasites/pathogens (incl. “Varroa Mite” and “Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus”), industrial agriculture, climate change, and human mistreatment. Combined, these factors incur a phenomenon known as “Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD),” characterized by the mass departure of worker bees from a colony. At BEEducated, we’re building a hive sensor to monitor the conditions of beekeeper’s hives, analyzing photos of bee behavior to identify possible mite infestation, abnormal behavior due to insecticides, and monitor hive temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors that are possibly influencing the bees’ health (symptoms of climate change and other weather concerns). We are in the process of building a research team and engineering team while establishing partnerships with nonprofits and beekeeping organizations who will help us gather data.

Currently, we have 13 engineers, the majority of whom are UW students, working on the research and design phase of our project. Our core team includes our founder, Adithi Raghavan, Audrey Anderson (Research Lead), Tanner Poling and Andrey Risukhin (Computer Engineering Leads), Terry Jung (Electrical Engineering Lead), Mojin Yu (UX Engineering Lead), and Annalisa Mueller-Eberstein (Project Manager). With the exception of Audrey, the team leads are all based at the University of Washington.

Our timeline is the following: 

• Now - End of April (Finalize Recruitment)
• Now - End of June (Research & Design Phase)
• June - August (Build Phase/Secure Additional Investments as Necessary)
• August - January (2022) (User Testing/Refining the Product)
• January - March (2022) (Deployment)

During the Recruitment and Research and Design Phase, we will be conducting outreach efforts by presenting virtually (and eventually in-person) to students in the Seattle School District and Lake Washington School District about establishing pollinator gardens in their own backyard or community spaces. Pollinator gardens not only provide pollinators with a safe space, but also encourage pollinators to pollinate nearby flowers in gardens. In addition to these presentations, we will also coordinate efforts with these schools to distribute free pollinator garden kits to students such that they can physically engage and learn about the gardening process. 

Our basic budget is below:

1. $2000: Outreach and pollinator garden kit materials (incl. seeds, tools, growth medium) 
2. $560: Technology + Licenses (incl. Google Suite Basic Plan ($360 per month); Wix ($200 per year))
3. $1000: Honorarium for research development for Audrey Anderson
4. $500: User Research compensation ($25 per participant)
5. $200: Microcontrollers for the electrical engineering team
6. $500: Additional necessary hardware components (incl. miscellaneous items for design and build)
7. $2500: Raspberry 3 Pi Computers in beehives which will use the Google Artificial Intelligence Yourself (AIY) kit. Each kit costs about $100, implicating 25 possible beehive usage
8. Total: $7260

Overview

This strategic, short-term position - the UW Farm Interim Education Coordinator - is available for a Graduate Student to learn, build capacity for, and advance the community-building, academic support, and food sustainability capacity of the UW Farm on the University of Washington campus.

The purpose of applying for CSF Funding is to expand the capacity for the UW Farm to support existing educational programs and to research potential partners to aid in the expansion of the UW Farm offerings, both academic and production. The UW Farm is creating this interim position for three years to support the continued development of UW Farm programs and reach more populations that are not included currently.

This 3-year proposal is designed to help the UW Farm develop the strategic capacity to permanently fund an Education Coordinator. This position is essential to the sustainable functioning of the UW Farm as to further support multidisciplinary academic, production, and community outreach programs which center inclusion and equity.

UW Farm Background

The UW Farm works to create and sustain farming activities on the UW-Seattle campus by prioritizing the following goals:

• Providing students with practical urban farming experience, from planning to production to the table.
• Creating a model of sustainable and resilient urban food production at the UW.
• Providing reliable, predictable, certified organic, and quality food-safety certified produce for sales, including but not limited to the UW Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and UW Housing & Food Services (HFS).
• Providing produce free of charge for other uses such as the Humblefeast, UW Food Pantry, student gleaning teams, UW Farm events, and fundraisers.
• Facilitating the growing of traditional foods and preserving of farming practices in cooperation with wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ, the UW Intellectual House under the Office of Minority Affairs, including the Native Garden Plot at the Center for Urban Horticulture.
• Linking the practice of urban farming directly to interdisciplinary academic programs in the study of food, including but not limited to coursework, independent research, capstone and culminating experiences, and other experiential-learning opportunities.
• Being a positive neighbor to the immediate community by engaging with visitors and offering volunteer programs to both UW and non-UW individuals.

Sustainable Impact

Currently the UW Farm prioritizes building an inclusive program - all students regardless of discipline are welcome at the student farm to learn and volunteer. As a consequence, students from all over campus participate in the farm! With the growth of academic programs which highlight food production, equity, sustainability, and population health across our campus, there has been a surge in student activity at the UW Farm. In addition to classes utilizing the farm directly, students are approaching the farm for independent study opportunities, and outreach activities through RSO’s like UW Farm, Dirty Dozen, ASUW Food COOP, Green Greeks, and Eco-Reps. Through these formal and nonformal pathways, the Farm provides a living laboratory for the campus community to learn, experiment with, and advance transdisciplinary sustainability.

In an average year, the farm hosts over 2000 individuals. These are students primarily, but also faculty, and even alumni and neighbors who share community pizza bakes utilizing farm fresh produce, attend workshops with no fees, and learn how to grow food sustainably through hands-on education at the farm.     

With the continued growth of UW Farm programming, members of the farm staff and the Farm Advisory Committee - composed of faculty, staff, and students - have identified the need to hire another staff member. This person will help integrate and coordinate educational activities across the farm, allowing students, staff, and faculty to get the most out of our campus farm and the learning opportunities it offers.  In this, the proposed position will support the environmental sustainability of the farm as a system. At this moment, the UW Farm and its single permanent staff member are overtaxed trying to meet production goals, partnership commitments, community outreach events, integration with existing UW course partnerships, and the steep increase in student interest and involvement. This position will allow farm staff the time they need to continue to develop and strengthen the regenerative farm practices that help make the UW Farm a shining example of sustainability on our campus.        

Funding an Interim Education Coordinator at the UW Farm would bolster social sustainability by improving environmental learning, coalition building, and communication capacity across the university. The position would focus on inviting units across the university who might not be aware of the UW Farm and for whom the farm could provide services. Units that could be engaged would be: College of Built Environments, Arts and Sciences, Office of Minority Affairs, and others.

We envision that this position will help build a strong base of support across the university for the creation of deeper educational and curricular integration at the farm. In the pursuit of this, we will use this position to engage with multiple academic units and RSO’s to create a strong, interdisciplinary collaboration with new partners. These new partners will help us build a coalition of supporters deepening both our resources and our potential to develop new partnerships.

The UW Farm was certified organic and Salmon-Safe certified in 2020 and also practices regenerative agriculture practices.  With the additional support of this graduate student position, these urban farming practices and food production methods will reach more students and engage more faculty in the possibilities of using the UW Farm as a practical demonstration of environmental sustainability. As a consequence, we envision that our work in food waste recycling, biodiversity enhancement, organic food production, environmental justice, and equity will be increased in visibility and impact.

Leadership & Student Involvement

One graduate student will be hired part-time 10-20 hours per week. This student will report to the UW Farm Manager.  This student will write the CSF quarterly reports for the UW Farm CSF grant and help mentor student interns, student staff, and RSO’s. The Education Coordinator may also lead field trips, be a guest speaker for courses and other entities, and work with faculty to coordinate labs on the farm. It is essential that the student understand the educational programming of the UW Farm. However, the primary job of the student in this role will be to help strategize and support the creation of a coalition of departments willing to help create a longer term position to integrate academics more strongly into the UW Farm program.      

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

In our vision, this position will help support educational efforts at the UW Farm with the goal of creating a deeper and more comprehensive plan for education and meaningful student involvement in this unique campus resource. As we see it, this position will allow the farm some additional spaciousness from which to approach its educational mission. The position will allow the farm to move from a reactive space - responding to need - to a proactive relationship with students, faculty and community members. In this proactive space, the farm will be well-positioned to sustainably extend learning opportunities with deeper mentoring for students and tighter long-term relationships with faculty and departments across campus.

Feasibility & Accountability

A key deliverable will be that each quarter the Interim Education Coordinator will write a written report to the Farm Advisory Committee, Deans, and Directors. This report will outline the progress made in the pursuit of a coalition to aid the addition of a permanent position at the UW Farm to support academic, community-building, and campus food sustainability programs. Additionally, the Education Coordinator will research and report on funding sources to sustain this new, permanent position at the UW Farm.

Position Details

This is a multi-year proposal:

• Year 1: June 2021 - December 2021
• Year 2: January 2022 - December 2022
• Year 3: January 2023 - December 2023

Hours: 10-20 hours/week on average

Position Start Date: 6/1/2021         

Compensation: Master’s Student Research Assistant (RA) pay scale

Budget

A Master’s RA would make $2,436 per month at 50% FTE and have a benefit rate currently at 22.4%. The total cost would be $8,945 for salary and benefits for the quarter at their full 50%. The current on-campus tuition rate is $5,398/quarter.  

Total Amount:

• Year 1: 2 quarters ($8945 + $5398) x 2 = $28,686.00
• Year 2: 4 quarters = $57,372
• Year 3: 4 quarters = $57,372

Total request for the three year grant:

$143,430 over three years

Spearheaded and designed by the Green Futures Lab with funding from the CSF, the UW Biodiversity Green Wall was completed in the fall of 2012, transforming two blank concrete walls into lush urban habitat. Located in the southeast corner of Gould Hall on 15th Avenue and NE 40th Street, the award-winning project has been widely publicized and has the potential to provide numerous benefits such as reducing building energy needs, mitigating heat island effects, conserving potable water, reducing stormwater pollution, and increasing urban biodiversity.

Early 2019, the required irrigation system for the Biodiversity Green Wall malfunctioned and has not been able to be repaired. Consequently, there has been 100% mortality of the plantings on the wall, despite considerable effort to keep them alive over the summer by hand watering. Most recently, Covid-19 has barred progress and efforts to get the Green Wall up and running again.  

There is renewed interest in getting the irrigation system functioning again, and the Green Wall planted before Autumn term. We have requested repairs on the potable back-up system and the irrigation controller and anticipate repairs in Spring 2021. We are actively following up with PAE Consulting Engineers, UW Facilities, and UW Grounds and hope that CSF will be able to meet with us again to identify needed actions for irrigation system repair, after which we hope to be able to replant the wall. The Biodiversity Green Wall has proven to be an invaluable resource and asset to the College of Built Environments, the University of Washington, and the surrounding community but right now the Green Wall is not able to serve any of its prior sustainable and educational services. It is our sincere hope that we will be able to repair the irrigation system this spring, and with funding from the CSF, we will be able to replant the wall before students return to in-person instruction in the fall.

We are therefore requesting funding for plant purchase and labor to successfully replant the wall. With this restoration, the Biodiversity Green Wall will continue to meet the CSF’s project criteria in the following ways:

Sustainable Impact

1. Increased building performance, long term energy and cost savings with reduction in heating/cooling energy demands.
2. The Green Wall, populated with native vegetation, will provide native habitat for plants, insects and birds.
3. Water harvesting for irrigation use will reduce potable water consumption and remove water from the waste stream by reusing it through irrigation. The process will also cleanse pollutants through phytoremediation by plant material, thereby addressing water quality and quantity issues.
4. Sustainability promoting aesthetics - when people or campus departments are excited about green technologies they are more likely to adopt sustainable practices themselves.
5. The Green Wall will also contribute to noise pollution absorption, air quality and carbon sequestration, and urban heat island reduction.  
6. The Green Wall addresses several aspects of sustainability outlined in the UW Climate Action Plan including water recycling, sustainable land use planning, sustainable and local food production, energy and carbon footprint reduction and UW green marketing and branding efforts.
7. The Green Wall will continue to address the criteria of the CPO SustainAbilities Scorecard.
8. Because the Green Futures Lab overlooks the Green Wall, the project is a direct connection to this valuable campus resource.

Leadership and Student Involvement

1. Current graduate student and GFL Student Manager Emma Petersen will be leading the effort to replant the Green Wall over Spring and Summer 2021. This offers her a chance to develop skills in project management, construction, campus coordination, maintenance, research, and leadership of their peers, UW staff and a contractor.
2. Students will be able to take part in installing Green Wall plants this spring and summer following all UW Covid-19 protocols.

Education, Outreach, and Behavior Change

1. The College of Built Environments houses over 700 students and 185 faculty/staff in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning, Construction Management, and Real-estate - all disciplines that directly benefit from the educational and research components of the Green Wall. Because of its ecological and stormwater benefits, the Green Wall also has the potential to appeal to the Engineering Departments as well as the College of the Environment.
2. With its proximity to main campus and Schmitz Hall, the Green Wall has the potential to be a stopping point along guided Campus Tours, reaching out to prospective students as well as demonstrating UW’s commitment to sustainability.
3. Students will have the opportunity to research and monitor the Biodiversity Green Wall and present their findings in various courses as well as co-publish and present this research at conferences and in academic publications.
4. Because of its online documentation, the Biodiversity Green Wall has the potential to be a role model for other Design Colleges and Universities across the country as a showcase of sustainability and a display of integrated inter-disciplinary student work. https://greenfutures.be.uw.edu/2019/07/25/biodiversity-green-wall-system/
5. The Green Wall aligns with the goals of the College of Built Environment to integrate sustainability for a “tangible improvement of built and natural environments.”

Feasibility and Accountability

1. With the support of the Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, the GFL is again reaching out to coordinate meetings between all parties involved with the Green Wall, to ensure that the irrigation system is repaired before planting. The wall’s irrigation system has functioned adequately in the past so we are confident that it can be repaired.
2. The student lead on the project is graduating from the Masters of Landscape Architecture program this Spring and has project management experience from other GFL projects. The GFL Director is a licensed Landscape Architect and will continue to provide leadership and advising for the student team.
3. With anticipated return to in-person instruction in Autumn 2021, GFL staff and Director will be able to regularly monitor both on-line documentation of wall watering as well as live inspection of soil moisture and plant health.

The GFL has an extensive project portfolio with successful projects and is committed to the long-term success of the Biodiversity Green Wall.

Budget:

• Soil and Plant Replacement:  $6,000
• GFL Design, Organization, Communication, and Oversight: $1,500

Tentative Timeline:

• Design, Ordering - Late Spring and Early Summer 2021
• Planting - Summer 2021
• Monitoring - Autumn 2021

Summary

Amid the ongoing protests that followed the death of George Floyd, the student-led Diversity and Inclusion Group (DIG) in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences organized a department-wide conversation on race. Participating graduate students, faculty, postdoctoral researchers and department staff discussed problems and solutions within small groups and a consensus emerged that, as a precursor to becoming more anti-racist, we must educate ourselves about the history and the present day manifestation of racism within our field. Following this meeting, a smaller group of department members participated in a student-led reading group about race in academia. Motivated by the fruitful discussions in this reading group and a desire to engage a larger portion of the department in this conversation, we created a special topics class for Autumn quarter For the first time in its history, our department will offer students academic credit for learning about issues of racism and equity as they relate to our field. DIG recognizes that as atmospheric scientists we can practice anti-racism in two primary ways. First, we can work to make a more inclusive environment within our own field. Second, we can take into account the systemic inequities that exist when developing our studies and when we inform policy decisions. The latter mission is consistent with goal 10 of the UN sustainable development goals, which states that, “To reduce inequalities, policies should be universal in principle, paying attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations.” We have identified five main topic areas for our course: 1) Indigenous rights 2) Environmental justice in cities 3) The history of scientific racism 4) Climate Justice and the global south 5) Whiteness, science, and academia Our course will focus on guest speakers and will be made broadly accessible to the entire Department of Atmospheric Sciences. We are currently recruiting at least one guest speaker to speak to each of our five focus areas. Some of these topics are best addressed by non-academic speakers, such as climate justice activists or employees at non-profit organizations. Giving an honorarium to speakers not only shows our appreciation for their work but also compensates them for their time. Moreover, it allows us to recruit more diverse speakers who may not have community outreach and service built into their salaries as many academics do. With the support of our department chair, we have leveraged virtual learning to our advantage to ensure that all interested department members will be able to participate in this course. In a typical quarter, the Atmospheric Sciences department has two seminars each week, which are consistently attended by much of the department. The chair has allowed us to use the time slot of one of these science seminars for our course. Additionally, a virtual platform allows us to recruit a more diverse set of speakers as the burden of traveling to the department to deliver a talk in person is removed.

Background

The immediate impact of this project will be realized within the Atmospheric Sciences department. Initial evaluations of success will be based on the number of attendees and the level of engagement from department members. Another short-term goal will be to foster broader faculty and community participation in DIG. DIG is student-led and has primarily been a graduate student group, but is open to all department members. Our short-term goal is that this course increases the number of people regularly attending DIG meetings, and doubles the number of faculty and administrative staff attendees (2-3 additional attendees). A medium-term measure of impact is an increased focus on anti-racism in the Atmospheric Sciences curriculum in future quarters. This is the first time that the Atmospheric Sciences department will offer a formal course on race and equity. The materials that we develop for this course can be used again for future courses on this topic and components of the course can also be interwoven into the required science curriculum. Thus, our medium-term goal is to create an accessible archive of our materials (including slides, readings and recorded lectures) at the conclusion of the course. Our long-term goal is that this course and the discussions and actions that follow it lead to higher representation of underrepresented groups within the student body and the faculty of the Atmospheric Sciences department. However, due to small sample sizes and slow turnover, we will only be able to evaluate changes in racial diversity on the timescale of multiple years. If this project is funded, we will use departmental funds to invite a keynote speaker in addition to our other five speakers, such as Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, that will likely solicit broad interest throughout the College and university. We plan to open and advertise the keynote speaker to a broader audience so that members of our College and the university at large can participate. Additionally, this course will provide a template that other departments can follow if they wish to design a similar course in future quarters. Our best quantitative tools for measuring the impact that this course has had on the culture of the Atmospheric Sciences department, the College of the Environment, and the University of Washington, are the University Climate Survey and the College of the Environment’s Culture Survey. Finally, we have invited academics and activists from the Seattle area who have not engaged with our department before to be guest speakers for our course. We hope that our discussions with these speakers initiate more longstanding communication and collaboration between our department and other academic departments as well as activists in the Seattle area who focus on climate justice, urban environmentalism and anti-racism.

Budget

1. $200; Honorarium; Guest speaker on the topic of indigenous rights
2. $200; Honorarium; Guest speaker on the topic of environmental justice in cities
3. $200; Honorarium; Guest speaker on the topic of the history of scientific racism
4. $200; Honorarium; Guest speaker on the topic of climate justice and the global south
5. $200; Honorarium; Guest speaker on the topic of whiteness, science, and academia

January 20, 2021

ReThink is committed to organizing professional interdisciplinary opportunities to students to demonstrate the impact and intersection of business with sustainability. Through ReThink, we have put together several successful past projects including our 2019-2020 beginner-friendly Global Sustainability Case Competition (GSCC) in collaboration with Net Impact and Global Case Competition Club. We hope that this collaboration shows students that our respective clubs can come together under the common goal of increasing sustainability education while exposing students to case competitions. Our club has hosted this event several times in the past; after a brief break, it was brought back under new leadership last year in 2020 in which we addressed the carbon impact of fashion through the case of Patagonia. We are pleased to have reached our goal of 12 qualified teams (46 students) who, over the course of 72 hours, dove into these impacts and ramifications culminating in an intense 8 hour competition day. This year, through a virtual setting, we hope to bring this same energy to the topic of sustainable meats/alternative proteins through a case study on Beyond Meat. This case is a unique opportunity to tackle food sustainability, marketing, and positioning by answering the question: How does Beyond Meat grow its market share within the protein market? Students will use the following questions to guide their responses: Define where beyond meat fits into the competitive landscape as of now, How can they tap into the animal protein market?, How does Beyond Meat position itself in the future? (Ecological vs Health vs Other?). We chose this case in effort to allow students from different backgrounds to personally immerse themselves in the field of sustainable investment and understand the issue from a financial, environmental, and consumer lens. Alternative proteins are a major point in the fight for sustainable food sources and are an easy way for new students to get involved with understanding the environmental impacts of daily choices as well as preparing them for a potential future in green careers. This case was also chosen as a jumping point for continued conversations surrounding the accessibility of sustainable food such as food deserts and corporate responsibility which we will continue addressing in ReThink.  

We expect to match the number of participants, from last year around 12 teams of 3-4 students, though we are flexible to support between 9-15 teams. Additionally, we intend on minimizing the barrier to entry as much as possible by allowing for  individuals as well as first-come-first-serve sign ups, and placing no restrictions on major/experience. We anticipate opening applications on February 1st and closing them by February 17th. During kick-off, on February 23rd, participants will hear a unique presentation given by a faculty member at the University of Washington surrounding these topics of sustainable investment and sustainable food access. Our long-term goal, as is with all of our events, is to generate membership retention in order to begin a progression of the ReThink sustainability curriculum. Through one-time involvements in events such as this, we hope to reach new audiences and engage them in our future opportunities such as our consulting engagements, tech projects, or simply our bi-weekly round table program. Our teams will be responsible for schedule coordination for the day of the event, keeping time in the rooms and ensuring professionalism is maintained.

Our current leadership team has successfully hosted a version of this case competition in the past and we are confident we will be able to replicate that success this year regardless of the unique challenges presented by the virtual adjustment. This past summer, we offered a virtual economic engagement opportunity in collaboration with Ebey’s Reserve on Whidbey Island and are currently managing the Sustainability Upheld in Business (SUB) Initiative further showing our competencies in virtual project management. Under the expertise of Professor Ruth Huwe of Foster School of Business, we will ensure transparency and accountability for all monies involved in this production including that of CSF.

We are seeking corporate sponsors in the food industry to provide their expertise and professionalism to our case competition allowing them valuable access to new industry trends. We seek to use CSF monies to purchase the cases from Harvard Business School in order to offer this event

Line by Line Budget

1. $550; Copies of the Beyond Meat Case from Harvard Business School for Students and Judges; 55 copies at $10
2. $60; Social media ads on Facebook and Instagram; $10 per campaign * 6 campaigns  

Requesting $610

Additional Funds Anticipated

We are seeking $400 in corporate funding to support the $100/team member prize money incentive. Should this goal not be met, we are prepared to fund it via our own budgets at present to offer $50 gift cards to specific sustainable local businesses - these businesses have not been identified at time of writing. We are also seeking funding from the Global Business Center.

Finalized Timeline

• February 1 - Applications Open
• February 17 - Registration Officially Closes 
• February 23 - Kickoff Event and Case Release 
• February 27 - Presentation Submissions
• February 28 - March 5 - Judging Period
• March 6 - Live Final Round on Zoom

Hello!

We are a subgroup of EWB-UWS (UW Seattle chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB)) working on the Intro to Engineering Science Kits project, wherein our goal is to create an educational activity to encourage the exploration of engineering and sustainability as a major or career. Our target audience is underrepresented socioeconomic high school students particularly in south King County. This project will also allow EWB members to apply and share their interdisciplinary engineering education, while taking initiative in increasing social equality among the community. 

Education and outreach

We partnered with Lindbergh High School, in Renton, to design a kit that would provide an engaging hands-on component to their CTE (Careers in Technical Education) curriculum. It is centered around sustainability as students will learn about the generation of renewable energy. We aim to deliver approximately 10 kits total, for teams of 3 students each. These kits will let students experience the engineering design process, from idea to prototype to finished product. While learning both technical and soft skills, the students will design and build a mini wind turbine.

The technical skills and concepts include, but are not limited to: the relationship between motors and generators, reiterative design, testing, simple circuitry, basic 3D modeling and printing, safe usage of machine shop tools, and the importance of sustainable energy sources and materials. The soft skills include teamwork, leadership, compromise, communication, and adapting to critique. 

Sustainability

EWB as a whole strives for sustainability in all of our projects, and we want to lead by example. We plan on incorporating compostable, reusable, and/or recyclable materials, such as testing out biodegradable filament, wood, and cardboard. Furthermore, the majority of each kit will be reusable for future classes. In terms of education related to sustainability, our kits will be teaching students about the importance of sustainable material sourcing, renewable energy, and sustainable design.

Student involvement, feasibility and accountability

Our club is a multidisciplinary group of students and faculty advisors with a variety of experience, from freshmen to graduates. Our student-led organization has personally designed and implemented many projects, such as The Sol Station, a device that charges phones with solar energy, and the Population Health Building’s Rainwater Display, a display that tracks sustainability in rainwater. 

We will actively be involved in outreach, researching materials, designing, budgeting, manufacturing, and most importantly, delivering these engineering kits. This project will give members experience in sustainable designing, but also help our members gain and polish their technical engineering skills, as well as important soft skills such leadership, communication, teamwork, time management, and problem solving. 

We have access to an interdisciplinary and skilled team, experienced engineering faculty, and Lindbergh High School’s machine shop teacher. Using a design by Popular Mechanics1 as a base model for our plans, we feel confident that designing and manufacturing the kits are both attainable goals. We will be adapting the design for indoor use, and simplifying the design to make it easier for the less-experienced high school students.

Our budget will be dedicated to purchasing materials for prototyping and all of the components of the kits so that we are able to provide this valuable hands-on experience free of charge to the students. This is important as our target audience is a lower income school, with limited resources and funding dedicated to exploring the STEM field and/or emphasizing the importance of sustainable actions.

The current timeline (based on campus reopening in spring quarter) would be to finalize the wind turbine schematics and design (including getting feedback from Lindbergh HS) by the end of winter quarter 2021, finalizing the kit design and assembling the kits by the end of spring quarter 2021, and delivering the kits by fall 2021. In winter quarter, our team will polish their CAD software skills, which will be used to create a 3D, digital representation of all the specific components of the wind turbine, and how these parts are to be put together. After designing the schematic and CAD model, we will move on to ordering the parts and physically testing our designs. If campus is still closed, one member will be in charge of recieving the physical parts and building the prototype. Otherwise, we will do the testing together as a group. In spring quarter, we will work on the design and learning experience of the kit, including teaching materials. We will order more parts and assemble all 10 kits together as a group*. We plan on completing and delivering the kits by the beginning of next school year when hopefully there will be in person classes again. 

*This timeline is dependent on the situation with COVID - if online classes are extended, assembly of the kits will be pushed back to until we are allowed back on campus.

Contact Info: 

Alex Amimoto (Project Lead)- alexa8@uw.edu

Naomi Chau (Project Lead)- nchau@uw.edu 

Joe Wang (Local projects director)- jhw28@uw.edu 

1. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/how-to/g118/make-your-own-miniature-wind-turbine/.

Summary

“On The Ground” would serve as a public record or social history of the work that has been done on the ground (or ground-adjacent) at UW. People can access and learn from a directory of interviews, ranging topics from the cultural history that may have been erased over the years in bite-size form (examples can be seen in Instagram accounts like @soyouwannatalkabout, @theslacktivists, @18millionrising, @southasians4blacklives), to informative articles on current movements in and around the UW community and Greater Seattle Area. The project’s form would be a publication platform (similar to NPR, The-Talks, and other media journal companies) entirely run by students, encompassing photography, personal anecdotes, interviews, and informative articles, culminating in a potential full-fledged publication of collected interviews. We also plan to make the media platform ADA compliant so that disabled members of our community can access our stories and participate as well. In the future, we hope to be able to translate the platform’s content into multiple locally used languages. A team of interviewers will feature stories on Black, Indigenous, or minority undergraduates, graduates, and faculty on campus, who will share their experiences with the system and their frontline work in the movement for justice. We have the benefit of having a wide range of intellectual students and staff that can chronicle our political history in a current and long-term perspective, especially in different aspects of the UW community, such as the UWPD, healthcare and medicine at the UWMC, and so on. Special features of Seattle activists can expand our journal’s scope to the communities surrounding UW as well. Radical change can also be seen in the form of joy and self care; columns celebrating Black, Indigenous or artists of color in music, visual art, or other platforms as well as creating accessible segments on how Black and Indigenous individuals take care of themselves and how other people of colors and allies can as well is crucial for maintaining community morale especially when educating themselves and participating in such difficult dialogue. We hope to collaborate with RSOs on campus such as UW BLM, Black Student Union, African Student Association, First Nations at UW, and other minority organizations on campus that carry a similar vision of community upliftment and activism. GOALS: Goal 3 – “Health and Well-Being”: Our project promotes health and well-being as a platform with an opportunity for readers and activists to share their stories and struggles with the healthcare system and quality of life. This may also become a space for people to discover new ways to look after their mental health while practicing non-optical allyship, learning to support themselves in accessible ways as they support each other. Goal 5 – “Gender Equality”: The On the Ground project also supports the goal of gender equality by creating an intersectional avenue for Black, Indigenous, or womxn of color to share their stories and empower others as well through the internet. Goal 10 – “Reduced Inequalities”: This project would help in reducing inequalities by promoting the stories of underrepresented populations and the empowerment of their work and histories as cultural, racial, and ethnic minorities by providing the community an avenue to see others like them working for change.

Background

"Allyship that only serves at the surface level to platform the ‘ally’, it makes a statement but doesn’t go beneath the surface and is not aimed at breaking away from the systems of power that oppress.” – Latham Thomas With the Black Lives Matter movement’s resurgence and the COVID-19 pandemic, the glaring infrastructural disparities in healthcare, law enforcement, and the environment are fueling a necessary conversation on righting society’s injustices. As a womxn of color myself, being an ally to Black and Indigenous people is as important now as it ever was, and practicing proper non-optical allyship is necessary to uplift and amplify the voices that deserve to be heard. Allyship is about taking action to effect real, tangible change. Scholars have articulated actions that allies can take, such as using their voices and advantaged positions to educate fellow advantaged group members who may not be aware that they are unfairly benefiting from a system steeped in inequality. Allies can also engage in actions that illuminate, challenge, and change institutional policies that perpetuate pervasive inequality. We, as students, recognize the value of activism by BIPOC and allies on our campus, especially amongst undergraduates, grad students and faculty. We hope that in creating an online anthology that details the work being done on the ground or ground-adjacent we can memorialize the work done so far, the work that continues to be done, and what we can do in the future. References: Reason, R. D., & Broido, E. M. (2005). Issues and strategies for social justice allies (and the student affairs professionals who hope to encourage them). New Directions for Student Services, 2005(110), 81–89.doi:10.1002/ss.167

Impact measured

Measurable milestones include: Increase in readership over time, increase in outreach and support to activists or current initiatives we may be highlighting on campus – all of these are operationalized in the ‘Evaluation’ portion of our proposal. We can evaluate the project goals through feedback surveys to readers to see what the community has gained and/or would like to see more in order to focus on areas of improvement. In addition, looking at exposure in a quantifiable manner (i.e: number of readers, shares, comments, etc.) is a practical way to measure how the UW community responds to the project. Being able to see the interest and response of readers can address the representation of how one feels, especially when being curated in support of the BIPOC community. In addition, increased support towards our interviewees and their initiatives (whether in the form of donations, volunteer support, increased awareness on social media) can be a way of measuring the change in involvement on the ground in the UW community.

Budget

Award amount requested: 2973

1. $223; Web Development; cost for website url as well as maintenance cost
2. $250; Web Design; compensation for designer and developer (CSS/HTML coding)
3. $1000; Interview Team; compensation for journalists conducting interviews and investigative work
4. $750; Editors; compensation for editors to refine interview, website, and article content
5. $250; Social Media/Marketing Manager; compensation for content curator and promotional outreach management
6. $500; Honorarium; compensation for greater Seattle activists/guests to support their initiatives and in taking the time to interview with us

Summary

As graduate students in the Division of Art History and future educators, researchers, and museum professionals, we believe that we must be attuned to questions of diversity and its implications on our field. The art historical canon encourages prioritization and hierarchies within scholarship and museum displays. We aim to create an inclusive and actively anti-racist art history, by seeking out, researching, and teaching the work of artists and scholars that are often left on the margins. The field of art history is fruitful ground for rethinking how art is shaped by and can shape our world and how we relate to one another within it. Therefore, our proposed reading group will engage with this crucial topic and consider questions including: how do we develop an inclusive art history while also meeting curricular expectations and “standard knowledge” in the discipline? What does it mean to go beyond the canon, which primarily promotes white, male, cis, able-bodied artists from Europe and North America? What are the risks of projecting our contemporary notions of race and diversity onto societies that are many centuries removed? It is our goal to rethink our approach to research and language and to create a space for such conversations in a centuries-old discipline. We are gathering a comprehensive reading list that will engage with issues of diversity from different perspectives, including race, gender, colonization, appropriation, distribution of funds and cultural treasures, iconoclasm as an act of protest, representations of disability, and museums’ attempts at including diverse audiences. This bibliography will prepare the ground for a discussion spanning across time and regions to maintain relevance to our diverse areas of interest, ranging from the Italian Renaissance to Global Contemporary Art. Already a diverse collective that includes several international students, we intend to open our planned guest lectures to graduate students from across the UW to allow for multi and interdisciplinary dialogue. All members of the reading group will add to the collective bibliography based on their specific questions and interests. This initiative is supported by the Art History faculty within the School of Art + Art History + Design (see attached letter) and affiliated to the Graduate Students of Art History organization. We are requesting support from the Campus Sustainability Fund and UW Resilience Lab to assist with compensation for guest speakers including artists, activists, curators, and scholars who are contributing significantly to the current debate on the issues we intend to tackle. Each lecture will be recorded and uploaded onto our project website. Our project website will offer an archive of our collective discussions and activities. It will also house our art history syllabi, emphasizing readings, and resources that decolonize the field. These syllabi will be developed to accompany existing courses offered by the Division of Art History, and thus, will offer current and future TAs materials and assignments that can be incorporated into their teaching to promote values of diversity and inclusion.

Background

We believe that educating ourselves about issues of race, identity, and power will make us better scholars and educators. Our intended website will make public a bibliography with reading concerning the decolonization of art history for the education of the current and future grad community. Along with this bibliography, we intend to make a lasting impact by creating syllabi for TAs sessions for the varied courses offered by the Division of Art History. These syllabi will suggest reading materials and pedagogical activities that graduate students could incorporate into their teaching. By introducing undergraduate students to the questions and problems we are facing as a discipline, we hope to add to their experience at UW and to their becoming active participants in the global fight against racism. We acknowledge that learning from the experience of others is crucial for creating an effect within our community. Therefore, we wish to invite activists and scholars that have made a change in academia, museums, and the broader art world. Our plan is to construct the reading group curriculum as a series of monthly sessions focused on a specific theme, concluded with a talk by a guest speaker at the end of each quarter. We believe that creating this program will contribute to our experience going forward by giving us practical knowledge to promote such initiatives in our future roles. Our tentative list of speakers includes: End of fall quarter speaker: Pamela N Corey, Department of the History of Art & Archaeology, SOAS University of London End of winter quarter speaker: Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, Curator of Italian and Spanish Paintings, National Gallery of Art Washington End of spring quarter speaker: TBD

Budget

Award amount requested: 1250

• Honorarium for a speaker - $250
• Honorarium for a speaker - $250
• Honorarium for a speaker - $250
• A project website - $500

Background

The aim of this project is to better understand how frontline communities define climate resilience and identify perceived factors that support or undermine resilience. Frontline communities are communities most affected by the impacts of climate change, and are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and lower-income compared to state averages. Our ultimate goal is to use this enhanced understanding of resilience to support programming and policy development related to the Washington Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA), that will transition the state to clean electricity by 2045. The linkage between the proposed effort and the CETA is through ongoing collaboration by the WA state Department of Health (DOH), climate justice coalition Front and Centered (F&C), and several UW groups, including the Center for Health and the Global Environment (CHanGE), the Climate Impacts Group (CIG), and the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS). The CETA requires a Cumulative Impacts Assessment (CIA) of the health impacts of fossil fuel pollution and future climate change on WA communities, which will guide policy decisions by state departments. This CIA will include a tool, based on work by DEOHS alumna, Esther Min, with F&C, which has mapped environmental health disparities across Washington. Resilience related to climate change is defined by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions as “the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to climate.” Better understanding community perspectives on resilience can open our understanding of potential solutions. Currently, the CIA tool does not account for resilience, though it has been identified as a priority area for inclusion in future models. Resilience is highly subjective, and to meaningfully capture it, it is imperative to center the perspectives of frontline communities. To fit the scope of this funding opportunity, this project will focus on Puget Sound, and findings will guide future engagement around Washington.

Goals

Engage diverse community leaders in identifying factors related to climate resilience for frontline communities in the Puget Sound region. Identify pathways for continued research related to climate resilience with frontline communities in Washington.

Activities

This project includes five Zoom focus groups with 5-7 community organizers and leaders from frontline communities in the Puget Sound region. Focus group participants will be recruited through F&C and compensated at a rate of $50/hour. Discussions will focus on factors that have affected community ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to environmental hazards. Information from these focus groups will be transcribed and coded into preliminary themes. Once the themes are assembled, participants will be given a chance to provide feedback through a written summary or participation in a voluntary Zoom town hall. Feedback will be incorporated into a final report and development of communications materials for CHanGE, Front and Centered, and other interested partners. Recommendations from the project will be aimed at developing elements of the CIA tool related to community-identified drivers of climate resilience.

Timeline:

• August: literature review, prepare for focus groups
• September: hold focus groups
• October: analyze focus group data and synthesize
• Early November: hold town hall event, incorporate feedback
• Late November: develop final reports and materials.

“Climate change affects all, but not all people are affected equally.” - Jacqueline Patterson, NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program As the impacts of climate change are increasing in intensity and frequency, we are seeing a growing disparity in how these impacts manifest within different communities (Snover et. al, 2013). BIPOC communities, as well as low-income communities, are at greatest risk for climate impacts. Their experience heightened vulnerability due to the cumulative effects of systemic inequality, compounded by racism, income, living conditions, age, location, occupation, health, and language barriers, as well as disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards (UW Climate Impact Groups et al., 2018)(Yuen et al., 2017). These disparities are often the result of structural and institutional racism and discrimination, perpetuated both in policy outcomes as well as traditional top-down policy-making and implementation processes that often fail to include the perspectives and priorities of the communities most impacted (Yuen et al., 2017). Snover, A.K, G.S. Mauger, L.C. Whitely Binder, M. Krosby, and I. Tohver. (2013). Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in Washington State: Technical Summaries for Decision Makers. State of Knowledge UW Climate Impacts Group, UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Front and Centered and Urban@UW. (2018). An Unfair Share: Exploring the disproportionate risks from climate change facing Washington state communities. Yuen, T., Yurkovich, E., Grabowski, L., & Altshuler, B. (2017). Guide to equitable, community-driven climate preparedness planning. A report prepared for the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.

This project is intended to solicit community perceptions regarding factors that affect climate resilience, and start a conversation around integrating the concept of resilience into how we quantify climate impacts in Washington state and how to promote the resilience of the most highly affected, in particular. While the first version of the CIA tool is expected to be released in December 2020, researchers are already starting to workshop ideas for future models or parallel tools, and the timing of this project aligns well with expanding our understanding of climate impacts to include the role of resilience for subsequent projects. In the short term, the project will be evaluated based on its ability to meet to following goals and objectives: 1.To engage diverse community leaders in identifying themes related to resilience to climate impacts for frontline communities in the Puget Sound region - Objective 1: At least 25 community leaders and organizers representing at least five organizations/communities will participate in a focus group between September and October 2020. - Indicators: number of focus group participants, number of organizations represented - Objective 2: At least 50% of focus group participants will give feedback on research findings - Indicators: number of town hall participants, proportion of town hall participants who had participated in a focus group, number of participants who give written feedback on research summary 2. To identify pathways for continued research and programming related to climate resilience for frontline communities in Washington state - Objective 1: In the reports to CETA/CIA and CSF, include recommendations of next steps for continued research and programming - Indicators: completed recommendations section of final report, recommended outreach plan for developing indicators of resilience and related factors, gathering additional data, potential sources of quantitative data, potential data gaps, and implications for public health practice and policy.

Budget

• Compensation for interviewees: $1000 ($50/participant x 20 participants)
• Researcher time: $1490 ($20/hour x 74.5 hours)
• Second coder’s time: $500 ($20/hour x 25 hours)

Total: $2990

Project Lead

Staci Amburgey

Description

Conservation and equity are intrinsically intertwined topics that have often been treated as two separate areas of study. Science, conservation, and management not only benefit from having a diversity of stakeholder perspectives informing projects, but the effects of management and scientific policies extend more broadly than the ecosystems they impact. This seminar will highlight the importance of cross-cultural collaboration and competency in science. In this seminar series and course, we will investigate a series of research projects or conservation initiatives that have the unifying theme of 1) having a conservation-oriented objective, 2) being led by or integrally involving indigenous groups or underserved communities throughout the project, and 3) diversifying the participants in the process leading to the successful implementation of a conservation or research policy. Talks will have a scientific backbone while also highlighting the diversity of participants, the equity of these stakeholders in planning, barriers that exist to participation, and how this format of engagement led to conservation success. This seminar fits with the proposed goal of increasing communication and cultural competency among faculty, staff, and students across UW.

This class/seminar will meet once per week (10-11:20am on Fridays). The seminar will be the first 30 minutes of the time slot. A guest speaker or speakers (when collaborators are available) will present a research or conservation-driven example, followed by an open discussion regarding practices, insights, and lessons learned. Each talk will be advertised and open to the broader UW community through public announcements (see attached example advertisement), weekly reminders, and dissemination of the class website through channels such as the College of the Environment and departmental listservs. Additionally, enrolled participants will be assigned a reading selected by the guest speaker and the project lead to generate informed questions and discussions. These readings will also be sent out via the public announcement of the seminar and posted on the course website so that anyone who wishes to can view the material and read along. Each week’s talk will be hosted via Zoom where it will be recorded but also will be live-streamed via the SAFS YouTube channel. The YouTube channel will allow for closed captioning of the video in real-time and increased security (talk information can be shared widely without fear of Zoom-bombing). The speaker will answer questions solicited via email beforehand or on YouTube. The remainder of class and discussion will be limited to just enrolled participants (21 students) afterward.

Objectives

By the end of the seminar, attendees will:

1. Become more familiar with diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) practices and foundational vocabulary
2. Increase their cultural competency, particularly with respect to local groups and topics in the Pacific Northwest
3. Be better able to identify stakeholder perspectives when discussing conservation and management projects
4. Be better able to discuss the complexities of conducting research in a multicultural landscape
5. Become more familiar with conservation and management topics, particularly in the Pacific Northwest

Schedule

1. Antiracism in Conservation. David Muñoz, Penn State University - October 9th
2. The role and dimensionality of identity in environmental behavior. Isabel Carrera Zamanillo, University of Washington - October 16th
3. Cultural competency in fisher reintroduction in the Washington Cascade Mountains. Tara Chestnut, Mt Rainer NP, Nettsie Bullchild and Jeremy Badoldman, Tribal Historic Preservation Office - October 23rd
4. Title TBD –Chris Schell, University of Washington Tacoma - October 30th
5. Nature So White. Khavin Debbs, Tiny Trees Preschool - November 6th, honorarium covered by Burke Museum
6. Revitalizing Indigenous cultural management systems for resilient salmon fisheries and coastal communities - lessons from a scientist working at the grassroots. Will Atlas, Qqs Project Society, William Housty, Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department - November 13th
7. Cross-cultural collaboration in the Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration and Pilchuck River Dam Removal. Brett Shattuck, Tulalip Tribes - November 20th
8. Conflict or collaboration? Colonial legacies, cultural values, and shifting axes of trust in Northern Puget Sound conservation. Sara Breslow, EarthLab, University of Washington, Maggie Allen, SMEA alumna - December 4th
9. Conclusion discussion and overview of the quarter’s speakers. Staci Amburgey, University of Washington - December 11th

** The first and last class session of the quarter will be focused on discussion among enrolled participants to establish foundational vocab and reflecting on topics presented

Over the past few decades, bees and other critical pollinator species have been experiencing a rapid decline in population. Natural ecosystems depend on these critters to pollinate roughly 85% of flowering species, which in turn provide habitat and nourishment for other wildlife. By gathering pollen and nectar from hundreds of flowers, pollinator species like bumble bees, mason bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths help diversify ecological communities and cultivate the lush landscapes that surround our built environments.

To protect these keystone species and encourage low-maintenance, pesticide-free landscapes on campus, I am proposing to construct a 600 square-foot pollinator garden by Odegaard Library and the Henry Art Gallery. Currently an underutilized space covered in invasive English Ivy, the existing site will blossom into one that provides pollinator species like bumble bees, mason bees, butterflies and hummingbirds with a variety of native herbaceous plants, evergreen shrubs and year-round burrowing habitat and refugia. This space will also offer students brief respite from their studies and the opportunity to study ecological systems in nontraditional ways. By establishing a site with a range of native plant species, native pollinators will have a diverse food bank extending from February to October with places to overwinter and burrow. Long-term symbiotic relationships between invertebrates, plants and other wildlife species will also develop as the plants mature.

UW currently lacks a unified, ecologically-based landscape plan, and it is my goal with this pollinator project to kickstart a dialogue on the role of diverse ecology within urban spaces. By marrying our current ecological needs with the built environment, a pollinator garden near the heart of campus will testify to the importance of design activism, educate my peers about the potential relationship between cities and native ecosystems, and spark research opportunities that blend urban spaces with environmental science, plant biology and identification, forestry, landscape architecture, art and engineering.  

To start my process, I have begun collaborating with the Society of Ecological Restoration to create a long-term maintenance plan, collect native plants from the SER nursery, and recruit volunteers for the construction and planting phase.  A team composed of UW grounds crew members, the UW Integrated Pest Management manager, and a Ph.D. student studying pollinator ecology is helping me conduct site analysis, remove invasive ivy, and plan for maturity. As an undergraduate student in the landscape architecture department, my professor and mentor Daniel Winterbottom will be helping me locate materials for this project, and, lastly, I have recruited a group of my peers from the College of Built Environments to assist with the design and construction phase.

Through September of this year, I will be removing invasive ivy and excavating several inches of existing dirt to make room for fresh soil. Through mid-September to late October, I will be narrowing down my plant palette to a condensed list of native species based on growth characteristics, bloom period, seasonal changes and aesthetics. Within this time frame, I will also be installing materials like landscaping rocks, organic soil, and stepping-stones for a low-maintenance foot trail through the western side of the site. Within mid to late October, I will install the shrubs and herbaceous species before adding a layer of mulch and salvaged coarse woody debris to retain nutrients and provide shelter for the pollinators (see page 2 in Pollinator Outline PDF for detailed timeline).

After the installation phase, I will be scheduling routine maintenance check-ups with UW grounds crew and UW SER volunteers to ensure that the plants are regularly watered, trimmed, and protected from invasive species for a 2-year period. As I extend this concept to a greater scale, my colleague and UW SER president, Nikoli Stevens, and I will be identifying additional spots throughout the UW campus that can expand this solitary garden into a connected wildlife network that relies on little to no maintenance or pesticide-use. This project will continue to be rooted in knowledge from an interdisciplinary team of ecologists, designers, and scientists who will help inspire conservation practices across several fields and provide my peers with the stepping stones to become agents of socioecological change.

As a tangible expression of my commitment to environmental stewardship, this project will allow me to cultivate a shared appreciation for native microecosystems and create spaces that invigorate, delight, and heal the UW community.  And it is my goal through this project to motivate my peers to become environmental leaders, eager to establish a more balanced relationship between the urbanizing and the natural world.

Budget Estimate:

• Shrubs + Herbaceous Plants: $400 ( SER Nursery)
• Organic Soil: $220 (6 cb yd, $35.5/cb yd from Cedar Grove)
• Landscaping Rocks: $150 (from Dirt Exchange)
• Educational Plaque: $150

*see detailed budget for breakdown of expenses

CSF has been funding work on the Kincaid Ravine Restoration Project since 2010. During the past five years undergraduate students enrolled in CEP 498 have been working on various elements of the project and have completed the final draft of a Master Plan for the site. The final draft of this Master Plan as been reviewed and approved by the office of the UW Campus Architect. It is expected that next steps in the implementation of the Master Plan will begin in Winter quarter 2021 dependent upon the availability of funding to support a graduate student who will be leading the work.

This current request to CSF is to fund the position of a graduate student who will lead other students' work on this project as follows:

• Finalize the wetland portion of the project.
• Determine classification of wetland delineations completed previously and date of delineation (Note: 5-year “lifespan”). Determine exactly what is allowed under existing code.
• Get validation from the consultants of their prior work.
• Identify any permitting requirements necessary.
• Identify drainage and safety issues.
• Refine proposed changes in vegetation and trails on site.
• Review city codes and permitting process.
  1. Determine documentation needed to move forward.
  2. Determine need for an engineer’s report for permit allowance.
  3. Request participation and support of the King Conservation District.
• Additional tasks to refine the draft Master Plan as needed.

This funding request will "bridge" the cost of continuing this work with expected future funding from other sources such as King Conservation District.

This request for funding meets the CSF requirements and preferences as follows:

Sustainable Impact: This project improves the sustainability of UW's campus and/or operations by improving and maintaining one of the largest remaining natural areas accessible to all who live, work and visit the campus. Specific impacts include reductions of: carbon emissions, energy use, waste, pollutants and toxins. Improvements will be made to biodiversity and provide enhanced opportunities to support environmental justice and equity. Project components are environmentally sustainable in design and implementation.

Leadership & Student Involvement: All work on this project is to be completed by UW students during the academic year 2020 to 2021. It is expected that a graduate student will lead the project work.  

Education, Outreach & Behavior Change: This project includes many elements of educational and outreach components that cultivate an awareness of the Kincaid Rainve among students, faculty and visitors to campus. 

Feasibility & Accountability: The work completed on this project to date has demonstrated that the applicant can attain the technical knowledge, necessary approvals, and project management skills in order to complete this additional work successfully. 

The proposed budget for this work during Winter and Spring quarters 2021 is as follows:

• Graduate student: $7,500.
• Technical consultants: $2,000.

Total budget: $9.500.

Our project is based on the cornucopia of research done about gratitude and how it improves mental and emotional well-being. Gratitude as an emotion can be nurtured by engaging in behaviors and actions that express gratitude and appreciation for what we have, where we are, and the present moment/experience overall. The act of writing out our gratitude and sharing it with someone also improves our mental health, decreases levels of cognitive and physical distress, and increases positive emotions. Our proposed project is regular tabling around campus throughout the year where we provide student designed postcards for students to write notes of gratitude on, and then Peer Health Educators mail them for students. This is a sustainable program because the materials involved are recyclable/compostable and requires minimal single-use resources. It gives students the opportunity to pause and reflect on someone who has impacted them positively as they write a note of gratitude on the postcard. When the PHEs mail the postcards for students, there is the second impact of when the receiver gets the postcard and how that opens up a line of connection between the writer and the receiver- an opportunity to experience more positive emotions. So many “health and wellness” programs focus on students’ receiving something (usually a physical item that ends up in a landfill soon after), but our program asks students to give something to someone else that is rooted in reflection, connection, and appreciation. Research has shown the positive impact of practicing generosity, mindfulness, and altruism- this program reflects those. Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being is at the core of this program, as we know that expressing and receiving words of gratitude and appreciation improve health, well-being, and a sense of belonging and connection. This project by utilizing the United States Postal Service supports Goal 9: Fund projects that provide basic infrastructure, as USPS is a basic infrastructure that is vital to equity and access to marginalized groups, Goal 10, Support the marginalized and disadvantaged. It connects to Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, as it is a program that uses only recycled and recyclable materials.

Background:

Students and faculty in the University of Washington's Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) advance systems and technologies for people and communities to create accessible, sustainable, and prosperous futures. In Autumn 2019, HCDE directors embarked on a five-year strategic plan. One strategic goal in this plan is to advance and sustain diversity and equity within our work and across our communities. More specifically, the department seeks to implement new practices for listening to and empowering its faculty, staff, and students, and to implement new practices for improving the diversity and equity of its teaching, learning, and outreach experiences. As staff members and students of HCDE, we propose adopting the Sustained Dialogue program as a HCDE course for students, faculty, and staff. Sustained Dialogue is a method of communicating “peacefully, justly, and productively,” with a particular focus on problems of inequity and oppression within organizations. The Sustained Dialogue Institute offers workshops and training for others to employ this method, and provides many resources for organizations to evaluate the effect of sustained dialogue practices on measurable outcomes. They have implemented courses in other academic institutions such as the University of Alabama, and offer template courses on a variety of subjects related to diversity, equity, and positive communication between peers.

What is the Sustained Dialogue Institute?

Sustained Dialogue (SD) is an intentional process used by citizens around the world to transform relationships and implement sustainable change in intergroup conflicts, especially intergroup identity clashes. It is rooted in the conflict resolution methodology developed by Dr. Hal Saunders, a senior U.S. diplomat and founder of the Sustained Dialogue Institute (SDI). Through Sustained Dialogue high impact experiences, participants develop a diverse set of leadership skills, including strong personal identity awareness, knowledge of social justice, empathy, facilitation and conflict resolution skills, and more. SD organizers gather participants from diverse backgrounds into small groups that meet regularly to build relationships and develop informed strategies to improve their campus and communities, especially around a number dimensions of identities including: Albelism, Affirmative Action, Ageism, Mental Health, Socioeconomic Status, Sexual Orientation, Race & Color. Sex & Gender, Religion, Ethinicity, Immigration Status, and more. SD is a unique change process which (1) focuses on transforming relationships that cause problems, create conflict, and block change; and (2) emphasizes the importance of effective change over time. Since transforming relationships requires an ongoing effort, SD gradually develops over a five-stage process. This multistage approach serves as a guidepost for SD programs and for those in conflict to create sustainable change in their relationships and communities.

Stages:

• The “Who”: Deciding to Engage
• The “What”: Mapping and Naming
• The “Why”: Probing Problems and Relationships
• The “How”: Scenario building
• The “Now”: Individual and Collective Action

Establishing a partnership with the Sustained Dialogue Institute is the pivotal step towards bringing this impactful program to HCDE. We are seeking to obtain a stand-alone workshop provided by the SDI on Addressing Community Needs Through Sustained Dialogue. This 16 hour training for moderators will equip these individuals with the tools, knowledge, and skills to facilitate, teach, and lead these dynamic workshops throughout the academic year. The training encompasses the capacity for up to 40 individuals to be trained and obtain first hand knowledge from SDI professionals. Once all moderators have been trained, HCDE will provide multiple course sections in the form of seminars weekly each quarter to implement the sustained dialogue process. Measuring impact: We will administer pre-and-post-dialogue quarterly surveys to measure the impact of implementing SD in the department. These surveys will establish a metric of comparison between answers provided at the beginning and end of the year, and will serve to help us better identify departmental needs and critical conversations about diversity and equity in our department. The SDI will also issue a national survey to all partners as well.

A brief overview of questions we will ask in the survey will include:

1. How did the Sustained Dialogue process help you to navigate conversations between faculty, staff, and amongst other students in the department?
2. After engaging with the Sustained Dialogue process, what actions will you take to promote inclusivity in the department?
3. Can you talk about one conversation you had during the Sustained Dialogue workshop? How did your understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion shift or expand as a result of these conversations?
4. Relatedly, what was one overall takeaway that you had from the Sustained Dialogue conversations? How will you incorporate these learnings in your practices as a faculty, staff, or student?
5. Lastly, how can the Sustained Dialogue conversations be improved in the future? How can we continue to do better?

Intended Student, Faculty, and Staff Learning Outcomes:

• Think critically about the experiences of others and how they can be improved.
• Feel comfortable talking about their experiences and identities in front of a group of peers.
• Try to better understand someone else’s views by imagining how an issue looks from their perspective.
• Examine strengths and weaknesses of their own views on a topic or issue.
• Raise awareness about local or campus issues.
• Resolve conflicts that involve bias, discrimination, and prejudice
• Explain the college climate towards diversity, issues that arise between students , and why these issues persist.

Topics and goals:

The Sustained Dialogue Institute has developed a variety of structured weekly dialogues on different topics that we can incorporate into our curriculum. We will select which dialogues we would like to include based on the findings of our department’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiative, which seeks to determine student, staff, and faculty’s DEI needs through activities, training, and policy and culture changes. Based on our initial understanding of the needs of the department, we expect to include dialogues on topics such as sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia, classism, and ableism.

These topics align with four of the Sustainable Development Goals:

1. Education (Goal 4), which includes universal access to education.
2. Gender equality and women’s empowerment (Goal 5). This goal includes increased access to education and economic opportunities.
3. Reducing inequalities (Goal 15). Under this goal, policies should pay “attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations”.
4. Peace, justice, and strong institutions (Goal 16). This goal refers to promoting “just, peaceful, and inclusive societies” that use “efficient and transparent regulations”.

We hope that a more inclusive environment in HCDE will lead to “transparent and effective” (Goal 16) policies that “pay attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations” (Goal 15) and a culture that attracts and decrease attrition rates from students from diverse and marginalized populations (Goals 4 & 5). Underrepresented ethnic and racial minority (URM) students (i.e., African American, Hispanic, American Indian, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander) comprise only 11% of students in HCDE. While we do not have demographic information, to our knowledge, there are relatively few URM faculty and staff. It is our hope that DEI efforts, such as what we propose here with the Sustained Dialogue Institute, will lead to a more inclusive and diverse department. Thank you for your consideration.

Justification:

In the wake of COVID-19, The Whole U has received numerous requests for more comprehensive resources and training pertaining to resiliency for frontline healthcare providers at UW Medicine. Burnout is a long-term stress reaction marked by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lack in sense of personal accomplishment. The healthcare environment, with packed workdays, demanding pace, time pressures, and emotional intensity, puts workers at high risk for burnout (Muacevic et al., 2018, Compson 2015). Coupled with mental and physical health impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak, burnout in healthcare workers is expected to increase to unprecedented levels as the pandemic continues.

The proposed project will provide Jane Compson's CARE program training to 200 UW Medicine frontline medical professional women working in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to mitigate negative mental health impacts and burnout, as well as further understand the impacts COVID19 is having on frontline medical women's mental health. The UN Sustainable Development Goals state that women play a disproportionate role in responding to the virus as frontline healthcare workers and at home. This project will provide an immediate intervention for our community's frontline medical women who are facing stressors in both environments.

Description and Goals:

The CARE program, acronym for Compassion, Awareness, Resilience and Empowerment, was developed by Jane Compson (Compson, 2015). It offers training in these aforementioned four areas with the specific goal of improving resilience and well-being and ameliorating and protecting against burnout.

Thus far, CARE has been offered to small groups of students and educators in 8-10 hours of in person training. In these versions, exceptional anecdotal feedback was recorded, and positive change was demonstrated in measures of self-compassion, perceived stress, and burnout. This project will adapt the CARE program into an online Canvas course reaching a large and diverse group of UW Medicine frontline medical women in collaboration with The Whole U, a comprehensive holistic wellness and engagement program for all UW employees.

Specifically, the project aims to:

1. Enroll up to 200 UW Medicine frontline women in the 4-week training during the month of July.
2. Provide an immediate intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic that reduces participant burnout and increases subjective well-being and self-compassion as evidenced by reduced burnout scores, improved perceived stress scores, and increased self-compassion scores post intervention.
3. Support participants in developing patterns of incorporating self-care skills as evidenced by self-report.
4. Foster a supportive group environment in which participants can practice their self-care skills in community.
5. Elicit feedback and input from participants to tailor future iterations of the program.
6. Contribute to quantitative and qualitative research on the impacts of COVID-19 on frontline healthcare providers mental health and symptoms of burnout.

Evaluation and Impact:

1. Pre- and post-testing. Before the training, participants will be asked to take the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory to assess their level of burnout. They will also take the Perceived Stress Scale and the Self Compassion Scale. On completion of the training, participants will complete these measures again. By comparing pre- and post- test results, we will be able to understand the efficacy of the adapted CARE training in terms of reducing burnout, reducing perceived stress and increasing self-compassion.
2. Subjective self-report/qualitative review. After the training, participants will be invited to offer anonymous written feedback on their experiences of the course, including their evaluation of its effectiveness in building resilience and helping with coping mechanisms of the demands of being a frontline healthcare worker in a global pandemic.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Goal 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being: This project will provide health workers guidance and resources to look after their mental and physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Additionally, the project offers a response and intervention on an institutional and accessible level, providing support and acknowledgement for the sacrifice of frontline healthcare workers at UW.

Goal 5 - Gender equality and women's empowerment: Women play a disproportionate role in responding to the virus as frontline workers and beyond. This means that UW Medicine frontline women are at an even heightened risk for burnout with coupled COVID-19 stressors at work and home. This project provides an intervention specific for frontline women. With this, goal 5 contends that women are the backbone of recovery in communities. This project will empower the participating women to instill learned tenets of self-care and practices of resilience into their greater communities, including family, friends, and work units.

Goal 8 - Inclusive employment and decent work: This project is development-oriented, supporting productive activities and workplace resilience, in line with goal 8, target 3. The training invests in the UW Medicine workforce meeting mental and emotional needs to ensure a decent working environment. With this, this project works towards goal 8, tenet 8 by promoting a safe working environment for all workers, specifically women, and workers at risk in healthcare environments. The frontline healthcare profession is a precarious environment, one that demands special attention to mental health.

Historically, community gardens have served as a means of accessing fresh produce when prices are prohibitively high, such as during times of war, recession or, as we’re seeing, pandemic. However, in a city marked by staggering rates of displacement and homelessness, prices on natural, organic, and healthy food are consistently inhibitory regardless of the larger context. This is especially true for the over 200 University of Washington students and 1,100 young adults in Seattle struggling to obtain food daily. For this reason, we are requesting funding to support the development of, “Seeds of Freedom” (SoF), a youth-led community garden initiative aiming to reduce food insecurity through the building of an edible garden in tandem with student/community education in social justice, ecology, and holistic wellness. As a collaborative effort developed in partnership with the Doorway Project and YouthCare, our project is intentionally designed to nurture community cohesion through shared space. SoF will be located outside of the University District Youth Center (UDYC), and will serve as a site of applied learning for a blended cohort of UW students and young adults with lived experience of homelessness. SoF Learners will be compensated for their participation in the project and will work as a cohort to grow and share food while building a vibrant social and natural ecosystem that encourages every individual’s potential for growth and renewal. By locating this garden off campus, in a space that offers resources to youth experiencing homelessness, we are uniquely positioning ourselves to provide opportunity for community engagement and support experiential learning. UDYC aims to affirm and empower black and brown young adults (ages 18-24) through Healing Focused Engagement that centers on participants’ holistic selves and wellbeing. Seeds of Freedom will support this mission through programming that goes beyond physical wellbeing to build social capital for clients. This mutually beneficial collaboration between the university and the surrounding neighborhood will foster connectedness, belonging, and community that transcends campus boundaries. As society acclimates to mandates on social distancing, we have taken those guidelines into consideration. The 600 sq ft plot provides space for up to 2-3 gardeners to safely distance while completing tasks. Although the space will be open to the greater community to enjoy and socially interact all years, specific hours will be reserved for SoF Learners from January through June 2021. Outside of their time gardening, a set cohort SoF Learners will engage in six-months of co-curricular education around food sovereignty, economic justice, and community healing. This curriculum will be informed by the pedagogy of Paolo Freire, emphasizing consciousness raising, sustainability, and social justice. Depending on the state of affairs, the education component will be facilitated either at UDYC or virtually via Zoom. As a site of UW/Community interaction, student-learners will take away experiences in organic agriculture, community building, social enterprise, and a deeper understanding of how we can address homelessness. Evaluating Success Comprehensive process evaluation will be utilized to understand the benefit of the garden and associated educational programming. Specifically, we will evaluate the prevalence of community awareness and engagement, barriers to participation, food security and personal characteristics such as SoF Learner satisfaction and staff perspectives of garden location. Semistructured interviews will be conducted, after which identified gaps will be addressed through programming recommendations and changes. As video has quickly become the medium through which most people consume content, SoF will work in partnership with UDYC creative engagement programming to create a visual representation of impact. This video will be shared with the larger community including all donors, and partners. Sustainable Development Goals At its most basic level sustainability is disruptive, it is a constant work in progress. It isn’t just about using less; it is about creating more. More compassion, more connection, more opportunity to live in a world where shared spaces matter. Seeds of Freedom believes that gardens don’t simply equate to food. They equate to an improved relationship to the natural environment, ourselves, and others. They equate to a sense of power over a part of our lives that we can design for ourselves. They equate to a sense of purpose and a site of resistance to isolation and rejection. Gardens equate to freedom. The Freedom to Survive. The implementation of SoF directly contributes to the achievement of Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): “Health and Wellbeing” by strengthening local food sources and improving access to healthy foods and nutrients. In this way we are addressing hunger in vulnerable communities (SDG 2, Zero Hunger). Sustainable literacy and professional skills will be gained directly through the activities involved in designing, implementing, and maintaining the garden. Additionally, SoF Learners will be directly compensated for their work while developing transferable skills for future employment (SDG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth). The Freedom to Thrive. Utilizing the “Plant, Cook, Organize!” curricula, developed and made available by Planting Justice in Oakland, SoF will cultivate an environment of lifelong learning opportunities for each cohort (SDG 4, Quality Education). The curricula will include information on: food systems, permaculture design, companion planting, healing justice, land and farmworker rights, integrated pest management, cover cropping, cooking, and the historical timeline of the food justice movement. The Freedom to Challenge. Eating organic, locally grown vegetables and fruit will assist youth and young adults in raising consciousness of the interrelationships between a healthy body and a healthy environment (SDG 12, Responsible Consumption and Production). It is our hope that through direct engagement around economic inequality and food access we will empower young adults to address the structural inequities that have become embedded in the industrialized food system (SDG 13, Climate Action) and to advocate for a more sustainable and equitable Seattle (SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities)

OVERVIEW OF PROJECT

Janie Bube and Amanda Dinauer, both Master of Landscape Architecture students and Masters of Science in Entrepreneurship student Jaakko Kuoppamaki, are working with the Office of Student Veteran Life and veteran students to explore the therapeutic benefits of artwork being turned into living art (living walls). There are many healing and therapeutic benefits from living walls, including increased productivity and relaxation. The living art will also follow sustainability principles and the overall sustainability goals of the Campus Sustainability Fund. We have already started to work with veteran students through workshops and one-on-one interviews.

OUTCOMES

• We hope to bring visual therapeutic benefits, beauty, and overall enjoyment to students in the HUB, particularly students in the study areas.
• We are working to create a simple, self-sustaining, but new type of living wall that is in a pattern of a historic painting, but with plants.
• Broadly speaking we hope to enhance the lives of students in community spaces. (These living art pieces could be applied to many spaces around campus that need a positive uplift and therapeutic enhancement.)

LEADERSHIP AND STUDENT INVOLVEMENT:

There are approximately 3,341 student veterans and military connected families. at the Seattle, UW campus. These students often find themselves on the 2nd floor of the HUB at the Office of Student Veteran Life, even more students (thousands) come and go, study, socialize, and relax throughout the building. This means it is a central location for student veterans, military connected family members, and non-student veterans, faculty, and staff to mingle. Not only this, but it is one of the highest frequented buildings on campus, which makes it a prime location to create something that can lower anxiety, help stress, increase concentration, relax, and purify...something like a living art. We want to create something that brings students together to enjoy while studying, socializing, or relaxing. We have the support from specific students, student veteran leadership who will be helping make this a reality. We also have the staff support from the Office of Student Veteran Life.

SUSTAINABLE AND HEALTH IMPACTS

Interior living walls have been known to...

• Purify the air: the plants in an interior living wall filter particulate matter from the air and convert CO2 into oxygen. One meter squared of a living wall extracts 2.3 kg of CO2 per annum from the air and produces 1.7 kg of oxygen.
• Reduce ambient temperature: plants absorb sunlight, 50% is absorbed and 30% reflected; so this helps to create a cooler and more pleasant climate. For the indoor climate this means that 33% less air conditioning is required, which in turn means energy savings.
• Reduces ambient noise inside: a living wall acts as a sound barrier to the building. It absorbs 41% more sound than a traditional facade and this means that the environment is much quieter. This results in a reduction of 8 dB, which means that ambient noise is halved.
• Healthy indoor climate: greenery promotes a healthy indoor climate. Complaints such as irritated eyes, headaches, sore throats and tiredness diminish. In offices where there is plenty of greenery, there is a noticeable decrease in absence due to illness. Imagine this in a university setting!
• Increases productivity: a green workplace can result in a 15% increase in productivity. Plants have a positive effect on people. This is also reflected in employee satisfaction and can now be reflected in student satisfaction.
• Offers healing environment: as research has shown time and time again, greenery encourages faster recovery for patients, resulting in a shorter hospital stay. A person's tolerance of pain is higher in a green environment. This is also known as a ‘healing environment’.
• Increases the feeling of well-being: living and working in a green environment has a positive effect on the well-being of people. Greenery offers relaxation and reduces stress. Look at what Amazon has done with several of its buildings in South Lake Union, not to mention the Amazon Biospheres.

EDUCATION, OUTREACH, AND BEHAVIOR CHANGE

We believe that education and outreach go hand-in-hand with the actual product of the living art. In partnership with the Office of Student Veteran Life, we are planning to do monthly workshops on the benefits of plants and living walls, the importance of art therapy (ties into the framework and process in which we created the living art), and living wall creation and maintenance. We have already spoken to the Student Veteran Life about this and are working in tandem to come up with continuing education workshops.

FEASIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

We are aware of the technical needs of a living wall, but have an engineer on our team who will be designing and building the prototype with us. In addition, two of our team members have previous experience building living walls. We are also aware of the maintenance needs of most living walls. Our living wall is designed specifically with this in mind and will require little maintenance or damage to any location because it is free-standing and does not require being situated on or near a wall; is securely weighted down, so it will not accidently be knocked over; is self-watering; and is self-lighted with special grow lights. The living wall, will need to be plugged in and the water tanks will need to be occasionally filled and supplied with liquid nutrients. We have spoken to the Office of Student Veteran Life about this and we all plan to create a realistic maintenance plan that their students or staff will be more than happy to maintain.

IMPACTS MEASURED

Weekly monitoring will occur by the project team and Veteran Student Life staff and students. This can be done in several ways and the best ways will be determined at the end of April. We will be consulting an environmental psychologist who will help guide us to the best monitoring options regarding student veteran life responses to the living wall with stress reduction, concentration increase, and overall enjoyment of working in the space. We will then broaden our monitoring to the general student body to see how the living art wall has impacted them. We are designing the living art wall to function with as little energy and water usage and yet still be enough for the plants. We will have monitoring devices on the living wall to show water usage and energy usage. This is something that hasn’t really been done for interior living walls, so we are excited to see how it can enhance the project. We are also interested in teaching veteran students and other students how to measure and monitor living projects.

Air travel represents a noteworthy amount of carbon ascribed to the University of Washington. In the report titled, “2005 Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Ascribable to the University of Washington,” air travel accounted for 9.5% of 2005 emissions (CO2eq). This report compared 2005 to 2000 emissions, and it was estimated that air travel emissions increased over this time period while total university emissions decreased. A 2014 Keystone project update titled, “Carbon Footprint: Air Travel at the University of Washington” found that professional air travel accounted for 11% of UW carbon emissions. Given the likely continued trend in air travel across campus, it is expected that today, air travel makes up at least 11% of UW’s emissions — unfortunately we were unable to find data on specific emission categories for more recent time periods.

This proposed project will work to 1) quantify the CO2eq emitted in association with different types of trips for UW faculty, staff and students, including: to conduct research, attend conferences and meetings, give and host seminars, and study abroad, 2) assess the benefit of these various trips to the individuals taking the trip and the overall mission of the university, 3) assess if and for whom these trips have unintended negative consequence; 4) envision policy changes or institutional approaches that minimize air travel with low benefit-to-carbon costs (or have large unintended negative consequences), and enable alternatives to air travel for certain types of trips. The overall goal of this effort is to raise awareness about the impact air travel has on UW carbon emissions and create a framework for reducing these emissions while maintaining the educational and research mission of the university.

Funding is sought to support an hourly student for one year that will, as part of the capstone project for Program on the Environment, collect the required data on air travel at UW (harnessing travel reimbursements, study abroad enrollments, and seminar announcements); categorize the trips; conduct a literature review and distribute questionnaires to faculty, staff and students to assess the purpose and benefit of various trips; and leverage existing approaches used by other institutions or proposed in the literature or general media, and/or envision new approaches that could be taken by UW to reduce air travel. These efforts will be written up as part of the capstone project and will be compiled into an easily digestible report that will be shared with UW Sustainability, UW Travel Office, the UW Environmental Stewardship Committee, and other relevant offices across campus. Additionally, a visually compelling poster will be made and distributed to environmental RSOs on campus and an infographic will be created expressly for distribution on various UW social media channels (e.g. RSOs, Program on the Environment). 

The student conducting these analyses will be supervised by Dr. Kristi Straus (associate director of Program on the Environment) and Dr. Rebecca Neumann (associate professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering). Dr. Straus is a leader in sustainability education and teaches a class (ENVIR 239: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts)that focuses on using personal choice and action to combat climate change. Dr. Neumann is passionate about climate change, with much of her research program focused on better understanding climate-terrestrial feedbacks and how climate change will impact food and water quality. She has recently undertaken a personal and professional interest in taking and motivating action to mitigate climate change.

Budget assumptions:

One student working 10 hours per week during the academic year (assume 20 weeks) and 40 hours per week during the summer (assume 12 weeks) at $16.39 per hour (UW minimum wage) with benefit load rate of 20.9%. Total: $13,475.   We have also budgeted a small amount for administration support of the CSF grant, as PoE does not have a full time administrator.  Four hours per month at $30 per hour and a benefit rate of 32.1% is an additional $1,900.  Total: $15,375

Project Overview:

The UW Food Pantry is submitting this letter of intent to the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) to seek approximately $30,000 to expand our current gleaning and food recovery efforts at the UW Food Pantry. The objective of this project is to recapture food from the University of Washington (UW) food system that would otherwise become waste and redistribute it to feed students who experience food insecurity.  We call the process of recovering food that would otherwise go to waste or compost gleaning and use the term interchangeably with food recovery in this proposal.  The term food insecurity describes the experience for individuals who have disruptions to the reliable and nutritious food needed to live an active and healthy lifestyle[1]. At the Pantry, want to keep food as food to mitigate the academic, social, and personal impacts of food insecurity for UW students. 

There is an intersection between unutilized food in the UW Food System and food insecurity that we can leverage to meet goals of sustainability and student well-being.  In 2018, UW estimated that over 1.7 million pounds of food was composted and 1.3 million pounds of food landfilled annually, while only 15,000 pounds of food was recovered and donated[2]. During this same time frame, a study conducted in 2018 by UW faculty revealed that roughly 20 percent of UW students may experience food insecurity in the 12 months preceding the study[3]. As you can see by these numbers food is going into the landfill and compost while at the same time students are experiencing disruptions to their access to nutritious food. 

Gleaning and food recovery have been underway at the UW Food Pantry as a pilot project since February, 2019 with the support of temporary funding from the UW Career & Internship Center. In the last year paid-student interns have opened five campus dining locations to glean ready-to-eat boxed and prepared items (sandwiches, salads, cut fruit and veggies); and worked closely with the UW Farm to glean and recover the fresh produce they grow that goes unutilized. Approximately 4,500 pounds of food have been recovered and made available for redistribution at the UW Food Pantry through this pilot program in the last calendar year. 

Challenge:

Through the first year of our gleaning program the Pantry has been able to reliably recover and distribute food to students in need.  The potential need in the community currently exceeds the capacity at which the Pantry can gather and store food for distribution.  While gleaning currently happens in five locations there are dozens more dining establishments both on and off campus which could partner with the Pantry to reduce food waste and feed students. 

Feasibility and Support:

Both Housing and Food Services (responsible for all campus dining locations) and The UW Farm are partners in support of gleaning and food recovery on campus.  The gleaning and redistribution model the Pantry has used this year has proven to be a reliable way to gather food from dining locations and meets health and safety requirements for food distribution.  The success of the gleaning program has made it a priority for the UW Food Pantry to secure funding for a second year.  As such we are seeking funding support from multiple sources and will keep CSF informed of any funding that is secured and how it might affect our request.

We recognize that another food recovery program called Meal Matchup has been supported by CSF.  We believe we are operating in spaces that don’t compete directly with this service and look forward to discussing how both programs can be implemented to help reduce food waste and food insecurity.     

Budget Priorities:

Support from the Campus Sustainability Fund would be utilized to pay one student employee and provide infrastructure improvements to increase the amount of food recovered and made available for redistribution.  The student employee would be paid above minimum wage for approximately 15 hours per week for 52 weeks of the year.  Infrastructure improvements would help to increase our capacity to transport and cold-store food.  This may include carts or hand-trucks, refrigeration or freezer units, and potentially car rental to move food.  Understanding that a priority of the CSF is for outreach and awareness, a portion of funding would be earmarked for communication efforts or engagement events to help students learn more about food recovery and its role in addressing food insecurity. 

Student Leadership and Involvement:

Students have and will continue to be the force behind our gleaning program.  Current efforts have been led by paid-student interns and supported by student volunteers.  The student leaders responsible for gleaning have worked directly with staff in HFS and UW Farm to establish gleaning operations, schedules, and processes.  Students will largely be responsible to choose the path forward with regard to expansion and what is required to meet capacity needs when it comes to infrastructure improvements.  UW Staff, currently the manager of student success in the Division of Student Life, is responsible for providing institutional support to this program. 

Thank you for your initial consideration of our request and we look forward to discussing this proposal further. 

Sean Ferris

Manager for Student Success

Division of Student Life

[1] Food Insecurity according the Feeding America and the USDA: https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/food-insecurity

[2] Internal UW reports on waste, recycling, and food donation: https://facilities.uw.edu/bsd/recycling/reports.

[3] UW Student Housing and Food Insecurity Study: https://evans.uw.edu/student-housing-and-food-insecurity-study

About us:

The UW Food Systems Coalition RSO strives to 1) improve knowledge of local food systems, including topics on policy, equity, and labor, amongst UW students, and to 2) actively participate in food systems policy advocacy and local events. We envision a just and equitable food system that sustains and replenishes the vitality of our natural environment and all its inhabitants.

The Food Systems Coalition seeks to foster health, equity, and community through: 

• Facilitation of interdisciplinary and community relationships
• Education about food systems
• Recognition that food workers are the foundation of our food system
• Advocacy for a just, equitable and sustainable food systems policy change across all levels

Project Proposal:

In-line with our mission to increase UW community awareness of local and national food systems topics and issues, we are planning a documentary screening for spring quarter. We plan to host this event in the UW Ethnic Cultural Center.

The documentary will pertain to a particular food system topic. We would like to show the PBS documentary, Dolores, which is about Dolores Huerta, a civil rights activist and the co-founder, along with Cesar Chavez, of the National Farmworkers Association (now United Farm Workers). By sharing this documentary with the UW community, we hope to raise awareness of our national food system’s dependence on the labor of farm workers, and the importance of fighting for farm workers’ rights. We envision screening this documentary in spring quarter around Cesar Chavez Day in order to highlight women who have been critical in pushing the farm workers’ rights movement forward, yet who often are left out of mainstream history.

In addition to the documentary screening, we hope to host a speaker who can talk about where the farmworker movement is today, and what it looks like in Washington.

CSF Funding Criteria:

This project meets CSF funding criteria in the following ways:

1. Sustainable Impact: This project meets the criteria of raising awareness of an equity issue, contributing to the goal of increasing social sustainability. The project also is about agricultural sustainability, as farm workers are the backbone of our nation’s food system.
2. Leadership and Student Involvement: This project is entirely planned and executed by the students in the RSO, Food System Coalition.
3. Education, Outreach, and Behavior Change: The purpose of the screening is to educate the greater UW community about this important topic. The event will be advertised to students campus-wide.
4. Feasibility and Accountability: We already have the Ethnic Cultural Center theater booked for 4/3 from 3:15-8pm (includes set-up and clean-up time). We need to pay them by 2 weeks before the event (3/20). We are asking for $1000, which will cover the room rental fee, a speaker honorarium, documentary screening rights fees, and advertising. Equipment fees for screening the documentary is included in the room rental fees.

Budget:

• • Ethnic Cultural Center
    • $23/hr +$25 cleaning and maintenance fee +$76 technician fee (RSO discount)
      • Total: $286.25
  • Dolores Documentary Screening Rights through PBS:
    • $275.25
  • Marketing:
    • $100
  • Speaker Honorarium:
    • $300
  • Total: $961.50 (requesting $1,000)

Timeline:

• We have reserved the Ethnic Cultural Center theater already for 4/3. We will finalize the speaker and finish preparations by 3/2.
• Pending CSF mini grant funds, we hope to advertise during weeks 9 and 10 of this quarter (3/2-3/13), as well as send email advertisements during this time and over spring break. We also will advertise the first week of spring quarter, as the event is the Friday of that week.
• Event Date: 4/3 3:15-8pm (includes set up and clean up time)

Project Size: Small, <$1,000

Estimated Amount to be requested from the CSF: $600

Summary of project proposal:

As all-encompassing threats, the ongoing climate, environmental, and consequential social crises must inform decisions made in every field and profession. Although the current and impending destabilization resulting from these crises call for unified action, the global response has been disappointing at best. Even in a university famed for innovation and progress our actions have been inexcusably meager. The abundance and variety of RSOs focused on social and environmental sustainability at the UW demonstrate a significant interest within the campus community to be active and engaged in the efforts to address our climate crisis on the local, national, and even international level. Unfortunately, these efforts are fragmented across various departments and disciplines which has stunted meaningful action.

Furthermore, groups which are not dedicated specifically to these fields risk being unaware of the important work being done in sustainability on campus. An even larger concern is that these groups lack the resources & encouragement to expand the ongoing sustainability efforts to include their own work & projects. Due to these circumstances, opportunities for collaboration are hindered due to lack of communication, awareness, and empowerment. Finally, although the administration has provided support for sustainability efforts through organizations such as the Office of Sustainability or the Campus Sustainability Fund, it has not yet taken action on the scale that it needs to.

The Administration's current aim to release a draft of a comprehensive Sustainability Plan on Earth Day 2020 has provided a critical opportunity to push the University’s commitment to sustainable practices farther than ever before. However, as matters currently stand, student voices are diluted, and the committee’s outreach efforts are insufficient. In order to effectively engage with the administration at this critical time it is apparent that students must unify in order to advance our common goals.

In order to facilitate a successful and meaningful collaboration amongst all UW students we (the Sustainability Curriculum Coalition) will host a Student Sustainability Forum; an event designed to unite and empower the diverse University community by creating a space for students from across campus to partake in discussion and deliberation to create a list of demands & actions they wish to see in UW’s upcoming Sustainability Plan.

This forum will promote actions already being led by student groups on campus as well as facilitate discussion over further actions which could be pursued. The format of the discussion groups which the forum will be broken into is designed with the goal of formulating a cohesive set of demands which will be recommended for integration into the upcoming UW Sustainability Plan.  

Briefly explanation of how the project will meet the requirements and preferences of the CSF:

Environmental Impact

This event is explicitly concerned with the future of the University's sustainability and environmental policies. The topics of the forum will cover a range of actions which the university could undertake. As attendees enter the forum, they will have the opportunity to talk with groups tabling for projects which are already in progress. For example, the Sustainability Curriculum Coalition (SCC) will present on how we have been advocating for changes to the structure of the general curriculum which could provide all students with a more comprehensive understanding of topics in sustainability and how to implement these in their future careers.

After this period everyone will split into groups based on the main themes outlined in the sustainability plan and discuss which action should be the university's top priority. The intent of this structure is to both provide exposure to sustainability projects already in progress and seed discussion for new ideas to emerge at the forum. From these discussions we aim to distill a set of actions that students from a variety of backgrounds can endorse. These are not just ideas but actions which the university must undertake in order to truly embody the ideals of sustainability it extolls. By presenting these as a set of collectively backed demands we foresee that the event could affect real change onto the policies which the administration chooses to pursue in the sustainability plan to be released this Spring. The Forum will create a channel for students to advocate directly to the administration for changes which will positively impact our environment.

Student Leadership & Involvement

This is a 100% student led initiative. The entire project has been envisioned and designed by the members of the Sustainability Credit Coalition. The leads are the group’s officers, Anya Gavrylko, Emma Wilson, and Xavaar Quaranto. The team is composed of additional members of the Sustainability Curriculum Coalition along with service learners from Eco Reps and support from other groups that were in attendance at our Green Husky Coalition. 

At its heart the Sustainability RSO Forum is a project designed for and by students to amplify our voices and empower the student body to advocate for our future. Not only will this event be organized by various student stakeholders on campus, it is being put on by students, for students. It is meant to provide an opportunity for students with various talents and passions to be joined under one roof, offering different perspectives on sustainability.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

This event will be primarily educational, meant to inform everyone in attendance about the UW Sustainability Plan while also bringing new perspectives to the conversation via the various students we will have represented in the space. We are creating this platform to encourage students to support each other, so that we can work together to learn about student vision for the future of sustainability at UW. 

The RSO Forum is fundamentally an event about connecting as many groups as possible to promote collaboration and ultimately enact change on the operation of the university as a whole. While there are already groups dedicated to promoting sustainability and protecting the environment these ideals are ultimately the responsibility of all. Therefore, at the heart of this project is the belief that we must include representatives from across the campus community to ensure the actions we propose are equitable and well informed. 

Seeing as this event depends on a diverse group of students being in attendance, our outreach strategies must match this goal. We have several ideas regarding what our outreach strategy should look like. We need to meet with folks that work in the Ethnic Cultural Center to see if they will get the word out among students they serve about the forum. We need to reach out to all ASUW commissions and offices about what the event is and why they should send a representative. We need to put as many posters in as many different buildings on campus as we can afford to and come up with a strategy for equitably completing this task. We need to work with Disabilities Services Office to ensure that our event is accessible to any student who might want to come. Finally, we must constantly be open to new ideas regarding our outreach strategy and be consistently asking ourselves how we can reach more students. 

In bringing together the university community in a single space to focus on these issues the ultimate goal of this event is to enact behavior change on an institutional level. Our aim is to outline a student written agenda of actions we want the University to undertake. We foresee that individual ideas or actions proposed in our agenda will in turn have cascading effects on the University as a whole, if implemented into the UW Sustainability Plan. For example, implementing the SCC’s proposal to integrate sustainability across the curriculum could have far reaching impacts on the way graduates understand topics in sustainability and interact with them in their lives and careers. By bringing the force of the combined students body’s attention to address these pressing issues this event could be the catalyst to create an equitable path forward for the University of Washington Community to truly be able to say, “sustainability is in our nature”.

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability

In preparation for the RSO Forum leads Anya Gavrylko, Emma Wilson, and Xavaar Quaranto have worked together since last spring to coordinate several smaller events to develop planning and preparation skills. These include a presentation on institutional Sustainability across the Curriculum featuring a faculty member from the University of Vermont and a meeting of the Green Husky Coalition, an umbrella group where different groups interested in sustainability can meet and collaborate. Building from our experience with these events we are ready to scale up to a larger venue and a wider audience. We also hope to work with a larger group of very qualified people to make this event successful. 

We have already implemented strategies for keeping each other accountable within the Sustainability Curriculum Coalition, and we plan on maintaining these strategies throughout the planning process. We assign and complete tasks using a spreadsheet, we have weekly check-in meetings to ensure we are not taking on too much, and we set goals with each other for when tasks will be completed. We were able to successfully put on two events this quarter while maintaining tabling engagements and regularly scheduled meetings. 

By encouraging attendees to write down their ideas as they discuss and identifying their most important ideas, we will gather an informal survey of the topics which our audience feels is most critical. After the Forum concludes we will condense these into a Student Sustainability agenda which we will send back to attendees for revision and approval. Students will be able to sign this as a show of support so it can ultimately be presented to the university for inclusion into the UW Sustainability Plan.

This is the first of several follow ups to make sure the ideas we gather retain their momentum. We also want to maintain quarterly meetings open to all students who want to continue to collaborate on all things regarding UW sustainability. The SCC has plans to shift into being a group focusing most of our efforts on creating a united effort with various student groups to improve environmental and social sustainability on campus.

Estimated Project Budget

Because this event is primarily designed to generate discussion and ideas the material costs are limited to promotional material, supplies such as whiteboards to facilitate conversation, and overhead such as the building fee.

• Intellectual House ($144 per 4 hours, already booked)
• Printing Marketing Materials (≈ $230)
• Approximation for signs, large posters, sandwich boards, flyers, etc.
• Native Plants Seedlings & Planting Materials ($50)
• Seed mix ($30): https://www.bulkwildflowers.com/pnw-wildflower-seed-mix.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIheyFgJSi5gIVD_5kCh0z5gRQEAQYAyABEgLnwPD_BwE
• Seed bomb base ($20 for 200 seed bombs): https://www.amazon.com/Our-Finest-Seed-Bomb-Matrix/dp/B00H138SAI/ref=pd_sbs_86_1/134-0731872-8983307?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00H138SAI&pd_rd_r=4f130007-f02c-4333-9b49-52ec63b11359&pd_rd_w=vaEY2&pd_rd_wg=d3SZR&pf_rd_p=5873ae95-9063-4a23-9b7e-eafa738c2269&pf_rd_r=W6QF2EJGNFXAJ523JS9R&psc=1&refRID=W6QF2EJGNFXAJ523JS9R
• Small brown paper bags to take home seed bombs for 200 people ($15)
• Student photographer ($90)
• Large Rip off Post-Its 
  $40 for two pack, but perhaps we can get them from somewhere on campus: https://www.amazon.com/Post-Sticky-Premium-Sticking-559/dp/B00006IA9F
• Name tags x 200 ($10)
• Sharpies 
  $6 for a pack of large sharpies, but perhaps we can obtain from somewhere else on campus: https://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Permanent-Markers-Chisel-Classic/dp/B00006IFIA/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=large+sharpies&qid=1575674823&s=office-products&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=1-3
• Poster ($12)

Project Timeline

Weekly: SCC Meetings to share updates and evaluate goals (once a week for one hour)

• Early December
  • Organize groups for graphic and initial idea designs 
    • (Canva Projects (to be done over Winter Break)
  • Research Catering options for event
• December 5
  • Funding
    • CSF/SEED
• December 10
  • Decide/Reserve Venue 
  • Begin outreach to potential professional facilitators and those working on the Sustainability Plan
• December 15
  • Finalize supplies needed for event 
    • Rent out projector
    • Sound equipment if needed
    • Large whiteboard
    • Native Plant Seeds
• Mid December
  • Finalize promotional details
  • Increase access for info
    • Facebook outreach
    • Posters
    • Draft emails to guest list
    • Contact Staff/Faculty on campus
    • Photographer from the Daily
    • Contact Burke museum email list
    • Point of contact with other schools
• Late December
  • Create RSVP
  • Publish Facebook page 
• January 6-10 
  • Outreach to RSOs on campus and invitations 
  • Meetings with as many groups as possible
    • ECC
    • ASUW Offices
  • Begin Formal Outreach (Beginning of January)
    • Emails to guest list
    • Send out physical invitations perhaps
    • Put up posters
• Early January
  • Finalize any additional volunteers 
• January 27th 
  • Day of the actual event from 6-8 PM!

Summary:

Project Indoor Farm (IF) consists of a team of students and community members aiming to create a more sustainable campus food system through indoor urban farming. In 2018, with a generous grant from the University of Washington Campus Sustainability Fund, we began work on Phase I, a feasibility study. Most of the grant funding went towards successfully setting up the indoor farm in Condon Hall, which included a hydroponic system with 32 vertical growing towers and LED lights, a seedling rack with germination and seedling trays, and other equipment. In addition, the feasibility study has thus far produced operation protocols, a formal website (https://projectifuw.wixsite.com/projectif) with social media platforms (https://www.instagram.com/projectifuw/) (https://www.facebook.com/projectifuw/), a user-instruction software called Aquarium (https://www.aquarium.bio), and over 130 lbs. of buttercrunch lettuce. We have had the opportunity to donate a large portion of our product to the local University District Food Bank and have engaged in outreach by attending local sustainability events. In recent months, we have had the privilege of meeting with students and faculty members, and provided tours of our farm to different classes with the goal of increasing engagement and awareness of the benefits of urban farming on campus. As we are completing our Phase I feasibility study, we are preparing for the Phase II of the development of Project IF. For Phase II, our project will have two primary elements: Production and Education.

Sustainable Impact:

For Phase II, we aim to create a sizable on-campus farm to provide a supplemental amount of leafy greens and herbs to dining halls, cafes, such as the Husky Grind and Cultivate, and food banks on campus. According to the UW Housing and Food Services, the UW main campus serves about 20,000 meals a day. Sourcing food locally from Project IF would cut down food transportation costs, consumed packaging, be a secure stream of produce, improve quality and freshness, with the overall goal of reducing UW’s carbon footprint. With a larger space and more resources, we also hope to produce a wider range of leafy greens and herbs, from buttercrunch lettuce to arugula to mint. While more product would be grown, our hydroponic system offers a sustainable alternative to traditional farming methods to produce higher yields with fewer resources. Our goal with Phase II is to maximize the positive impact of indoor urban farming on the UW community.  

Education, Outreach, and Behavior Change: 

Our Phase II Education component will focus on providing education and research opportunities to students who are interested in learning about indoor urban farming. Most recently, we have been collaborating with Professor Eli Wheat and Professor Sean McDonald within the Program of the Environment. We will be featured in Dr. Wheat’s ENVIR 240 Urban Farm curriculum this spring and have plans to provide students with the opportunity to conduct a small research project for honors/independent study credit. Project IF will also be listed as an available project in Dr. McDonald’s senior capstone series this upcoming spring. We will also continue giving tours of our farm to classes such as Professor Julie Johnson’s Climate Changed Urban Agriculture studio LARCH 501D, and on a more informal basis to interested students.

We see Project IF as an intersection of many disciplines. From agriculture and environmental science, to urban planning and public policy, to production planning and logistics, we welcome students from all majors. Our goal is to help students to apply their passion to our indoor farm. We are excited to see our indoor farm project incorporated into UW’s curriculum and be an opportunity for students to apply what they are learning to shape their own local food system, enrich their experience at UW, and ultimately promote sustainability.

Leadership & Student Involvement:

Our farm is well equipped with personnel to complete this project. Currently, we have 10 undergraduate students, two postdocs, and three external volunteers. Students have primarily been recruited from UW’s CoMotion’s Start-up Career Fairs in 2018 and 2019. Our group is divided into three teams: business, operations, and outreach. Kurt Kung, a Postdoc in BioEngineering, leads the business team. Zach Schneeweis, an external volunteer, heads the operations team. Katie Smith, another external volunteer, oversees the outreach team. 

The vision is to pass down the farm’s responsibilities to students and have the farm be student-led, with minimal consultation and oversight from a permanent staff. To our knowledge, this would establish the first indoor urban farm at a university that is run by students.

Feasibility & Accountability:

Currently, Project IF has received support from undergraduate/graduate students, professors and administrators within the College of Environment, College of Built Environment, College of Engineering, UW Farm, UW CSF, and UW Facilities. As aforementioned, we have plans to become a class-accredited lab for students, provide guest lectures/tours, and give our produce to local establishments. We have also created relationships with companies such as Anything Aquaponics’ (http://anythingaquaponics.com/about/) founder Seth Connell, a large proponent of Project IF. We have also collaborated with ZipGrow, a manufacturer of hydroponic equipment and were even featured on their social media platforms(https://www.facebook.com/pg/BrightAgrotech/posts/?ref=page_internal). We have also worked with the Seattle Seeds Company, Upstart University, and GrowGeneration in sourcing seeds, educational materials, and growing equipment. 

We have a grand vision of developing a sizable farm and using this space to create opportunities for the UW community. Based on Phase I of Project IF, we estimate that we will require more than $300K to achieve our goals. More specifically, we request a third ($100K) of the total funding from CSF. Given that our farm is dependent on grants, we plan to apply the fund-matching strategy, and if awarded, hope to leverage this money to other parties, such as HFS and/or the USDA.

As Project IF continues to grow, we ultimately hope the UW community can enjoy fresh greens, help strengthen UW’s role as a leader of environmental sustainability, and act as a natural platform for the advocacy of food sustainability.

Situated just north of Anderson Hall on the UW campus exists the ‘Island Grove;’ a forested plot of land with a unique potential not found elsewhere on campus. The site has been left largely unmanaged since it was clear cut circa the Alaska-Yukon Exposition of 1909, meaning that several of the larger trees are more than a century old. With its great blue heron rookery, towering tree canopy, largely undisturbed soil, and proximity to scenic Rainier Vista, the newly established Heron Haven restoration site can serve as a prime destination for biophilia and environmental stewardship on our increasingly urban campus.

In an age where carbon sequestration and biodiversity are of the utmost importance, the university has the capacity to improve in both. Though historically the campus was a climax coniferous northwest forest, the old-growth trees and thriving fauna have since disappeared, leaving many ecological niches largely unfilled. Most unmanaged spaces on campus have become dominated by a dense mat of Hedera hibernica (commonly referred to as English ivy). Invasive species like English ivy, spurge laurel, cherry laurel, Himalayan blackberry, hedge maple, English hawthorn, and Italian arum have smothered Heron Haven along with many other areas of campus. Removal of invasive species is the first step in revamping Heron Haven, with the removal process being roughly 33% complete to this date; the site will be largely clear of invasives by Spring of 2020. These species limit biodiversity, lack student engagement opportunities, and harbor health hazards such as broken glass and needles. This project aims not only to restore the native plant life to Heron Haven, but to also set a precedent for how spaces on campus should be managed and stewarded by the people who call it: its students. 

Work will be accomplished through my restoration ecology capstone course, and SER sponsored work parties. As the Volunteer Coordinator for the UW campus’ chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration, and future President for the 2020-2021 school year, I am dedicated to getting students involved throughout the project. In order to protect the investment in plantings, future SER officers will act as stewards for the space, coordinating volunteers to continue spot removal of invasive species and caging of vulnerable native plants. Several UW Grounds Crew Leads and other faculty are also committed to applying essential upkeep, further efforts to restore the site. As time passes, the maturation of the site’s forest will allow students to experience a thriving native landscape, providing them with both research opportunities and an environment that acts as a respite from school. Future management could include mini-grants for research on topics such as how the site’s ecology has shifted over time, and hopefully introductions of rare flora and fauna.  Students in SEFS, L ARCH, and ESRM require an urban forest to conduct research on campus; plant identification courses for example could finally have a place to learn native species names. Ornithology students could have a place to study birds that aren’t usually attracted to campus, and passersby can become immersed in a taste of the ecoregion that surrounds them. There are few outdoor spaces on campus that have the potential for such widespread benefit to the university’s population than can be found in Heron Haven. 

The primary feature of Heron Haven, is the great blue heron population that has nested in the bigleaf maple trees for decades. Designing a space beneath the maples where spectators can quietly observe the herons is a necessity for the rookery’s wellbeing. The bigleaf maples which the herons call home have a lifespan that will likely come to an end within the next decade. To ensure the continued presence of the great blue heron population on site, invasive species must be removed and young bigleaf maples must be planted as soon as possible. Otherwise, the environment supporting the great blue heron rookery will continue to degrade, and the rookery will be forced to find a home elsewhere. A large douglas fir on the northeast corner of the site stands as a reminder of how large even relatively young native conifers can grow, and acts as one of the cornerstones in the project. The area beneath the tree will be referred to as the forest room, and will be planted densely with native plants that thrive in our forest ecosystems. The plan is to install a round bench in the forest room as a spot of quiet reflection immersed in greenery. The bench will be built in a Built Environment furniture studio using lumber from the campus wood salvage program. Salvaged wood will also be used throughout the site for creating woody debris habitat for small birds, pollinators, and the small population of salamanders. The forest room, heron rookery, and trail network will feature the most interesting and dense plantings. The periphery areas will be planted less dense, with some already containing pockets of native species. Plants for the project will be acquired mostly through the SER nursery, with some of the rarer species coming from local nurseries and specialty growers. The majority of the funding will go toward purchasing plants at roughly $1.50 a sq ft. in the approximately 37,000 sq ft. site. Labels will tentatively be added to plantings along trails, stating their common names, scientific names, ethnobotanical uses, and names used by local indigenous peoples (if permitted by clubs associated with the Intellectual House). 

By the end of the 2021 school year, I hope to leave Heron Haven in a condition that allows it to be used by students well into the future for both recreation and educational purposes. As the university urbanizes further, restoring ecological functions of ‘urban oasis’ such as these is essential to keeping increasingly rare species like great blue herons on campus. The funding of this project will enhance the Heron Haven’s ability to benefit student research, act as a space to fulfill course objectives, allow students to immerse themselves in a native forest, provide wildlife habitat, and demonstrate sustainable landscape practices on the UW Campus.

Thank you for your consideration,

Nikoli Stevens

Dear Campus Sustainability Fund,

Our interdisciplinary team of University of Washington students, faculty, Miller Hull built environment design professionals, and KPFF engineers would like to share with you this LOI regarding a proposal to create a new on-campus regional stormwater treatment facility.

This San Juan Basin Regional Water Quality Facility, which KPFF is currently working with Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and the University of Washington to design would serve a basin of ~34 acres which consists both of University-owned land and CIty right-of-way, discharging to a 42 inch UW-owned storm outfall to Portage Bay. Runoff from the existing basin is currently untreated, and future development within the basin would only exceed thresholds for onsite stormwater management (OSM) – not water quality (WQ) treatment. KPFF is in the process of quantifying pollutant removal of OSM and WQ treatment in a comparable way to illustrate that the benefits of a regional WQ facility would provide immediate, ongoing, and measurable benefits far beyond those of OSM. The proposed regional facility will be located just upstream of the existing outfall; a flow-splitter will be installed on the existing stormwater conveyance system, diverting flow to an abandoned concrete flume historically used in conjunction with the teaching lab for civil engineering classes. Bioretention soil, plants, and necessary infrastructure will be installed within that flume.

The creation of this new campus regional stormwater treatment facility in concert with the new Health Sciences Education Building offers a synergistic opportunity to grow transdisciplinary campus involvement around the interconnections of environmental and human health and well-being and deepen interdisciplinary sustainable campus research and education opportunities.. Key stakeholders in this project include the University of Washington, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Department of Landscape Architecture (L.Arch), Miller Hull, KPFF, and Seattle Public Utility (SPU).

Our core project team includes Professor Amy Kim who as a faculty adviser will be responsible for overseeing sampling, analysis, and CEE student researchers. Erin Horn, PhD student of Dr. Kim, will play a large role in sampling, analysis, and supervision of undergraduate researchers. Undergraduate researchers will present their work at the annual UW Undergraduate Research symposium. Dr. Jessica Ray, CEE, will also advise, bringing expertise on selective removal of contaminants in stormwater with low-cost composites. Dr. Brooke Sullivan, will serve as a faculty liaison in the Department of Landscape Architecture for the project and will oversee a Research Assistant for 2019-2020. The RA will also serve as a course TA and will be responsible for collating the results of the course, data and design/management solutions, into a white paper demonstrating the role the new facility played in student education in ecological design and planning. Chris Hellstern, Miller Hull, brings extensive experience in sustainable architecture including two certified Living Buildings. Puja Shaw, PE, will be the civil engineering project manager and will be responsible for coordinating with UW students and staff, permitting agencies, and the project design team while also overseeing the technical design of the facility. Kara Weaver will be the landscape architecture project manager and will work with UW students and staff, permitting agencies, and the project design team to help integrate the facility into its campus context and to develop soil strategies and planting palettes. KPFF and Miller Hull will invite students to project meetings, offer office visits, conduct building/site tours, provide internship opportunities, and speak about the project in classes.

This facility will serve as an ongoing resource for students in the Department of Landscape Architecture who will be provided with the opportunity to assess existing conditions, develop conceptual design alternatives and participate in long-term monitoring and adaptive management. Designs will be required to facilitate at least one of two potential program elements by developing conceptual plans for 1) growing edible plants, and/or 2) for growing native plants to remediate water quality issues. During Spring 2020, through LArch 463, Ecological Design and Planning (~50 students), an inaugural cohort of will be introduced to the site and the project. Students will have the opportunity to work with GGN and Kara Weaver PLA to develop design alternatives, which will further provide opportunities for students to network and expand their understanding of professional practice in ecological design and planning projects.

Regular water quality sampling at the bioswale intake and output will be performed with subsequent analysis to characterize stormwater pollutant profiles and bioswale treatment efficacy. Stormwater pollutant profiles will consist of analyses of trace organic compounds, trace metals and nutrients (e.g., ammonium and phosphate) which are commonly found at elevated concentrations in stormwater runoff in urbanized areas. Stormwater pollutants will be quantified and characterized using advanced analytical instrumentation in the CEE analytical center, the Department of Chemistry Mass Spectrometry Facility, and the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute. If a reduction in contaminant load is necessary, the CEE graduate student will apply low-cost pyrolyzed biomass product (i.e., biochar) as a soil amendment to passively absorb trace contaminants in stormwater runoff. The biochar will be prepared using a portion of compost food wastes from UW cafes and dormitories, and characterized under the supervision of Professor Ray who has experience in the required surface chemistry and materials characterization techniques.

The project will also be shared broadly with undergraduate students in CEE through integration into existing courses such as CEE 429 (Sustainability in Building Infrastructure) taught every year by Dr. Kim.

Thank you for your consideration of this exciting project! Please find a brief overview of our prospective timeline and budget below, with additional detail available upon request.

Timeline

• Construction scheduled to start Summer 2020

Budget

• Material (KPFF + Miller Hull) overall permanent material cost * 50% = $48,500
• L.Arch graduate student~ $6,600
• Water filters (capital investment) = $10,000
• WQ testing = $1,000
• Equipment = $1,500
• Lab supplies = $1,000
• CEE PhD student, 2 summers 2 credits ~ $25,000
• Two CEE undergraduate students, 100 total hours each~ $11,600
• Conferences- partial support for 2 years at AASHE or similar = $6,000

Preliminary Estimated Total ~ $106,200

Our goal is to develop online content for the UW First Year Programs website that shares information about self-compassionate parenting in the transition to college. Content will be focused on parenting skills supportive of self-compassionate responses to challenges, grounded in the three core components of self-compassion: mindfulness, connection to a common humanity, and self-kindness. Specifically, we seek to address the following two aims:

Aim 1. Material development. In partnership with University of Washington students and parents, we will develop a single session group behavioral intervention for parents of entering undergraduate students that addresses parenting behaviors supportive of student self-compassion in the transition to college.

Aim 2. Pilot evaluation. Conduct a pilot effectiveness-implementation evaluation of the materials. Mixed methods data collection will be employed, with all parents completing pre- and post-session surveys, and a subset of parents participating in qualitative interviews about their experience. Data will inform subsequent adaptations and broader dissemination and evaluation. We will use this data to determine whether adaptation to different formats (e.g., online delivery for parents unable to attend the in-person Parent Orientation) is appropriate.

Our project aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals of good health and well-being, quality education, reduced inequalities, and peace, justice, and strong institutions. Mental health is important and is challenging to prioritize when in school, as other responsibilities seem to take precedence. We want to share these stories to uplift students and let them know that they are not alone when they experience challenges or setbacks that impact their education. We want to help students spread positivity, understanding, community, and most importantly, support. In addition, all students are deserving of a quality education and a big part of learning how to cultivate quality for students is to hear from them. Stories are data, and they are key to piecing together the whole picture of how students of color navigate the University of Washington. This can in turn help the University see where and how there is room for improvement. Improvement can then lead to reduced inequalities.

The project will bring people together at an event where it's safe to share opinions, generate ideas to improve the campus culture, and learn new concepts. Since the existence of disability is a normal part of the human experience, and most of us will be impacted by disability in our lifetime (in ourselves, our family, our friends and colleagues) the project seeks to embrace both the common humanity and diversity around us. The events, knowledge base article, and supported replications will further campus understanding of disability identity and that diversity includes disability.

Capillaries works within the genre of narrative medicine, a movement which invites healthcare providers and patients to reflect on their experiences using writing and art and to develop appreciation for the inherent humanity in all people. We are expanding awareness of and participation in narrative medicine at UW, encouraging undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff -from all departments, not just in medicine -to share their stories with us. Since February 2018, we have worked towards reducing the stigma against discussing mental health, shame, disordered eating, suicide, sexual assault, and our most vulnerable and often silenced experiences. We have also sought to uplift the voices of populations marginalized by our fractured healthcare system by collaborating with the Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Research, and Practice (CHSIE), the UW School of Medicine's Narrative Medicine Interest Group, and the Seattle-King County Clinic. Thus far, we have produced four quarterly publications, each with more pieces submitted than the last. This increase in submissions indicates the need for a permanently available space to engage with narratives of diverse healing processes. We look forward to serving as this much needed space in the 2019-2020 academic year. We will be gathering stories for Autumn 2019, Winter 2020, and Spring 2020 publications and will share these narratives with the greater community through an updated website, print copies of the journal, and at our quarterly open-mic events.

This project will utilize low-cost and open-source technologies such as the Raspberry Pi single-board computer and near-field communication to create a modular interactive exhibit for use by oral history projects. Inspired by other community-based oral history kiosks, this project will expand on their work to create a ready-to-install software package with accompanying modular kiosk designs so that any oral history or public history organization can create an interactive exhibit that features their work with very little monetary investment.

The kiosk will be designed with equity in mind, from wheelchair accessibility and transcripts, to braille and sensory considerations. Its modular design would allow for a degree of mobility to assist with outreach at libraries, schools or conferences. As part of our prioritization of accessibility, we will aim to lower the technical knowledge requirements necessary to reproduce and maintain this model, creating a software package that is not only easy to access, but easy to use. The digital package will be made freely available online, including the core Raspberry Pi operating system image, plans for a kiosk and a manual.

This will be the first phase of a larger project planned at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, exploring new ways to share narratives surrounding the Hanford Nuclear Development Site and peoples affected by plutonium processing, including radiation exposure during production, storage, and purposeful releases into the atmosphere. For decades, communities across Washington and worldwide have been affected by the radioactive materials processed at Hanford. From the downwind farmers, Indigenous tribes of Eastern Washington and Hanford Site workers, to those affected by bombs containing plutonium refined at Hanford that were dropped in the Marshall Islands and Japan, the stories of peoples affected by radiation provide valuable lessons about ethical science, environmental conservation, and public health crises. Creating new venues to amplify these voices can help promote healing and understanding, as well as the missions and educational goals of the Burke Museum and the University of Washington.

UW-Seattle's Expository Writing Program (EWP) helps prepare over 5000 students each year with critical literacy, research, writing, and communication capacities that are essential for successful participation across the academy and in public life. Our program seeks to help students engage in writing as a means of social action; develop ethical communication practices; and understand and be responsible for the consequences of language use for diverse communities. Building on our program's longstanding history of engaging undergraduate students in public and community-based writing courses, we will develop and pilot courses that engage the City of Seattle's Race & Social Justice and Equity & Environment Initiatives. These public writing courses will ground conversations on urban equity and environmental sustainability within collaborative writing and research projects, some of which will be co-designed with local organizations working to address various interrelated issues, such as housing affordability, environmental justice, education, food security, and transportation in Seattle. Developing the creative and critical problem-solving capacities required to respond to such public problems calls for tremendous resilience and emotional strength, as well as interdisciplinary academic knowledges and other wisdoms. Our pilot coursework will be designed to help support such capacities. Our team also plans to offer a workshop for the UW teaching community on our collaboration.

The RepairCycle is a mobile, on-the-spot garment mending service and experience that brings the UW (and Seattle) community together around the universal aspect of clothing--offering a functional service while creating connection and dialogue through a shared activity. By empowering creative and easy-to-learn mending skills, we are working to transform our local community's relationship with clothing. Ultimately, we believe that garment repair is not just a viable option, but should a delightfully designed experience.

Circular Textiles: There is no straightforward way to recycle textiles. The result is one garbage truck of textiles wasted every second, or 92 million tons of solid waste dumped into landfills every year. Disrupting this wasteful cycle and a disposable mindset means taking a long, hard look at the psychology of fashion. Simply put, we need to invest in services and skills that empower us to wear and enjoy the clothing we already own for longer. Which inevitably means, catalyzing a culture of garment repair.

Transforming Trailer: The RepairCycle bicycle trailer is the foundation for service and events. The cart's interior is a simple box with a sturdy floor that can fit a variety of configured elements. The trailer's top unfolds to provide ample, collaborative mending and learning space. The hinged cabinet on the back of the of the trailer detaches, offering room to display educational and event materials, as well as easy-to-access materials storage.

Upcoming Events: Generous support from the UW Resilience Lab Seed Fund will sponsor our 2019-2020 RepairCycle tour and brand. The team will host repair services & creative mending workshops at events across all three UW campuses, the 2019 Seattle Design Festival, and King County sustainability events.

Indigenizing Urban Seattle is a podcast that contextualizes Indigenous environmental knowledge and resiliency from an urban Native lens. It serves as a platform to amplify urban Natives' voices and perspectives in the environmental discourse. We focus on urban Natives currently residing in Seattle--a hub for urban Native resiliency, environmental activism, and solidarity movements.

The "Resilience and Compassion @ Odegaard Pop-Up Events" will engage students in forming community around compassion and resilience, diversity, equity and inclusion, and holistic student wellness. The proposed event series will have a different focus each quarter that ties directly to the theme of resilience, compassion and sustainability:

• Fall Quarter 2019: Resilience and Compassion @ Odegaard: Student Digital Wellness
• Winter Quarter 2020: Resilience and Compassion @ Odegaard: Student Wellness and Equity
• Spring Quarter 2020: Resilience and Compassion @ Odegaard: Student Wellness Resources for Personal, Local & Global Sustainability, in collaboration with UW Student Life partners.

Each pop-up event will include interactive activities (making, crafting, reflection), community-building (conversation starters, encouragement cards, interactive whiteboards), food, and companion resources like book displays and referrals to campus student services. This proposed event series will be done in collaboration with students, with opportunities for student leadership built in to each event

This mini-grant will be used to fund a portion of a larger feasibility study regarding the use of reclaimed water on campus. With support from UW-Facilities and the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, I have spent the last eight months determining the feasibility of reclaiming steam condensate from the campus utility tunnel system. The University has 8.5 miles of subterranean tunnels that serve every building with steam, chilled water, electricity, compressed air, and IT cables. The tunnels have a drain system that collects and conveys the water that is generated as condensate from the steam pipes (formed through humidity or via leaks) as well as groundwater that infiltrates the utility tunnels. Currently, the water is collected through a pipe system and is discharged into the sewer system or the SPU storm conveyance system. Through targeted renovations, it may be possible to reclaim a portion of this water and use it for various services including irrigation, cooling tower, dust control, and, notably, as fill water for Drumheller Fountain.

The use of this water would have several sustainability benefits for the University as well as major policy implications. The University would decrease its water use, sewer loading, and waste discharge into Lake Washington – reducing carbon emissions, CSO contributions, and pollutant loading into local water bodies. To my knowledge, groundwater has not been used as a reclaimable water source. Groundwater collection is subject to water rights permitting, but managing incidental groundwater collection is the responsibility of the land owner. Therefore, the groundwater infiltrating the utility tunnels would be considered incidental; in theory, it could be reclaimed and repurposed, which would be unprecedented.

The overall feasibility study is investigating the use of this reclaimed water for Drumheller Fountain. Over the course of this study, I have evaluated the existing Fountain and tunnel infrastructure, determined the local hydrology and annual water table levels, identified city and state codes that could govern the use of this water, detailed treatment requirements, presented several construction options, detailed the financial and environmental benefits of the renovation, and drafted an education & outreach plan. In addition, I have been managing a longitudinal study on the water quality of Drumheller Fountain – measuring weakly pH, conductivity, nutrient concentration, algae content, turbidity, and presence of Daphnia (a small crustacean that is indicative of mesotrophic and eutrophic water bodies). This research has been supported in-kind by the Lakes Lab in the CEE department. With the water quality data from Drumheller, I will be estimating the possible impacts of adding the reclaimed water to the Fountain. I would be happy to share this document with the Campus Sustainability Fund once completed.

One of the last stages of this feasibility study will be to analytically determine the chemical composition of the reclaimed water. We have preliminary data on the chemical additives that the Power Plant puts into the steam system (non-toxic polymers to prevent pipe scaling and microbial growth), but we need to know the minerals present in the groundwater. I will be collecting a one-liter sample of the drain water during the week of April 22nd – 26th. We would like to analyze this sample collected from the underdrain system for the following elements: arsenic, barium, chromium, lead, copper, cadmium, mercury, nickel, and iron. We plan on running the samples on the Inductively-coupled mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) owned and operated by the CEE department. The Lakes Lab has made several in-kind financial contributions to this project (materials, equipment, technical support, etc.), but I would like to use my own funding for the use of the ICP-MS. The feasibility of using this water is dependent on the chemical composition, and the treatment system will be designed based on the relative concentrations of these heavy metals (if they are present).

There are four financial components for this research: the cost of acquiring a standard for the ICP-MS (a sample with known concentrations of elements), several centrifuge tubes, the rental time for the ICP-MS, and staff time for operating the machine. I am also requesting a small contingency (~10%) as a safety factor for additional equipment, time overruns, and other unexpected costs. All unused funds will be returned to the CSF. Through conversations with the CEE administration, the best method for using these funds would be “option 1” noted in the AARF form – charging our expenses against a CSF-assigned PCA code. Please see the AARF form for the CEE budget code. In total, I am requesting $400, which has been itemized on the attached budget sheet.

The sample analysis will commence upon approval by the CSF. I am targeting a completion of this feasibility study by the end of May (before my graduation). My feasibility study will be presented to UW Facilities, the CEE department, the UW Green Building Subcommittee, and other entities that are determined applicable.  I would gladly present this effort to CSF as well. For future student involvement, I plan on involving a junior-level CEE student to continue communication with UW Facilities. The education and outreach components of this funded project will coincide with the section included in the overall feasibility study. The portion of this project funded by CSF will not have any additional components after the one-time analysis; there will be no ongoing costs for maintenance or support.

Although research projects are usually not supported financially by the CSF, I believe this project is an exemption. If it can be shown that the groundwater and condensate mixture is reclaimable, there will be far-reaching impacts for the University and for state-wide water policy. The University could retrofit the underdrain system to collect the water rather than discharge it, using the water for irrigation, an auxiliary source for Drumheller, or a whole host of other non-potable options. Given the short timeline of this project, I have elected to apply to the Campus Sustainability Fund rather than an R&D program because I believe this project supports the requirements, preferences, and overall mission of the CSF.

Thank you for your consideration,

Alex Ratcliff

Sustainable Impact:

1. Reduce waste and consumption (reduce carbon emissions at the point of production)
2. Engaging the Khmer community and involving the Khmer community both on campus and off campus (incorporation and collaboration with environmental activists)
   1. Start of a ripple- to reconnect our roots with the environment that we have lost
3. “Venerable Prenz Sa-Ngoun and I have been discussing the idea of exploring environmental issues in the Khmer communities here in the Pacific Northwest. For me, environmental issues includes topics like environmental/public health, social and emotional wellness, connecting to the land and our food, and so much more. Prenz began with teaching the grandmas at his temple about reducing plastic bag use (yay, re-useable bags) and I have been at Mt Baker Village teaching residents about how to sort out their waste properly and reduce how much we are collectively sending to a landfill. Our interests have merged into this idea - សាធុ (Sadhu) for Green - to engage young Khmer people, their families, our community in awareness and action for environmental wellness. My hope is that by approaching "environmentalism" with cultural pride and a justice-oriented lens, we will push the boundaries of the environmental field, and foster healthy homes (inside and outside) for our Khmer community.

Leadership & Student Involvement:

1. NYS is a student run event that anticipates up to 700 guests
2. KhSA members and officers make the body of the sustainability committee, and other leadership organizing teams for this event
3. Student volunteers will assist in food distribution, set up, and educating people on sustainability by guiding proper waste disposal (will have volunteers stationed at trash bins, responsible for refilling water dispensers

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change:

1. (see above volunteers)
2. Raising consciousness and awareness about waste production and how to develop accountability with small steps
3. Encouraging the use of bringing water bottles to refill at water stations (unlike previous years with water bottles and soda cans) - also healthier with juice alternative

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability:

1. To start a legacy of sustainable and have that continue in future years
2. Inspiring sustainable practices among other people
3. Very easy to implement, just need the funds to purchase equipment

Budget and exact numbers are included in the Excel document, our budget administrator will be emailing his part as well.

The Sustainable Impact of this project will be focused on social sustainability and engagement, as this project is a panel discussion on the potential impacts of policies from a Green New Deal (summarized in the bullet points below). The panel will discuss what types or policies may be implemented at the federal and state level and how that may affect our state funded university and campus sustainability plan. For example, during this legislative session here in Washington State there are three bills that address clean energy infrastructure and transportation, energy efficiency in the built environment and environmental justice for front line communities. Part of the discussion may include how these state policies or others like them at the federal level may impact our campus sustainability plan and communities here Washington.

The goals of the Green New Deal are:

• to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers;
• to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States;
• to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century;
• to secure clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment for all people of the United States for generations to come; and
• to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, de-industrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.

The Leadership & Student Involvement of this Project is founded on student collaboration between Green Evans - the environmental student RSO for the Evans School of Public Policy, student members of the Climate Justice Caucus of the Graduate Student Union UAW 4121 and UW students of the Seattle Chapter of the Sunrise Movement. The project is focused on providing an inclusive space for other students on campus to find out about the Sunrise Movement and how they might get involved with creating a more sustainable future for their communities. We see this event as an opportunity to engage with the Ethnic Cultural Center, students of color and student RSOs who may not see themselves as environmental justice activists, but whose communities have historically been disproportionately impacted by social, economic and environmental inequities.

This panel discussion on the Green New Deal is strongly focused on outcomes of Education Outreach and Behavior Change. It will educate students about the intersecting social, economic and environmental issues addressed by the Green New Deal and give students a sustainable framework to understand the challenges we face as a society if we want to create a more just and healthy world. It will engage students through outreach with opportunities to get involved with the Sunrise Movement and the fight for a more sustainable future. There are many levels of involvement for students interested in becoming active in this movement over the next year as Sunrise organizes events to #Change The Debate on climate change. Students will learn how behavior change in our political system can be impacted and transformed by youth activism as the Sunrise Movement and the youth movement in Europe are showing the world.

Feasibility, Accountability & Sustainability Last year, members of this group successfully organized a much larger town hall event in Kane Hall about the I-1631 carbon fee initiative and the history of carbon policies in Washington state more broadly. GreenEvans has a faculty mentor we can call-on if needed, and we have already been in touch with our RSO advisor Christina Coop. Also, we intentionally decided to have this event in a smaller space than Kane Hall (for ~100 people) to make sure we have the capacity among our group members to support this event given that it is just a few weeks away. We will track attendance at the event via sign-in with a laptop into a Google form to understand what majors and departments participated. We are also considering an online exit survey before people leave to gather basic information about the impact of the event.

Taiko Kai’s third annual Spring Concert aims to provide a cultural and educational experience for individuals of all backgrounds through musical performance. Taiko Kai at the University of Washington is a Japanese drumming club that was founded in 2013. Led by students, the club teaches individuals how to play and perform taiko (drums) and various narimono (percussion). The experienced students pass on the movement and the style that was taught to them to continue the expression of this artform in the UW area. The club has grown into a 30-member performing ensemble and is one of the only groups on campus to perform Japanese art. Because of its ever-increasing size and musical ability, Taiko Kai saw the need to put on their first spring concert in 2017. This year, Taiko Kai is continuing the tradition with the third annual Spring Concert. The main goals of our Spring Concert are not only showcasing taiko skills that members have learned this year, but also it is an opportunity for members to plan and participate in a formal performance that will share Asian cultures with UW students and the general public. With so many members, it is difficult to involve all of them without a performance of this scale, making this event a vital part of keeping members engaged with learning the artform.

The primary performers of Taiko Kai’s 2019 Spring Concert will be members of Taiko Kai. The show will feature three other Asian drumming ensembles: Dekoboko Taiko, Seattle University Hidaka Taiko, and UW’s Hanwoollim (Korean drumming). The event will be open to the UW community as well as the general public to attract a variety of audiences. The other drumming groups will not be paid, they are friends of our club and we enjoy helping and including each other in our events.

We will begin promotion at the beginning of spring quarter (4/1/19), using paperless strategies like online videos and banners as well as flyers and posters to garner attention in the UW community. We will table outside the HUB to promote our show from then until the event, selling both student and adult tickets. While we promote our show in the weeks leading up to the big day, we will be preparing goods to sell at the concert. These include Taiko Kai buttons, stickers, and t-shirts, as well as homemade treats like mochi. We will have a dress rehearsal at our venue, Kane 130, on Saturday, April 27, 2019. This will give performers a chance to be on the stage. The following day, Sunday, April 28, is our concert which will be 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

Our club will have to pay Kane Hall for the two reservations (rehearsal and performance), which will cost $2430. We are also expecting to pay ~$450 for printing costs of promotional material and audience material. The grant would be used to help us afford Kane Hall and some of the printing fees.

With your help, we would like to continue the tradition of the Taiko Kai Spring Concert in order to facilitate personal growth of members and to promote cultural diversity in the UW student body and beyond.

Matsuri, which means "festival" in Japanese, is the Japanese Student Association's annual event where we showcase the diversity of Japanese culture with Japanese food, games, and performances. We have put on this event for more than 10 years, offering a place where the greater Seattle community can connect with each other through the rich culture of Japan.  Along with the many foods that we sell, we create a lot of waste in the form of plates, utensils, napkins, and water bottles, among others. As a culture, Japanese society has increased its efforts to protect the environment through more efficient waste management and better technology to reduce resource consumption. To reflect this, the Japanese Student Association would also like to take the initiative to make our event and our attendees more aware of the environmental impact. As a student led event run primarily by the officers in the RSO and other student volunteers, we hope to begin making this push for a more sustainable event for this Matsuri and all future Matsuri's to come, and through this funding we hope to significantly reduce waste on campus at our 700 attendee event. Not only that, we really strive to educate both our staff and our attendees through volunteer orientations and allocating more volunteers to monitor waste disposal to ensure that all of our new biodegradable ware will be properly disposed.

Although it will be a challenge, we are confident that by working with the HUB and through our own careful planning and budgeting, we will be able to eliminate all plastic waste at our event. Regarding the specific uses of our funding, we plan to utilize our funding on the following based on last year’s spending. Firstly, we will primarily focus on biodegradable tableware and utensils, which we estimate will cost us $800 to purchase the necessary utensils to serve all the guests at the event. This comprises of forks, knives, spoons, flat plates and cups for cold and hot drinks. In addition, we will focus on getting water dispensers to eliminate plastic water bottle waste, which we estimate will cost us $200 to rent. With any remaining money, we will focus on creating signage for the event to help people correctly dispose of their waste during the event which can be reused for all of our future Matsuri events. We will be in touch with our Student Activities Office Advisor to start organizing our orders as soon as funding is approved and hope to confirm orders by latest mid-April.

Our project intends to bring reusable to go containers to dining halls across campus at UW Seattle. This project is being headed by students and leaders of SEED, with support from professional staff. To begin, we would like to use the grant money to start a pilot program to introduce the idea at a smaller scale in only one dining hall in autumn quarter of 2019. This provides an opportunity to see the potential benefits and problems to overcome and give us a good start for expansion into a more comprehensive system.

University of Washington prides themself on being a leader in sustainability. As SEED, we feel that one of the next steps to move forward in sustainability is introducing reusable rather than compostable containers in our dining halls. As of now, with over 45,000 students plus staff, we are creating enormous amounts of waste with to-go containers. Even though the containers are compostable, the sheer amount of compost can be hard to manage. In addition, 50% of the garbage in HFS housing is compostable material according to the 2018 Waste Characterization Study, and one can assume dining has similar levels of contamination. The large amount of contamination in garbage creates two problems. First, it increases the price HFS has to pay to remove all student waste, because compost and recycling do not have a cost attached for removal, while transport to a landfill costs the school. Second, disposable products use up energy and resources, and, if they are not disposed of properly, there is no benefit of seeing them turned into a new product after use. Instead, they only contribute to a growing landfill. The best option is to attempt to reduce this waste before it enters the waste stream, and to do so, washable, reusable containers should be offered as another alternative to go container. Other universities have successfully created a system for reusable containers in their dining halls, including Washington State University, UC Merced, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The containers we would like to use come from a company called Ozzi. The containers are already designed and the process for getting containers distributed is established, there is minimal work for the university in order to start the program on campus. The Ozzi system works in the following way: a student pays a small fee (in the range of $2 to $5) and receives a clean container. The student then uses the container to store and eat food. When the student is finished, they place the container in the Ozzi machine so the barcode can be scanned. The container is deposited into the machine and the student is given a token. This token can be used by the student to receive another to-go container. Thus, the student only has to pay one time for unlimited access to containers throughout the year. When the containers are deposited, HFS staff take them back to clean them along with the rest of the cutlery and dishes. We would purchase the following products: two (2) Ozzi machines in Center Table, 2,000 - 3,000 containers (these can be in a wide variety of formats - the pilot program would include the standard, single-entree clamshell), 2,000 tokens, 10 boxes of liner bags, 4 OZZI carts (used to transport the used containers). This will cost approximately $40,000. We hope to purchase the equipment and have staff trained so we can begin the program at the start of autumn quarter 2019.

The idea for this project was initiated by members of SEED and is being lead by Luke Schefke, Director of Communications, and supported by the rest of the executive board. They saw this as a way to reduce waste produced on campus and reduce UW’s contribution to emissions. We have already gained strong support from our partners in HFS, including Clive Pursehouse, Torin Munro, and the rest of the Sustainability Committee who are willing to assist and direct SEED in our efforts as we work towards implementing this system. SEED will also have a large influence in the education of introducing this system, with plans to create posters, have an event with tabling and demonstrations in the dining hall, and have members stationed by the machines to explain the program.

We are applying for a CSF grant because HFS, our community partner, has a mostly predetermined budget. With funding from a grant, this would allow us to see how a system such as this would function, so HFS feels secure in taking a larger financial commitment in the future. The amount that we are requesting would cover the price of the machines, containers, tokens, liner bags, and carts. It would not cover any maintenance or utilities costs, but this is not expected to be significant and can be covered through other means (SEED funds of HFS rebudgeting). By providing this grant, the Campus Sustainability Fund can support a program that improves sustainability across UW and help create a sustainable habits in students for years to come.

Summary of Project

UW’s Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) has been developing and implementing a project focused on the new discipline of ethnoforestry throughout this academic year through a CSF grant. We would like to submit a letter of intent for one more year of funding to continue and expand current projects as well as develop new ones. Throughout this year, the Ethnoforestry project has gained traction and captured the attention of people across campus, creating new partnerships and pushing the boundaries of our understanding of sustainability. Ethnoforestry uses a new model that incorporates both community and environmental wellbeing together in order to achieve sustainability. Through this effort, we have reached out to the UW community and beyond to understand ways we can improve both the wellbeing of our campus and the region. With one more year of CSF Funding, we hope to capitalize on this momentum to engage even more people across campus for this interdisciplinary project.

Throughout this year we have been establishing ethnoforestry garden beds in partnership with UW Grounds and the Intellectual House. What started as a way to integrate some ethnobotanical plants into our campus green spaces has developed into a project with a much larger potential scope. The Intellectual House supports our concept of expanding to many beds across campus, each highlighting tribes from a different region across the state with direct input from tribal students. We would like to use future CSF funding to collaborate with tribal students to determine which plant species they would like to see representing their tribe, install those culturally significant plants in campus garden beds, and organize harvesting events where both tribal and non-tribal students would be able to participate in this applied ethnoforestry work. This would create more opportunities for restoration, volunteer engagement, and creating inclusive spaces where all students can learn in a hands-on and applied way.

As interest in this project continues to spread, we would like to use funding to conduct formalized interviews with UW students, both tribal and non-tribal, to understand ways students respond to and their interest in ethnoforestry. Having a better grasp on the needs of the UW community will inherently help us develop a model of sustainability that meets them. This will ensure that all voices from across campus are heard.

Finally, we would like to use funding to build upon our current work. We would like to expand the number of culturally important plant species being studied and grown at the Center for Urban Horticulture both in the greenhouse and at our raised beds where we are currently working to grow bare root style plants. Additionally, we would like to host workshops at the new ONRC plant nursery being installed in late Spring 2019. This would bring together UW students and the tribal community to learn from one another and grow cultural keystone plant species.

Sustainable Impact

This project will absolutely enhance the sustainability of campus. By expanding our ethnoforestry garden beds, we will be able to highlight culturally important plants from tribes across the region. This will provide a tangible space where all tribal students can see a piece of their home represented on campus, a space that also sits on historic tribal land. Additionally, these campus green spaces are often overrun by invasive plant species. By creating ethnoforestry garden beds, we will remove these plants and replace them with native species that can serve an important ecosystem function. Finally, by conducting student interviews, we will be able to better serve and enhance the experience of all students on campus.

Leadership & Student Involvement

This project has, and will continue to be, a totally student driven effort. If awarded, the grant will be used to fund a Research Assistant (RA) position for a graduate student in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Each quarter, the RA will take on interns who will be able to have a more in-depth and intensive involvement in the project as well as receive credit for their work. The RA will also host capstone students who are interested in answering key ethnoforestry questions. In addition, the RA will offer consistent work parties to generate opportunities for students to get involved.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

Instead of focusing on a formal and classroom based education, we will showcase how ethnoforestry can be directly applied. All students that participate will be learning from this process and can apply it to their own work. We have been growing a consistent volunteer base throughout this year and expect that it will continue if we received funding for next year. This has shown us that there is a need for this type of work on our campus. We anticipate that as students continue to learn from the project, there will be direct benefits and behavior changes.

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability

We have worked hard to lay the groundwork for this project throughout this year. We absolutely believe that is necessary and feasible. We have received support from UW Grounds, the Intellectual House, SEFS, and the College of the Environment’s Deans office. These groups have provided guidance and feedback, helping to keep us accountable and improve our work. We believe that with one more year of funding we will be able to expand our efforts, creating a wider reaching and more inclusive project that inherently changes the way we understand sustainability.

Project Budget

We are requesting $70,000 for this project. This amount would include funding for one Research Assistant position for the 2019-2020 academic year, supplies and signage for our ethnoforestry garden beds, plant production supplies, and transportation to and from the ONRC nursery. We expect to use funds from Fall 2019 through Summer 2020 with the completion of the project scheduled for end of Summer 2020.

Contact Information

Courtney Bobsin
cbobsin@uw.edu

Bernard Bormann
bormann@uw.edu

Frank Hanson
Fsh2@uw.edu

Total Funds Requested from CSF: $9,155.00

Submitted by: Kamaka’ike/Natalie Bruecher, student and Perry Acworth, UW Student Farm, manager

UW Farm

The University of Washington Student Farm (UW Farm) is a student-run farm with three different growing spaces on campus. The proposed project would cultivate native gardens at a vacant growing space at the Mercer Court farm site, (plot 4.0) and renovate a permaculture planting at the Center for Urban Horticulture.

At UW Farm, our mission is to promote the study and practice of urban agriculture and sustainability. With this proposed project, we are working to incorporate food sovereignty values into our vision of sustainable agriculture. This directly addresses social and environmental aspect of sustainability.

Wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ - Intellectual House

The Intellectual House is a longhouse-style facility that serves as a multi-service learning and gathering space for American Indian and Alaska Native students, faculty and staff. The purpose of the Intellectual House is to increase Native American students’ success at UW by preparing them for leadership roles in their tribal communities and the region.

Project Description:

The proposed project will be a collaboration between the UW Farm and the Intellectual House as well as other Native American groups on campus and in the community as we work together to design and plant two gardens of indigenous plants with significance in native food traditions.

Food Sovereignty is defined as “the inherent right of a community to identify their own food system”. As one step towards food sovereignty for the UW community, we hope to help create spaces where students, staff, faculty, and community members can learn about, grow, and consume traditional foods. While the details of garden planning and future events will be driven by our campus and community partners, we envision this project will incorporate educational events, community gatherings, art and storytelling. This project will be a collaboration between UW Farm staff/interns/volunteers, Native student groups on campus, staff and faculty partners, tribal Elders and community members. Campus and community partners will determine the specific design for the native garden.

UW Farm and the Intellectual House will meet with campus partners to discuss the development of this project, and to identify students interested in taking on a leadership role related to organizing and sustaining this project. We then plan to host tribal Elders at a larger ceremony, celebrating the creation of this space. When plant species are chosen, they may be purchased from the Society for Ecological Restoration Native Plant Nursery and local nurseries and seed resources.

Requirements and Preferences:

This project will contribute to biodiversity and restoration by reintroducing native plant species to the UW campus at two of the UW Farm’s growing sites. It will specifically focus on the reintroduction of edible and medicinal plant species, addressing social and environmental sustainability and issues related to food security.

This project will focus heavily on student leadership. UW Farm employs several student workers each year. The farm will hire a Native Garden Liaison position to work directly with members of the Intellectual House. The Intellectual House is able to hire students for Native Garden work. We plan to engage with Native American student groups on campus and envision this space to truly be student-created and led.

This project will focus on engaging Native American campus and community members to share knowledge, stories, song, and tradition among generations. The Native Gardens will also be the site for larger educational events that could bring in students from all backgrounds to learn about food sovereignty, indigenous foods, food security, social sustainability and the history of the Puget Sound land and peoples.

UW Farm has met with partners at the Intellectual House to discuss the feasibility of this project. With the Intellectual House and UW Farm’s ability to devote funds to hire student leaders, we can ensure commitment and continued work on this project in the future. Cultivating gardens on UW Farm’s space also ensures continued maintenance by UW Farm staff and student volunteers.

Timeline and Budget:

• Spring 2019: Submit LOI to CSF committee.
• July 2019: Hold community meeting/ceremony with tribal Elders and on-campus project partners. Lunch provided, gifts provided to Elders. Estimated attendance: 15-35 people. Activities - Storytelling, Educational activities, Initial site designs for Mercer Court plot and the improvement/renovation of the permaculture site at CUH. Estimated cost: $350
• August & September 2019: Finalize garden designs, signage, educational content for websites, plan harvest and cooking events, educational materials design, production and harvest timelines, procurement of plants, purchase of hardscaping materials. Estimated cost $2,700 signage, educational materials, website update, $975 hardscaping, $400 plants
• October & November 2019: Students, volunteers, farm manager and Intellectual house members install native gardens and signage at Mercer Court and CUH. A kick-off event will be held during Dawg Days with storytelling at the Intellectual House and tours of Native garden sites. Estimated attendance, 35-55 people. Over the following 8 weeks, the UW Farm will host 8 work parties to complete the work. Estimated attendance: 50-75 people.Estimated cost: Planting and installation $0.00. Storytelling and harvest event at Intellectual House $550, Harvest Event at UW Farm’s, Farm to Table event, $500.   
• Ongoing, post project completion: Continued involvement of community partners and UW Farm students/interns/volunteers to maintain the garden spaces. Ongoing community events, medicinal and crop harvests and meals, that allow students involved in farming and sustainability to connect with and learn from Native People and learn about the cultivation and significance of indigenous foods. Estimated exposure due to the website information, permanent signage, annual work parties and harvest events: 40,000+ people Estimated cost: Future garden maintenance, plantings and activities will be absorbed into regular seasonal production for the UW Farm and Intellectual House programming. $0.00

Total Funds Requested from CSF: $9,155.00

• Native Garden Liaison: 10 hrs./week during Summer and Fall quarters (23 weeks @ $16/hr.) $3,680
• One-time purchase of materials: $5,475

Background: 

Our goal is to install new 3D bins – displays with physical items instructing people how to sort their trash, recycling, and compost – in the Husky Union Building (HUB)’s food court, the Husky Den. These 3D bins should help UW divert waste from landfills, educate and engage the student body about the waste disposal process and it’s impacts, and ease the burden of maintaining the previous bin displays.  

The Husky Den has ten three-bin (compost, recycling, and trash/landfill) waste disposal stations, each of which has had 3D bin displays for the past few years. The 3D displays have been far more effective than any other form of signage currently used by the UW. A recent study by students in ENVIR 250 found that UW’s 3D displays (referred to in the study as “signs with physical items”) had the highest rate of sorting accuracy of the signage studied. Waste was disposed with 81% accuracy at bins with 3D displays, compared to just 61% accuracy for posters and 68% for videos (Chiado et al.). Despite their effectiveness as educational tools, the 3D displays have been a makeshift, labor-intense operation to maintain. Created by UW staff and students on their own time by sawing plastic bins in half, hot-gluing relevant compost, recycling, and trash materials onto the half-bin, and covering the open front with sheets of polylactic acid, the bins need frequent maintenance. Thus far, the bins have had to be maintained by a single member of the UW Sustainability Office, who cleaned and repaired the bins once a month without pay. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the bins’ open-top design has led students to use the displays as basketball hoops for food items and condiment packages.  

Over winter break of the 2018-2019 school year, HUB custodians took bins down for cleaning and they were thrown away by accident. Because HUB management and Housing and Food Services will not replace the bins, EcoReps would like to take this opportunity to 1) improve the displays by creating more effective and more easily maintained signage and 2) engage the broader UW community in a conversation about the waste disposal process.

Sustainable Impact: 

With our project we are hoping to make a sustainable impact on the UW campus by teaching people about how to recycle and compost waste properly. This project will help our campus to be more sustainable by diverting waste, which the university produces a huge amount of, from going to landfills.  Landfills tend to be located near low-income communities and communities of color. While this environmental justice issue also requires action at the state level, our project will help reduce UW’s contribution to the problem by combatting our reliance on landfills. By diverting waste from landfills, we will also be reducing the chances of situations like contaminating ground water streams with landfill runoff, as well as reducing the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions generated by landfills and transporting waste to landfills. 

Leadership & Student Involvement: 

This project is a student-led project through UW EcoReps. Officers from EcoReps, Julie Tolmie and Christina Cameron, have helped guide us when it comes to reaching out to other people and other organizations, such as UW Recycling and the School of Design, for assistance in our project. 

Our project team includes: 

• Justin Brave 
• Marycela Guzman 
• Tanya Cortes 
• Julie Tolmie 
• Christina Cameron 

Faculty/Staff Member:  

• Erica Bartlett - Project Support Supervisor, UW Recycling 
• Liz Gignilliat - Manager, UW Recycling 

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change: 

The Husky Dens’ waste disposal signage is important to replace because UW draws students, staff, and faculty from across Washington, as well as many from out of state and out of the country. Many may not be familiar with how to dispose of compost in particular. Food waste is not the only area where students, staff, and faculty may be confused. While UW dining locations switched to compostable service wear at all dining locations in 2016, campus education on these materials lags behind. Without proper sorting, the switch is not effective as it could be. While educating students, staff, and faculty about waste disposal is important, students don’t participate in workshops or listen to presentations on correct sorting, making signage at bin stations the primary form of waste education at UW. Improving bin signage is therefore the easiest way to improve waste education on campus.  

Our project will serve as a way to increase awareness and engagement with students, staff, and faculty who use Husky Den on the waste disposal process. Each 3D display case will include facts about the waste cycle – including what happens to trash, recycling, and compost after it’s thrown into a bin, as well as how landfills impact communities and the environment. To extend the reach of these displays beyond the actual stations and reach out to the larger campus, we will work on posters to draw in attention to the new bin displays. The posters will tell the story of how we designed the 3D displays and educate students, staff, and faculty about how the UW’s waste is processed.  

More broadly, this project will show the university’s support for a culture of environmental sustainability on campus. For many, compost, recycling, and trash stations are the most visible sign of UW’s commitment to environmental sustainability.  

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability:   

UW EcoReps is an RSO that has operated at the UW Seattle campus for a number of years, partnering with service learners, regular members, and the UW Sustainability Office to successfully implement environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable projects such as the quarterly Green Husky Market, a market featuring local vendors on Red Square. In addition to UW EcoReps, UW Recycling and the UW Sustainability Office have also shown support for this 3D bin display project. UW Sustainability contributed to the long-time maintenance of the existing bins and UW Recycling has assisted with the design and budget estimating process.  

Reference: 

Chiado J., Savanh L., Shang J, and B. Stroosma. It’s all in the signs: the effect of signage detail on composting accuracy.  

Itemized Budget:

TEDxUofW is a registered student organization established to bring inspirational and informative TED style talks from speakers in the community to the University of Washington. Since 2012, our organization has sought to give amazing speakers a receptive audience to share their passion. Our organization, purely student-run, has six years in a row had a sold-out event, gathering a collection of creative thinkers, scientific minds, community leaders, environmental activists, and many more. Our TEDx conference is one of the largest events on campus and has been a great opportunity to allow students to try their hand in fields of professional interest.

In the past, our conference has hosted multiple environmentally-minded speakers and we continue to strive to create a platform for messages about environmental as well as social sustainability. Given that TEDx was founded to facilitate “ideas worth spreading” including those that promote environmentally-friendly causes, we believe that our project directly aligns with CSF’s mission of fostering an environmentally conscious culture.

Everyone on the TEDxUofW team is extremely passionate about opening up our conference to everyone and anyone, but one limitation standing is the cost of attendance. With your help and sponsorship, we can reduce our ticket prices so we can spread more ideas to students that would have otherwise not been able to attend.Your support will allow us to share our conference with more people as well as continue to spread our message for years to come.

See below for additional information including our budget and other files outlining the details of the event.

Jan 5th, 2019

Justin Ho (justin.ho97@outlook.com)

Summary of Project Proposal:

There are three things TSA would like to accomplish with the funding. First, stop selling bottled water by selling reusable stainless steel or plastic bottles while providing water refill stations. Second, work with vendors to reduce non-recyclable or non-compostable cutlery and plates. Third, educate attendees about the importance of composting through signs and word of mouth.

Sustainable Impact:

The impact the funding will have is two pronged. Night Market inherently is a cultural event and is dedicated to providing an authentic Taiwanese Night Market experience. People from all walks of life are encouraged to attend Night Market and enjoy the good food and games provided. The funding will help to provide a greener Night Market through lasting change to the structure of the event.

The impact is also environmental. Through the first two goals listed in the summary TSA is attempting to create as plastic free of a night market as possible. Reducing or eliminating plastic waste generated by vendors as well as our own bottled water sales will go a long way as the event hosts approximately 9,000 people. Bottled water is also extremely harmful containing toxins while not proving higher quality to treated tap water. Furthermore, bottled water is often unsustainably manufactured through draining of rivers and lakes. These two changes will eliminate over 95% of plastic waste generated by Night Market. The last change of creating signs to place above compost bins will educate people about the importance of composting, and the benefit of backyard composting. Our volunteers and officers will also be well educated about the topic and be able to talk to attendees about the subject.

Leadership & Student Involvement:

TSA is a registered student organization. All sustainability efforts will be led and accomplished through students and volunteers. TSA and its member students will be the backbone of the event and incorporate the outlined sustainability efforts. Students plan and lead the entirety of the event.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change:

TSA will have created an educational element for the attendees through signs and other forms of advertisement conveying what is and isn’t compostable. As well as explaining the advantages of re-using sustainable water bottles over purchasing bottled water. The benefits of backyard compost will be advertised as well.

There is further outreach due to the use of volunteers to supplement our officers. Those volunteers will have participated in Night Market receiving the same exposure to sustainability efforts. All in all, there will be change in the sustainability behaviors of our own officers, the volunteers, and all attendees. Through word of mouth we then hope to reach even more.

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability:

TSA has held an annual Night Market since 2001. This will be the 18th Night Market. In the previous 17 there has been constant improvement and change applied to the Night Market. Each time the officers have been able to adapt to change and pull through. We expect this year to be no different save a few changes to sustainability efforts. TSA has the ability to create a successful event made even greener. Our RSO advisor, Christina Coop, can attest to this. Any potentially awarded money will be used responsibly will a high chance of successful implementation. The future impact will be carried through to all future Night markets and have a lasting influence.

Summary:

In recognizing that current development projects are draining Africa of its natural resources, destroying its ecosystems, and exploiting its peoples, Africa Now is seeking $10,000 to assist in organizing our second annual conference focused on inspiring young Black students and professionals to join the movement for sustainable, afrocentric, African development. By tapping into the network of young, Black students and professionals in Washington, we will bring together an interdisciplinary group of driven individuals to assess how our skills can play a role in the sustainable growth of our common, ancestral homeland.

As this year marks the second year of this on-going conference, we will capitalize on the lessons learned from the inaugural year to make the 2019 conference a resounding success. One of our associated focuses is expanding our reach to increase the number and diversity of attendees. Towards this goal, we have enhanced our social media presence to establish continual channels of communication with our potential attendees. Additionally, we have strengthened existing and developed new relationships with local Black and African organizations (e.g. Africans at Microsoft, the Washington State Coalition of African Community Leaders, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, etc.) to grow our audience to include young African professionals in various disciplines.

Through community outreach and social media, we intend to double last years attendance rates to bring together over 200, young, Black students and professionals. Our goal, at the conference, is to provide these attendees with the insights, knowledge, and resources necessary to envision sustainable ways to improve their communities in Seattle, in Africa, and across the Diaspora. Through an all-star panel, dynamic breakout sessions, and networking, we’ll inspire and equip young Black professionals to fight for a sustainable future for Africa.

The conference will be held at the Intellectual House and Denny Hall on May 20th from 12pm - 6pm. Lunch and refreshments will be provided throughout the day.

Sustainable Impact:

Our primary goal is for attendees to explore strategies for sustainably developing their communities in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora. To Africa Now, sustainability means addressing the environmental, economic, social, and political aspects of Africa’s growth. We want our attendees to recognize that Africa is comprised of numerous, fragile ecosystems; that wealth inequality needs to be addressed urgently; that Africans throughout the Diaspora lack access to crucial health resources and are otherwise at risk; and that many African nation-states are politically unstable due to a history of colonialism and the current, neocolonial, capital-based pressures of foreign imperial powers. It is important, for the purposes of sustainability, that these realities are recognized by our attendees as we join the Fight for Africa’s Future.

Towards this, our conference will provide attendees with the knowledge, information, and resources to have a sustainable impact in their communities. One of our key ways of sharing this information will be through our breakout sessions. There will be four separate workshops taking place concurrently during our two breakout session phases. There will be one workshop dedicated to each of the different axes of sustainability: environmental, economic, social, and political. These sessions will be facilitated by groups or individuals paving a path forward in their respective area of focus. We have already heard from Front and Centered as well as the Releaf CEO, Isaiah Udutong, that they would be interested in hosting workshops for us.

Given their mission statement, “Front and Centered (formerly Communities of Color for Climate Justice) is a statewide coalition of organizations and groups rooted in communities of color and people with lower incomes,” Front and Centered will be a key resource for us when it comes to highlighting the importance of environmental sustainability and what that looks like.

Our other facilitator, Isaiah, is an MIT graduate with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. After graduating, Isaiah returned home to Nigeria where he started Releaf. Releaf is a start-up focused on “employing technology to accelerate agricultural-based industrialization in Nigeria.” Isaiah will bring his experience and expertise to Africa Now by running a workshop focused on using business institutions as vehicles for sustainable, economic development.

Student Leadership & Involvement:

As with last year, the Africa Now conference is organized entirely by African students from around the Seattle Area, primarily UW and Seattle Central College. However, unlike last year, the conference is no longer being hosted by Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. The organizing committee recognized that it allowed us to better achieve our goals by transferring leadership from Phi Beta Sigma to the African Youth Coalition and a handful of Black/African student organizations (Black Student Union, African Student Association, Black Student Commission, etc.). We have also brought in student leaders from non-UW campuses around the area to ensure that we have a diverse group organizing this conference.

Our executive officers represent a variety of departments and student organizations from the Seattle area. The main University of Washington collaborators are the Black Student Commission, Black Student Union, and African Student Association among other Black/African student organizations in Seattle. By working with these various organizations, we will build solidarity among young Africans and establish an interdisciplinary community dedicated to sustainable, afrocentric African development. Furthermore, by collaborating with the CSF, we will be able to ensure that our conference makes sustainability a key outcome of the conference.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change:

By collaborating with a wide variety of Black and African organizations in the greater Seattle area, we will expand our reach significantly to increase the number and diversity of attendees. To enhance these efforts, the organizing board established a new executive position, the Community Engagement Officer. This officer is responsible for coordinating with community organizations to ensure that they and the general public are aware of the conference. Additionally, we will host lead up events to stimulate interest in the campus community and encourage attendance so that they can experience the transformative nature of Africa NOW.

The young Black professionals that attend and actively engage with the conference will likely leave having their lives changed. After the inaugural conference, an attendee said that the Africa Now conference inspired them to not only change their major but their entire career path going forward! The hard work that the volunteers, panelists, and facilitators put into last years conference was felt by those that attended, and they left feeling energized to get more involved in their communities and fight for a just and sustainable future for Africa and the African Diaspora.

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability:

The feasibility of this project is best demonstrated by the first annual Africa Now conference, held in May 2018 with over 100 registered attendees. These attendees discussed ongoing African development with an engaging panel, participated in dynamic breakout sessions, and networked with fellow guests, community leaders, and others during our resource fair; conference guests gained knowledge, inspiration, and resources by attending Africa Now. The 2018 conference and its guests left us with plenty of lessons to learn and momentum to capitalize on to make the 2019 conference a resounding success

Based on last years feedback, we have enhanced our social media presence so that we can be held accountable to our past and present guests. By engaging with attendees, we can ensure that we provide them with the resources necessary to fight for a sustainable future for their communities in Seattle, Africa, and the African Diaspora. To aid our accountability, guests will also complete pre- and post-conference surveys so that we can gauge how successful we were at achieving ours goals.

With last years post conference surveys, we learned that - beyond increasing pre-conference engagement to increase attendance rates - we need to dedicate more energy to providing our conference guests/attendees with more resources so they can immediately get involved in the work of sustainable African development. Additionally, we need to ensure that the structure of our conference lends itself to being as engaging as possible.

Preliminary Budget:

We are requesting $10,000 from the Campus Sustainability Fund to help cover these conference costs.

Outside of the CSF, we will be seeking funding from the Race and Equity Initiative, the ECC Student Event Fund, as well as community organizations (e.g. African Chamber of Commerce) and businesses.

Agenda:

The current conference agenda is as follows:

• 11:00am-12:00pm      Registration
• 12:00-12:20pm           Conference Introductions
• 12:20 – 12:30pm        Transition
• 12:30 – 1:10pm          Breakout session #1
• 1:10 – 1:20pm      Transition
• 1:20 – 2:00pm     Breakout Session #2
• 2:00 – 3:00pm    Lunch and entertainment
• 3:10 – 3:20pm      Transition to Panel
• 3:20 – 4:00pm     Panel Discussion
• 4:00 – 4:10pm            Transition
• 4:10 – 4:40pm      Resource Fair
• 4:40 – 5:00pm     Closing Comments

The University of Washington contains one of the premier campuses in the country. Grounds Management at the University of Washington currently contains 19 vehicles that run on gas including various trucks and gators (small utility vehicles). These vehicles are used throughout campus on a variety of jobs aimed to improve the campus’s aesthetics. On average, the vehicles used by grounds management burn 6,000 gallons of gas a year which release 120,000 pounds of C02 into the atmosphere.

Climate change is one of the biggest problems facing our planet today. In 2016, transportation contributed up to 28.5 percent of the damage (Epa.gov). As one of the country’s leading institutions, it is the University of Washington’s obligation to lead the charge in the fight against climate change. Grounds maintenance is an area that burns a significant amount of fossil fuels. Finding ways to keep the productivity of grounds management high, while reducing its fossil fuel consumption is currently a high priority. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels while keeping our productivity high will show other Universities that going green can be financially advantageous.

Our goal is to vastly decrease the carbon footprint of Grounds Management on campus by reducing our reliance on vehicles that burn fossil fuels. The majority of jobs completed by Grounds Management can be accomplished without the need of high consumption vehicles (such as the trucks and gasoline powered utility vehicles supplied to the gardeners). We would like to add electric E-Bikes to our green fleet which already includes three electric club cars. Recently, a grant was received by UW Mailing services which provided them with an E-Bicycle-Mail & Package Delivery Program. This grant has been extremely successful and it is a desire of Grounds Management to emulate its success. Although a truck will be required for the occasional job, we are proposing to reduce our reliance on them with the goal of using 2,000 less gallons of gasoline per year. The reduction of 2,000 gallons of gas per year will decrease the amount of C02 put into the atmosphere by 40,000 pounds and will save grounds management $6,000 dollars per year (at $3 per gallon of gasoline).  Over time we will review how many trucks are used per day and the amount of gas we have reduced through this program. Grounds management consists of nine crews each consisting of two vehicles. We propose to reduce the crew’s reliance on these vehicles by supplying each crew with an electric hatchback bicycle and two bicycles to be shared throughout the shop (11 total). Of these 11 vehicles, 9 will be electric with a hatchback, and two will be small fold up electric bikes (for attending meetings and other non-laborious tasks). We will also require miscellaneous accessory items such as helmets and u-locks.

This would be one of the first University Grounds Management Operations to run predominately on electric and man powered vehicles.

This project will look to involve students in all of its facets. The project is currently facilitated by a graduate student research assistant from the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences with the title Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Sustainability Coordinator. The IPM and Sustainability Coordinator will attend sustainability events and will develop educational and outreach components for the program. The graduate student will be responsible for record keeping, costs and the productivity of the project.

In addition to the graduate student involvement, this project will utilize the UW Engineers without Borders program. The salvage wood project through grounds management was extremely successful in main part due to the collaboration with UW Engineers without Borders. Similar to the salvage wood project, (run by Grounds Management) the UW Engineer students will contribute to the project by building multiple required structures. For example these students will build the shed for bike storage and the trailers attached to the bikes. We will also team up with art students to paint the bike trailers with the CSF logo incorporated into the design.

The E-Bicycle Mail & Package Delivery Program established a partnership with the HUB Graphic Design Office where student employees created the designs for our education outreach material. We will look to expand this partnership to include grounds management. Overall, this project will include students from multiple facets of campus including the College of BuilT\t Environments, the School of Art, and the school of Art History and Design.

Below you will find an estimate of costs associated with this project. Including the bicycles, annual maintenance costs, and bicycle supplies, the amount requested from CSF totals to $84,888.

We have been in contact with the company Electric & Folding Bikes Northwest. We have come to the conclusion that the bikes most suited for our needs are the Specialized Como 2.0 Electric bikes and the Gocycle electric folding bike. 

We’ve included 5 years of maintenance in this proposal through an annual bike maintenance fee.  After which, the UW Grounds Shop will assume responsibility for maintenance.

Thank you for your consideration in this proposal!  

Budget: 

ESTIMATE: Project Completion Total: 

$84,888

Summary

Diversity in Psychology is an RSO that was created in response to the alarming lack of diversity and representation in the field of Psychology, and specifically within the Psychology department at the University of Washington. Our founding members noticed the large emphasis of the experiences of White people as the center of many class discussions as well as in media representations of mental health and mental illness. We established this RSO in order to tackle some of these issues of representation and education, and used this momentum to shape our first meetings around topics that bridged social in/justice and Psychology. We have led many community conversations about Microaggressions, Impostor Syndrome, our own “Seattle Affective Disorder”, and a discussion about “The Mis-Education of Mental Illness”, which focused on breaking the stigma that mental health and therapy aren’t for people of color. Through our meetings, we aim to create a focused group of students of color in the field.

One aspect of our organization is connecting with members and groups in our community, and so we decided to extend our goals and ideas to high school students in the King County area who identify as people of color and who are interested in Psychology.This conference will be centered on familiarizing students with life at the University of Washington and highlighting the importance of people like them in the field. We aim to start this conversation at a young age because these students are most likely developing their identities and figuring out their part in society.

The conference will be an all-day event, beginning at 9am and commencing around 4:30 pm. The day will consist of a Keynote speaker, a series of breakout sessions & workshops, lunch, an RSO fair, and a campus tour. We hope to have students leave the conference a little less nervous about attending college and inspired and educated on the diverse field of Psychology.

Date: Saturday, November 10th 2018
Time: 9am-4:30pm
Location: Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center

Conference Timeline:

• 9:00-9:30 - Registration + light breakfast
• 9:30-9:40 Transition to large room
• 9:40-9:45 Introduce DIP, Conference, Timeline and Speaker
• 9:45-10:00 Keynote Speaker
• 10:00-10:10 - Explain breakout sessions and transition to rooms
• 10:15-11:15 Break out 1
• 11:15-11:25 Transition
• 11:30-12:30 Break Out 2
• 12:35-1:30 Lunch, RSO tabling fair, sorority/frat showcase
• 1:30-1:40 Transition
• 1:45-2:45 Break out 3
• 2:45-2:55 Transition
• 3:00-4:00 Break Out 4
• 4:00-4:30 Group Picture and Ending Remarks in Unity Room

Break out session Workshops (4):

• The Importance of POC in Psychology/Psychological Research - Led by UW Psychology graduate students
• Transitioning from High School to College - Led by UW Counseling Center
• Admissions 101 workshop (topic is still tentative, but this is what has been currently agreed on) - Led by the Dream Project
• Campus Tour - Led by OMAD Student Ambassadors. We also want to incorporate a diversity and sustainability centered tour of the UW Campus. We are working with CSF staff members and ECC staff members to accomplish this.

RSOs for RSO Fair

• We want to showcase RSOs that center on diversity, as well as RSOs involved in Psychology, Mental Health, and related fields.
• Additionally, we plan to showcase multicultural Greek Life (UW National Pan-Hellenic Council, United Greek Council) to get students excited about Greek Life that may be more relevant to their cultural backgrounds.

Keynote Speaker - A meeting with Professor Lynne Manzo is in the works. Professor Manzo is an Environmental Psychologist and we feel she can not only offer a perspective into an interesting field of Psychology, but also speak to the importance of understanding psychological impacts of environmental injustices which people of color face at alarming rates.

Lead RSO- Diversity in Psychology

Budget - $1000 requested from CSF

• Room Fees
  • Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center - Unity Room + 4 breakout rooms; non-affiliated RSO ($377)
• Materials/Promotional Items
  • 150 T-Shirts with Double Dip Logo ($700)
  • 110 Tote Bags with Logo ($210)
  • 150 Lanyards ($256)
  • Bus Vouchers for Students ($250)

Project Planning Timeline

September 17th-November 9th: Weekly board meetings centered on Conference planning.

• Week of September 17th
  • Check in
  • Assign new tasks for Fall Quarter;
  • Schedule meetings with Faculty Advisor, UW Admissions, Dean Taylor & Dr. Suite, and workshop leaders
  • Compile list of RSOs for RSO Fair and sending out emails
  • Find campus tour guides
  • Create T-shirt,lanyard, and tote bag designs
  • Send invitation emails to new list of high school contacts + potential sponsors
  • Contact caterer (Subway)
  • Meet with Dream Project
• Week of September 24th
  • Check in
  • Confirm caterer
  • Meet with Faculty Advisor; meet with UW Admissions to schedule high school visits; meet with Dean Taylor & Denzil Suite
  • Increase RSO outreach efforts
  • Increase high school student outreach efforts
• Week of October 8th
  • Check in
  • Meet with workshop leaders to discuss workshops by this week
  • Finalize KeyNote Speaker
  • Confirm RSO list; send out informational emails to RSOs
• Week of October 15th
  • Check in
  • Meet with Faculty Advisor
  • Confirm Workshop topics and schedule
• Week of October 22nd
  • Check in
  • Pay ECC reservation fee
  • Last minute high school
  • Close registration (10/26) and finalize/confirm conference attendance
  • Order T-Shirts, lanyards, and tote bags
• Week of October 29th
  • Check in
  • Meet with Faculty Advisor
  • Potentially leave registration open until 11/2
• Week of November 5th
  • Check in
  • Finalize conference details and technicalities, set up ECC; meet with RSO fair participants, workshop leaders, volunteers
  • Send out informational emails to high school students

Environmental Impact

Most Psychological research that is studied in Colleges and Universities has been done by White people, on White people, and most likely for White people. Findings have been applied to “other” groups, like people of color, without taking into account cultural differences or other ways of living. Or, when research does mention various cultural groups, they are brought up as the antithesis or exception. Further, mental health and illness are thought to be arenas for wealthy White individuals. This is clear after a simple Google search of “therapist” or “therapy”. Attending the University of Washington and majoring in Psychology will also give off that information. PSYCH classes are typically taught by White professors and most students in class are White. Most of the psychologists and researchers that students learn about are White, and their subjects are largely White.

However, there has been research on topics such as representation. Different studies show that schools with more Black teachers or even a Black principal increase the amount of Black students in gifted programs. From the direct experience of Diversity in Psychology’s founding members, as well as from many other people of color, it becomes much easier to feel as one belongs in a group or school when there are other people that look like you. Studies show that belongingness is crucial to development, academic performance, and many other positive outcomes.

One of the immediate goals of the Double Dip Conference is to provide this representation to high school students. We feel that because the larger field of Psychology lacks much diverse representation, the study and faith in Psychology is lacking in many communities that have been historically underserved and neglected. We hope that if  students see other students, leaders, professors, alumni, and advisors that reflect themselves, they can easily imagine themselves at the University of Washington and as future Psychology professionals. Additionally, we hope to present the idea of attending a university as exciting and attainable for these students. We want to provide them with resources and a network of support for their future college endeavors. Expanding the community that Diversity in Psychology has created to high school students is also a goal of the Conference.

Further, along with the values of our RSO, our team hopes to broaden the conversation around what Psychology can mean. While the field historically lacks much racial representation, issues such as racism and discrimination are intensely intertwined in various Psychological topics and areas of study. This being said, we plan to include an environmental aspect in our conference. Given the low amounts of racial diversity at the University of Washington, Seattle, and largely the whole state of Washington, it is important to note how environmental injustices are rooted in racism and that they impact certain groups in many ways. In a virtually racially-segregated city like Seattle, that is undergoing much change, a conversation and understanding about issues such as environmental racism is crucial. Professor Lynne Manzo, an Environmental Psychologist, will be able to speak on this topic. We want students to understand that Psychology is more than being a “shrink”, “listening to people’s problems”, or “diagnosing everyone you meet”. Psychology can also mean seeing and understanding deeply rooted systems of injustice and the avenues through which they are sustained.

Our larger goals are to increase diversity in the Psychology department at UW and in the broader field. Showcasing actual diversity in Psychology at this conference, educating students on the importance of people like them in this field, and familiarizing students with resources on campus will build a strong and focused group of future applicants to the school. This conference will start a domino effect and grow bigger and better with every year.

Education & Outreach

We have been working with the Office of Multicultural Outreach and Recruitment, the Dream Project, and UW Admissions to spread the word to high schoolers. Because our target group is high school students, we have been working with these offices to share our marketing information (description of the event + event flyer + registration link) to their high school contacts. Through our various organized meetings and discussions, we have met members of the greater community that are also forwarding our conference details to various high schools and students in the area.

We plan to host this conference at the UW, in the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center. Not only is the ECC a great resource for students of color at UW, but it is a great network of people to work with for this conference. We hope to collaborate and share ideas on how to best serve our audience.

Through the various workshops and discussions, we plan to exhibit the diversity of the field of Psychology. That means highlighting the many different areas of research, job opportunities and career paths, and why it is importance for the field to consist of diverse individuals & groups. We can hopefully start a trend of positive change and start the very important conversation about Psychology in marginalized groups and communities.

Student Involvement

All of our board members will be involved in the Conference. Members are taking leadership roles with advertising, conference planning, and student outreach, and some will also take charge in creating merchandise and other materials for the event. In addition to our own team, we plan to collaborate with other student leaders involved in the Dream Project, Admissions, Psychology graduate students, and professors and faculty in the field. These individuals and groups will lead the workshops that the high school students will attend throughout the day. We also look forward to collaborating with different RSOs that center on diversity and/or Psychology to participate in an RSO fair during the event.

Accountability & Feasibility

Diversity in Psychology’s executive board has been on top of planning and communicating in regard to the Conference. Since Spring Quarter of 2018, we have had various meetings where items such as fundraising and conference planning were talked about and executed. Our previous board was very passionate about the Conference and we have solidified many aspects already. We will have merchandise donated from the UW Bookstore, snack donations from a local bakery, and have confirmed collaborations with the Dream Project, the Counseling Center, and UW Psychology graduate students to lead different sessions throughout the day. A flyer (with a conference logo) and informational letter have both been created to send out to high school counselors and students

For marketing and outreach, we have been working closely with the Multicultural Outreach and Recruitment Office (MOR) to reach out to students and high schools in the King County area. Additionally, we have reached out to personal and community contacts that have access to these populations as well in order to advertise and invite students to the conference. We have a goal of 100 students, and so far have about 50 confirmed via our registration link. Now that school is starting up again, we will expand our invitations and reach out to even more high schools. Additionally, the Dream Project will also be spreading the word to their high school connections.

Over the summer, our new executive board has met for a few in-person meetings but have been communicating virtually for the most part. The new board has become familiar with the conference and tasks have been assigned to each member, ranging from taking charge on merchandise and marketing materials to sending out email invitations. When the school year begins, we will continue to meet once to twice weekly to check in with each other and our assigned tasks. We will also continue check-ins with our faculty advisor and our other sources of assistance from UW Admissions and MOR.

We have also met with and been in constant communication with our faculty advisor in the Psychology Advising Office. She has helped us with getting financial backing from the Psychology Department and connected us with the graduate students who will be leading sessions.

The conference has the support of Dr. Denzil Suite, the VP of Student Life. He has a background in Psychology and is thrilled to see a conference like ours coming to fruition. Additionally, Ed Taylor, Dean of Undergraduate Affairs, has also agreed to support the conference financially. Similarly, he has a background in Psychology and shares Dr. Suite’s excitement and passion.

Of course, if awarded money, we are more than thrilled to work with the CSF to discussing alternative ways of reaching high school students and ways to improve any ideas regarding the conference. We would love to talk about ways to make the conference even more cost-efficient.

Our team members are confident that this conference will pave the way for more to come and widen the conversation about diversity in the field of Psychology.

Summary of project proposal:

The student team would like to use the UW Tower, in particular, the newly renovated UW-IT space to demonstrate how to create a healthy workplace. Students in Professor Kim’s CESI 599 course will participate in a quarter long measurement and verification of indoor air quality, light, and other comfort criteria in addition to identifying and documenting relevant strategies that promote healthy workspace. The end product is to use the narratives as support documents to certify the newly renovated UW IT space as the possible Fitwel building. Fitwel is a nationally recognized certification system (similar to U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system). If UW Tower is granted the certification, it would be the first building on campus to be a Fitwel space.

Environmental impact:

The proposed project is part of the series needed to pursue the first healthy building certification at UW campus. The assessment that students will conduct includes evaluating performance metrics of healthy building standards for UW-IT space at UW Tower, such as air quality, water quality, light and comfort. It is expected that the presentation of the findings will motivate pro-environmental behavior to the building occupants, students and UW campus in general. Furthermore, the project will also demonstrate the importance of the indoor environmental quality and thus promote health-conscious individual behavior based on the measurable parameters. The bigger impact of this project is expected beyond addressing sustainability when the space successfully obtains healthy building certification and become the example for other buildings across the campus.

Student Leadership & Involvement:

CESI 599 requires that students are actively involved in the entire certification process. The class represents a wide diversity in terms of the students’ demographics from many different countries, as well as promotes interdisciplinary collaboration where the students come from different majors and departments within UW. Student groups will be responsible for documenting the findings as well as doing a presentation in front of all the stakeholders. The funding is requested to hold a whole building occupant presentation in the UW Tower auditorium which will be a unique experience.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change:

Having the all occupant presentation will be a great opportunity to reach out the employees of this University. We will discuss (and have the opportunity to educate) the benefits of good air quality, lighting, and comfort in terms of occupant benefits and improved productivity. In addition, the students will obtain a hands-on experience with daysimeter to learn one of the cutting-edge tools to measure light and health of the occupant.

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability:

The requested budget does not cover all the measurement and verification needed for truly demonstrating the performance of a healthy workspace. However, Professor Kim (through her class) will be supporting relevant equipment that may be already available through her lab. She will also provide the necessary oversight. We are asking to supplement by acquiring daysimeter (to measure healthy/circadian light) to enrich the experience and make the assessment more comprehensive.

Project’s budget estimate and schedule:

We are asking for $998.50 in total. $338.50 will be spent on presenting at the UW Tower auditorium ($300 for auditorium rental fee and $38.50 for audiovisual) and $660 on daysimeter. We expect to acquire daysimeter before the scheduled CEE 599 about lighting topic on October 30th, 2018. The presentation at the UW Tower auditorium will be on December 6th, 2018.

Project Proposal

Each quarter students buy brand new notebooks and throughout each lecture slowly fill the pages with diagrams and key points. However, as dead week rolls around many find they have excess blank pages leftover. A large portion of students hold on to these notebooks, never to look back at their notes, while others recycle or even put the paper into the trash. Our campus Rotaract Club is proposing an innovative alternative, to collect these notebooks at the end of each quarter to be disassembled and rebound into new notebooks. After disassembling all of notebook parts, papers of similar sizes will be grouped and then using aluminum screw posts and covers made of recycled materials, new notebooks will be formed. The recreated notebooks will be freely distributed at the start of the next quarter for their second lives in assisting student learning. To complete the “Rebound” project, our club will require upfront funding for a machining tools, customized stamps promoting sustainability, collection bins, and reusable promotion signs, along with funds to purchase pins and covers for each new notebook.

Environmental Impact

Throughout this collection and repurposing process all unusable materials will be disposed of properly. We will invite any unwanted notebooks to be put into our collection bins, in this way we are disposing of notebooks correctly, even if it does not contain immediately reusable paper. Not only does this give the unused paper the ability to be used, it also ensures that all components of notebooks, such as the metal spiral are correctly recycled. We hope to alleviate improper disposal that occurs each quarter, along with providing a second life to untouched paper. If large scale recycling is required we plan to partner with Seattle’s recycling resources, such as Seadrunar Recycling, a non-profit based in Seattle.

Student Leadership & Involvement

This process will take extensive planning within our club’s committee to ensure proper promotion and execution of notebook collection. Donation boxes are planned to be placed outside of main lecture halls, dorms, and dining halls on campus. Redistribution will be executed at the start of the quarter by tabling in Red Square. A committee will be formed within our club and will be mainly lead by select officers.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

Each notebook will be customized with a stamp or sticker explaining the history of the notebook, along with promoting the importance of recycling used materials. The notebooks will also detail proper self-disposal at the end of it’s use. Our club plans to table in Red Square at the beginning of the quarter to spread awareness of the program, while distributing the rebound notebooks.  

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability

The bulk of the manual labor required for this process will be completed by the members within the Rotaract Club. Each year we maintain approximately 25 active members and meet weekly to engage in service projects and to develop professionally. As our club is accustomed to service events we are highly equipped to take on a project of this magnitude. In this past year our members were a part of organizing and executing a hygiene kit packing event where over 800 kits were assembled for sex trafficked victims in the Seattle area. To maintain a long-term commitment to this plan, emphasis will be put on plan documentation and training of underclassmen. We also plan to conduct surveys when distributing notebooks to gain insight in how to better our program. Through these methods our “Rebound” project can be formed into a sustainable component of the University of Washington Seattle campus.

Project Budget

The proposed budget supplies enough materials to create 100 notebooks. The limiting factors will be the notebook covers and aluminum pins. Each new notebook will require 2 notebook covers, with 200 proposed in the budget. Three aluminum pins will also be required per notebook, with 300 planned in the budget.

*Shipping from Lamination Depot is free for orders over $75.00

Timeline

Dear Selection Committee,

I would like to thank you for funding all of the grounds management sustainability projects. The money you have supplied is helping the University become a more sustainable, environmentally friendly space.

One of our most successful projects, the salvage wood program, is in need of money for advertising. This project turns wood from fallen trees into usable products such as benches, tables and nametags. Keeping our trees on campus substantially reduces our carbon footprint. Grinding up and transporting these trees to cedar grove requires the use of fossil fuels and produces carbon emissions. Currently, there is more salvage wood than there is demand for its usable products. At the current rate we will not have adequate room to store all of the downed wood for future projects.

In order for this project to stay operational and efficiently use all of the wood from around campus, product orders need to be placed by the campus community. The money acquired from this grant will be used to increase our outreach by creating a workable website where campus organizations, faculty, staff and alumni can order different products created from salvaged wood. We will work with students from the marketing and business school to help us set up a website and advertising campaign throughout campus. Other forms of outreach will be established with the College of Built Environments who may have an interest in using the wood for their classes.

We will also create wooden tags and plaques using salvage wood to be placed in high visited areas throughout campus (The HUB, Suzzallo, Odeggard, Washington Commons, etc.). These tags/plaques will contain the following ‘To order salvage wood products (name tags, benches, tables etc.) please visit WWW.XXXXXX.com, This project is funded by the Campus Sustainability Fund.’  The majority of the funds will be used to pay for these tags which cost $65 each. Examples of these tags created by the salvage wood program can be seen below.

Thank you for your considerations for this grant. If awarded it will greatly help the salvage wood program.

Sincerely,

Michael Bradshaw

Project Summary

The UW Night Market has been expanded from HUB Lawn to Red Square since 2001. It is one of the Taiwanese Student Association’s signature events and the largest in scale in terms of people. The event recreates traditional night markets in Taiwan and is centered around food provided by vendors. This year, we will be expanding the vendor section to 30 vendors comparing to 20 vendors last year. Every year, this event creates large amounts of waste that isn’t properly disposed of by guests; this year, we plan to create a recycling plan that alleviates this issue by setting 2-3 volunteers at each trash station to monitor trash flow.
The plan is based on ZeeWee, a Zero Waste Event. The goal is to heavily reduce waste with a three-step process. First: replace all food containers with recyclable and compostable ones. Some containers are vendor specific and will require funds to replace in house. The second step is to eliminate bottled water and replace them with water stations and recyclable cups, which will also require funds. The third step is to assign waste reduction tasks to staff and volunteers. These tasks will include monitoring garbage disposal bins to ensure proper sorting, after event cleanup, etc. Most importantly, the plan will require a radical redesign that will ensure a greener Night Market but will severely strain our already tight budget.

Environmental Impact

With around 7,000 people per year visiting the UW Night Market and 30 vendors, a large amount of waste will be generated. By working closely with vendors and supervising trash containers, waste should be reduced by at least half and recycling increased by an even larger margin. This isn’t a plan that will be implemented once, UW Night Market 2018 will set a precedent for all following events created by TSA that involves food wastes.

Student Leadership and Involvement

The UW Night Market is primarily run by the Taiwanese Student Association officers, a group of 45 dedicated students. Last year, we also had around 120 volunteers that participated at the Night Market. We are expecting around 100 volunteers this year, of about 30% of the volunteers and officers will be helping out with organizing the trash at each trash station. These volunteers come from various backgrounds; some are members of other UW RSO’s or are students at nearby high schools. Overall, student involvement is prominent. Every year TSA is excited to see so many people participating in the creation of Night Market. This year, we will also be encouraging our attendees to bring their own utensils through making short advertisement videos so that everyone can feel involved in partaking in being eco-friendly.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

The hope is for event-goers and our officers to become more conscientious and aware of the consequences caused by the waste we generate. It is hoped that such a mentality will be adopted in the day-to-day lives of those involved in Night Market, and that the effects will extend beyond TSA events, but to the events of other on-campus organizations. This is why we will make short, eloquent advertising videos on encouraging people to bring their own cutleries. We hope that not only our attendees, but TSA members and students in general will be more aware of the trash generated in daily life.

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability

TSA is a longstanding organization (founded in 1946) that has received multiple RSO rewards. Besides its reputation, TSA is credited with holding multiple large events annually, including a singing competition, semi-formal, and the aforementioned Night Market. A zero-waste event is a challenge that we are willing to take on and have confidence in fulfilling considering our vast experience in event planning. TSA is confident in its ability to use CSF monies in a responsible manner.

Budget

Seeing as night market serves 7,000 people, a conservative estimate for reusable water stations would be $500. Food containers would cost an additional $500. TSA requests $1000 to make this a reality.

Primary Contact First & Last Name: Tiffany Lin

Secondary Contact First & Last Name: Jessica Ong

CSF Small Project Application

Letter of Intent

Engage with Renewable Energy: Interactive Art Exhibition & Reusables Workshop

UW WashPIRG

100% Renewable Energy Campaign

This project will include two components: a reusables workshop and interactive art exhibition to contribute to the Earth Day celebration on April 16-20th, 2018. The goal of both of these components is to engage UW students who may not already have a strong interest in the sustainability, climate change, or renewable energy and encourage them to incorporate these concepts into their daily lives.

The workshop will provide students with the opportunity to customize their own reusable item while talking with their peers about sustainability and renewable energy. We will provide students with blank tote bags, water bottles, thermoses, and cloth sandwich bags as well as an array of paint and stickers that they can use to create unique reusable items. We hope that these eye-catching designs will encourage their fellow students to start a dialogue about the reusable item and continue the conversation around sustainable choices. In addition, while the workshop is happening we will play a series of videos on the projector that focus on how we can engage with and incorporate sustainability and renewable energy into our worldview. One example of a video we could use is “Buildings of the Future: Net Zero Energy”, which was presented at TEDxCSUSM. Ideally, students will come away with a sparked interest in sustainability that will motivate them to take action in their own lives as well as a fun item that serves as a reminder of the event while reducing their environmental impact.

For the art exhibition, we will have a piece in a prominent position on the first floor of the Husky Union Building for the Monday to Friday of Earth week. The current concept for the piece is a giant “coloring page” that we will display in a four-foot long canvas on two large easels with an array of markers that students passing by can use to color in the piece. The piece itself will showcase a whimsical mural of interconnected vignettes depicting the often unnoticed connections between people and sustainability, such as wind turbines powering houses, urban gardens, and recycling facilities. We will work with the students creating the piece to make a design that appeals to them and tells this story of interconnectedness. One consideration we are keeping in mind is how to present a piece that will engage students and compel them to interact with it while expanding their view of sustainability and renewable energy. After we take down the piece, we are also looking into finding a space where we could permanently display it.

1. Environmental Impact

This project will nurture a more sustainable campus by providing around 100 free reusable items to students which will, over a lifetime of use, prevent many hundreds of disposable equivalents from entering landfills. We are also being considerate to use compostable items when possible and will reuse any supplies that we obtain, such as paint and markers.

2. Student Leadership & Involvement

This project will be entirely planned and executed by students, primarily being volunteers within WashPIRG’s 100% Renewable Energy campaign, as well as other students who express interest in contributing. Participating in this project will provide students with event planning skills, as well a unique opportunity to communicate scientific concepts through visual art.

3. Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

The entirety of this project is aimed at encouraging students to become more aware of and engage with issues of sustainability and renewable energy in their daily lives. We hope that these two components will attract students who aren’t already involved in environmental issues and encourage them to continue exploring after Earth week is over, such as by joining WashPIRG or other environmental RSOs.

4. Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability

Although this project must be put together in a short amount of time, we are confident that we have the skill and resources to make it successful. WashPIRG has a history of putting together events under a time crunch, such as the Renewable Energy Rally we held last quarter which had over 50 attendees and was covered on two local news outlets as well as The Daily. For a full list of events our campaign has organized, refer here: http://uwashpirg.weebly.com/events.html . We have a dedicated team of students working on this project and have already obtained all of the permissions to pull it off. Furthermore, we have received guidance from Sean Schmidt, Sustainability Specialist at UW Sustainability, and are also supported by WashPIRG’s Campus Organizer, William Lehrer, who is a full-time staff who our organization pays to support us.

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Timeline

April 5

• Book room for workshop
• Confirm art exhibition space in the HUB
• Reach out to RSOs and students to collaborate on art exhibition (Sustainability In The Arts, Sustainability Action Network, Program on the Environment students)

April 6

• Submit CSF application

April 9

• Create poster promoting workshop

April 10

• Planning meeting
  • Complete rough draft of art exhibition
• Purchase workshop supplies (online, various websites)
• Put up posters promoting workshop
• Create Facebook page for workshop
• Ask for events put up on the Sustainability Action Network’s Earth Day webpage and the UW Sustainability calendar
• Send out email promoting the project to our coalition of RSOs
• Send out email to our network of professors to promote the workshop

April 11

• Campaign meeting
  • Sign up volunteers to oversee workshop
  • Recruit volunteers to help with exhibition
  • Brainstorm and compile video options
  • Share Facebook event

April 12

• Purchase exhibition supplies (in person at Artist & Craftsman Supply)

April 13-15

• Create art exhibition piece

April 16

• Put up art exhibition in the HUB 1st floor street
• Possible table promoting the workshop

April 17

• Hold workshop, 4:30-7:30pm, in HUB 250

April 20

• Take down art exhibition
• If we have extra workshop supplies, give out during Earth Day table in Red Square 11:00am-5:00pm

Budget

Workshop:

• Room booking
  • Custom set fee - $27
  • Room fee - $27
  • Cleaning fee - $28
• Water bottles, thermos & canvas bags (25 of each) - $250
  • Reusable sandwich bags (27) - $115
  • Fabric paint - $20
  • Stickers - $35
• Food - $30
  • Compostable plates & cutlery - $10

Exhibition:

• Canvas, 36”x48” student grade - $70
  • Acrylic paint - $40
• Markers - $22

TOTAL: $674

Summary:

This is the Phase 2 (Full Proposal) of UW Anaerobic Digester project. The Phase 1 (Feasibility study) evaluated a) Site Location b) Gas usage c) Compost/Fertilizer usage d) Ongoing Maintenance requirements for building a 160-square foot anaerobic digester on the UW Seattle Campus. The Feasibility study is still underway, but is tentatively moving forward with the following: a) Site Location = UW Farm b) Gas usage = Power a small generator to provide electricity for appliances in the UW farm building (no electricity currently) c) Compost/Fertilizer = UW Farm/Grounds Management will share fertilizer output d) Ongoing maintenance = digester will be maintained by the UW Sustainability Coordinator (position within Grounds Management). The anaerobic digester would utilize food waste to produce renewable energy (biogas) and compost. The biogas and compost will be used for research projects by professors/students and by the UW Farm. The food waste would be provided by the UW Farm and UW Husky Union Building (HUB).

*Important change in the project proposal: We had originally planned to purchase an anaerobic digester from Impact Bioenergy (cost = ~$100,000), but we think a better alternative would be to form a lease agreement or lease-to-purchase agreement with Impact Bioenergy. Leasing is a good idea because: 1) There is no UW entity that is currently willing to “agree to take over the operational costs of this project” (CSF Project Approval Form). By leasing the digester, Impact Bioenergy will own/be liable for continued costs of the digester. 2) By leasing, we would be able to test having the digester on campus for 1-2 years, rather than permanently committing to having a digester on campus. The budget request in this proposal is to cover the leasing costs of the digester for 1-2 years. 

Environmental Impact:

An anaerobic digester would have three main environmental impacts on the UW Seattle Campus: 1) Carbon Emissions: the anaerobic diges would utilize approximately 135lbs of food waste per day, so less food waste would be hauled from the UW campus to Cedar Grove Composting Facility. Reducing the amount of food waste that is hauled to Cedar Grove would reduce carbon emissions from garbage/waste disposal trucks that drive from UW to Cedar Grove. 2) Soil Health: an anaerobic digester would produce nutrient-rich compost that could be applied to the UW farm and Center for Urban Horticulture (and other locations on campus). 3) Renewable Energy: an anaerobic digester would be a small-scale model of how to generate renewable energy from food waste. The food waste is broken down by microbes, which produce methane gas, and the methane gas can be used to power a generator for electricity.

Student Leadership/Involvement:

Student interest and leadership is primarily coming from a UW Registered Student Organization (RSO), called Global Sustainability Initiative (GSI). The undergraduate members include: Caelan Wisont, Zhaoyi Fang, Yushan Tong, and Kyler Jobe. GSI focuses on promoting sustainability on a global scale, emphasizing household-scale anaerobic digestion projects to create methane gas for stoves. There are also several UW MBA students involved in this project: John Turk (Class 2019), Robert Leutwyler (Calls 2019). These students are interested in examining the business model of the anaerobic digester, marketing of the fertilizer/compost produced, and scalability of small-scale anaerobic digester projects.

Education, Outreach & Behavior Change:

Global Sustainability Initiative (GSI): GSI will conduct outreach to UW undergraduate students to build their membership and raise awareness about the anaerobic digester project. GSI will conduct outreach using tabling events, Facebook posts, and flyers. The UW Farm will also conduct outreach to students that are involved at the farm.

Feasibility, Accountability & Accessibility:

This is the Full Proposal to move forward with building an anaerobic digester on the UW Seattle Campus. This project has a lot of support and is a collaboration between the Undergraduate/Graduate students, Professors, UW Facilities, UW Husky Union Building, UW Farm, UW Anaerobic Digester Project Leadership Team, UW Grounds Management, UW Landscape Architects/Design Review Board, and Impact Bioenergy. Impact Bioenergy (http://impactbioenergy.com/) is a business located in Seattle, WA that designs/builds anaerobic digesters to utilize food waste and produce renewable energy and compost.

Leadership Team:

Dr. Heidi Gough, PhD, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, hgough@uw.edu

Dr. Sally Brown, PhD, School of Forest Resources, slb@u.washington.edu

Aaron Flaster, BA, Research Coordinator, Department of Psychology, aflaster@uw.edu

Global Sustainability Initiative (Registered Student Organization), gsiuw@uw.edu

Budget Estimate:

$35,000

Contact Information:

Aaron Flaster, B.A.

Research Coordinator, Department of Psychology, University of Washington

Work email: aflaster@uw.edu

Cell #: 206-616-7934

Project Summary

Over the past year, a team consisting of a researcher and multiple students within the College of the Environment conducted a feasibility study to evaluate the potential of using games to promote more sustainable actions on campus (i.e., “green games”). The feasibility study consisted of a review of existing games, holding a game jam, and a survey to assess receptiveness and preferences of the UW community around green gaming. The feasibility study resulted in many positive outcomes, including development of multiple sustainability game prototypes, creating connections in the sustainability and gaming communities (both within and outside of UW), and measuring interest and preferences related to different types of green games across the UW community.

The feasibility study identified opportunities as well as challenges related to implementing green games on campus. The opportunities include substantial interest in environmentally-themed games across diverse demographics (age, area of study, student/staff/faculty status) at UW, the potential to create games with powerful messages using moderate resources, and potential to partner with industry, non-profits, and other universities that are interested in using games to promote sustainability.

Leveraging these opportunities, however, will require overcoming several challenges also identified in the feasibility study. The first of these is healthy skepticism, particularly of digital games, which may be seen as antithetical to environmental or sustainability issues due to interfering with time in nature, being overly monetized, or even addictive. A second – and greater – challenge for implementing games to promote sustainability is competing in the “attention economy”, which includes a large marketplace of games for the purpose of making money. Environmental games geared toward raising awareness and promoting behavior changes have to compete with a well-financed industry vying for players. Finally, there are still important unknowns with respect to using games to promote sustainability, namely demonstrating links between gameplay and willingness of players to actually modify future behavior.

The feasibility study also evaluated a range of incentives that made students, staff, and faculty more likely to engage with green games; somewhat surprisingly, competition and personal rewards were ranked as only moderately important. In contrast, realizing an environmental benefit and cooperation with other people were ranked as some of the most interesting potential game features. This and other information gained from the feasibility study places us in an excellent position to develop games that are more likely to appeal to a broad cross-section of the UW community and have effectively raise awareness or create changes in behavior over time.

As a result of conducting the feasibility study, this team is ready to implement a project that 1) creates and tests games related to multiple environmental issues, 2) tracks individual feedback and responses to link gameplay with changes in awareness and behavior, and 3) shares knowledge and establishes partnerships with other universities and colleges to help develop or use green games on their campuses.

Methods and Outcomes

Engagement with the UW community will be primarily through the creation of four short, topical games that address environmental issues where students can have a positive impact through individual behavior change (e.g., water use, energy use, plastic reduction). These four games will be developed specifically for use on gaming stations that will be temporarily deployed (i.e., for 2-3 weeks at a time) in 4-6 high traffic areas on campus where the UW community can access them. Creating the kiosks as mobile stations will allow us to move them to different parts of the campus, maximizing accessibility and exposure. The UW community will be able to access the kiosks spontaneously and on their own; however, we will also conduct focused email, flyer, and social media campaigns on campus during the period that the kiosks are up with an incentive offered (e.g., having name put in a drawing for a gift card) to those who participate by playing through and giving feedback on at least one of the games.

One of the project goals is to assess the impact of different games on environmental awareness and potential to motivate behavior change over time, so the kiosk and games will be arranged to provide feedback and track responses. A player will be presented with a choice of the four games on different topics and choose one to start; this will result in information on whether certain topics are more attractive than others to players. After playing through the game, players will be asked to give some rapid feedback on how engaging the game was and how much their knowledge of the topic improved (i.e., Did awareness increase?). At this point, players will be given a short list of potential actions that they can elect to take around this issue; the choices will range from simple to more involved, such as a simple pledge to reduce consumption/use vs. opting to have additional information and actions emailed to them (i.e., Can games impact motivation and behavior?). The player can then elect to play through another short game or end the session and be entered into a drawing. Players will be required to give a UW email address for entry into the drawing, creating the potential to re-survey players at a later date.

Although we are designing this project to gain information that can guide development of future games, players will have little experience of being a “research subject”. The feedback sections will be designed to be short, engaging, and positive, and as a natural follow-on to the environmental games. One of the results of the feasibility study was that people are very interested in contributing to research via gaming approaches, so we anticipate that opportunities to give feedback will actually encourage more people to participate and play the kiosk games than otherwise.

Following the active period during which we are pushing traffic to kiosks, the gaming kiosks will be available as a temporary, interactive sustainability exhibit at locations around the UW campus (e.g., The Burke Museum) and/or during special events (e.g., UW’s Sustainability Festival). We are currently and would continue to reach out to partners on campus that could make use of this type of exhibit.

Outreach and Partnerships

Based on contacts, interest, and feedback from the game jam and gaming survey from other universities and non-profit partners, we believe that there is widespread interest in this topic, and strong potential to partner with other universities to create campus-focused games that promote and encourage sustainability. For this reason, one of our major goals for this project is to produce results, information, and products that can help guide efforts or even be directly used at other campuses. We have therefore developed a focused plan to reach out and establish these partnerships:

1. We are currently working to publish the results of the literature/gaming review, game jam, and survey as a short peer-reviewed (target journal: International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education) or popular magazine article (e.g., UW Columns). Publishing these results will be an important step in establishing credibility and communicating the potential for green games for other universities and colleges across Washington State.
2. We will use our results to reach out to campus sustainability units and faculty at Washington State colleges and universities, and invite partnerships to work together to implement gaming projects in other locations. Some of the opportunities for partnership include conducting a game jam elsewhere, replicating the green gaming survey, and/or temporarily installing the gaming kiosks at another university campus.
3. We are currently working with multiple research groups on campus and non-profit agencies interested in using games to promote conservation (e.g., UW’s Freshwater Initiative, Cascade Water Alliance, The Nature Conservancy). These partners are willing to consult on design and development of topical environmental games for the kiosks, with the goal of repurposing some of the games afterwards to help advance their own conservation efforts. 

The Team

The project will be led by an enthusiastic and highly capable team. Lauren Kuehne is a Research Scientist at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, working on diverse issues of ecology, conservation, and innovative science communication. She led the recent year-long feasibility study to evaluate use of games to promote sustainability, a project that has delivered on all project outcomes while using only half of the total project budget. Cailin Winston is a sophomore at the UW that is majoring in biochemistry and currently considering a double major in computer science. She has a passion for tackling environmental issues and loves to come up with creative solutions to problems. Caleb Winston is currently a high school senior that will enter the UW in fall of 2018 with the intention of majoring in Computer Science. He has already developed and published a number of apps and games for the web, iOS, Android, and Amazon Echo/Alexa, including a recycling app (Sorted, available on multiple app stores). He has participated in multiple game jams including the world's largest, the Ludum Dare competition, where his entry was among the top 100 highest rated games internationally. Cailin and Caleb together participated as a team in the recent UW Sustainability Game Jam and created a game about electronic waste (Salvage), which won first place.

How this project meets the requirements and preferences of the Campus Sustainability Fund

Environmental Impact

Environmental impact comes down not only to the actions that individuals make in any given day or time, but their willingness and commitment to practice sustainable behaviors over time, advocate for sustainability in their community or government, or even apply their professional skills and ingenuity to sustainability problems. As such, we believe that - by allowing people to connect with environmental issues in positive, creative ways – games can help people overcome despair that stands in the way of action. This project is about testing how games can create a diverse access to more sustainable actions and behaviors by a community to ultimately reduce impact in areas such as energy and water conservation, waste reduction, and pollution.

Student Leadership & Involvement

The project is co-designed and led by two undergraduate students who have already demonstrated extensive leadership and skills in addressing environmental sustainability through the innovative use of apps and games. Although both undergraduate leads are already highly accomplished in designing games and applying research-based approaches to sustainability efforts, this project will offer added, professional opportunities to develop their management, development, and leadership skills by producing highly tangible and published outcomes (e.g., games, articles/publications). In addition, we will continue to partner with student groups on campus that can contribute to project goals and outcomes. RSOs and student groups with whom we have worked during the feasibility study include UW GameDev Club, Husky Gamer Nation, UW Earth Club, UW SEED, Green Greeks, EcoReps, UW Bothell Sustainability Club, and the Sustainability Action Network. Students in these groups have contributed by volunteering, allowing us to present at club events or classes, participating in the game jam as developers and volunteers, and helping promote events and surveys.

We will also pursue opportunities to involve students in game development (e.g., students in the Earthgames class, Game Dev Club), beta-testing (Game Dev Club, HCDE Peeps), or in the gaming-impact evaluation stage (e.g., Information School or Program of the Environment capstone programs). One student group that has already committed to this project is UW’s Freshwater Initiative, a graduate student collective that spearheads research and outreach related to freshwater conservation; Freshwater Initiative is very interested in assisting in developing and promoting a game related to water quality and conservation.

In short, as with the feasibility study, the project is designed to create meaningful opportunities for students to contribute, lead, and develop their own ideas and initiatives related to green games.

Education, Outreach, & Behavior Change

The main focus of the project is to develop games related to environmental topics where individual behavior changes can have a big impact. The games will be distributed on campus using mobile kiosks that maximize exposure; the games will not only serve to educate players but will also help us collect information about how games can link to changes in awareness, motivation, and behavior. Following the active kiosk period on campus, the kiosks and four games can be repurposed for use as temporary sustainability exhibits as well as use by non-profit partners in their conservation efforts. Results and products will be produced in ways that are readily shared with other colleges and universities for use in their campus community to promote sustainability.

Feasibility, Accountability, & Sustainability

Collectively, the team has all of the skills and expertise needed to effectively implement this project. Lauren Kuehne is a Research Scientist and a highly accomplished project manager with a strong history of collaborating with diverse academic and non-profit partners. As such, Ms. Kuehne would manage project outcomes and provide logistical support (e.g., apply for in-kind donations, permits), design response-impact surveys for games, and ensure all quality and research standards (e.g., human subjects research review) are met. Ms. Kuehne would also be in charge of reaching out to other colleges and universities, reporting/publications, and working with academic and non-profit partners. Cailin Winston is a biochemistry major with strong public communication skills, as well as creative talents in game design. Cailin will assist with project management, communication, and game design. Caleb Winston is an incoming UW student (CS major) with highly advanced skills in programming apps and games for both web and mobile platforms. Caleb will lead the creative and technical process of game development.

Project Timeline:

July 2018 – July 2019

Budget:

Our final requested budget will depend on some factors that can’t be confirmed yet. One of these would be a decision of the Campus Sustainability Fund to allow us to rollover approximately $2,900 remaining in our budget from the feasibility study. If CSF allows us to use these remaining funds, the total additional requested for this project would be $16,028. However, this amount includes $3,000 in computer and technology costs (large tablet computers, a game development computer, cloud storage) that may be available through alternative avenues such as the Student Technology Fund, UW IT’s Cloud Computing Research Credits, and the Student Technology Loan Program. We are working to confirm the feasibility of using these alternative resources. The requested budget range is therefore $13,028 - $18,928.

Primary Contact:

Lauren Kuehne, lkuehne@uw.edu

Summary of Project

The University of Washington’s Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) is pioneering the new scientific discipline of ethnoforestry that elicits traditional ecological knowledge by local people and incorporates it into the forest management process. Indigenous communities have thousands of years of knowledge on the inner workings of ecosystems and this information can be utilized to make more mindful and inclusive decisions that benefit both ecosystems and local communities. Each tribe has cultural keystone species that are of the utmost importance to their culture. Through ethnoforestry, we will learn how to grow and install these plants back onto the landscape so community members have more access to these species for food, medicine, and more. Ethnoforestry is a new and exciting approach to current land management and will be brought to main campus through this project where students will work on tangible projects that will directly impact rural Washington communities, enhancing sustainability and knowledge across campus and Washington state.

The first part of this project will take place on campus through the 2018-2019 academic year.  

During this time, grant funds will be allocated to fund a research assistant position that will spearhead ethnoforestry projects on campus. Projects will cover the following main topics: UW community engagement, plant propagation and production, and strengthening tribal relationships in partnership with the UW Native Pathways Program.

UW community engagement will include creating a new interdisciplinary class, providing internship opportunities for undergraduate students, and offering volunteer work parties for any student interested in ethnoforestry. At the University of Washington, students who are interested in horticulture, plant production, or ethnobotany on campus have very few opportunities to engage and learn about these topics. None of these options, from classes to field courses to symposiums, offer a hands-on opportunity for students to learn how traditional ecological knowledge can be used to improve applied forestry. We will develop an ethnoforestry course in partnership with the Society for Ecological Restoration-UW (SER-UW) Nursery where students can learn applied ethnoforestry in an interdisciplinary way, bringing together students from a wide range of majors and interests from the College of Built Environment to Anthropology and beyond. In addition, ONRC will host one to two ethnoforestry interns quarterly, providing a more in-depth experience for those interested in the topic. Finally, we will offer volunteer work parties in collaboration with the SER-UW Nursery. For students wanting to take this information into their future careers, this will provide opportunities for them to get hands-on experience.

The research assistant, interns, and volunteers will work on plant propagation and production projects. This will include identifying cultural keystone species important with local coastal tribes and learning best growth practices. In collaboration with the SER-UW Nursery, we will install raised beds at the Center for Urban Horticulture that will be used to grow these species in high volumes. These plants will be used for UW forestry studies as well as on-campus student restoration projects. All components of this will be designed and implemented by UW students, providing a space to learn new and sustainable plant propagation and production methods not currently being done by the SER-UW Nursery.

Finally, we will also focus on strengthening Olympic Peninsula coastal tribal relationships. ONRC has been building relationships with coastal tribes on the Olympic Peninsula for two decades. Through these relationships, it has become clear that many of theses communities are impacted by persistent poverty and a lack of opportunity to pursue higher education. Tribes have indicated that they would like to learn plant propagation techniques to teach their youth important knowledge on cultural use of plants. Once grown, these plants can be installed on reservations where tribal members can harvest and utilize these species for a myriad of uses from basket making to medicine. Part of this project will be to create a sister nursery on the Quileute Indian Reservation. UW students will be able to utilize the ethnoforestry knowledge they learned throughout the year on campus and apply it to teach tribal youth how to propagate and grow these culturally important species. A small hoop house will be constructed to house these plants. Tribal youth will be able to hear from UW students about their pathways to college and their involvement in this project. Interested tribal youth will be able to visit campus to learn how they could become future students, increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus.

The second part of this project will happen over summer quarter of 2019. Three to five undergraduate interns will work on applied ethnoforestry on the Olympic Peninsula. These students will be based out of ONRC in Forks, WA. They will be able to see ethnoforestry in action on a new forestry study on the western side of the Olympic Peninsula. These UW students will work with tribal youth to set up an ethnobotanical garden with cultural keystone species at ONRC and work on constructing the new nursery on the Quileute Indian Reservation in concert with their social services Youth Opportunity Program.

Environmental Impact

This project has far reaching environmental impact across campus. First, engaging students from all majors and backgrounds through our volunteer program will help disseminate knowledge on how we can responsibly manage green spaces that incorporates important traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom to benefit both communities and ecosystems together. This new and inclusive approach will create a positive environmental impact from student restoration projects to UW grounds projects. In addition, we will be working in close partnership with the SER-UW Nursery to establish new raised beds to more effectively grow additional plants that can be used for on campus projects. These new raised beds will be designed to use less space, water, and soil, reducing the resources required and enhancing sustainability. This will follow the same philosophy as the SER-UW Nursery’s current mission where plants are grown on campus for campus projects, closing the loop and creating a more sustainable system.

Student Leadership and Involvement

All components of this project will have student leadership and involvement. The research assistant position will be filled by a UW graduate student, providing important leadership to this project. A key aim of this project is to make opportunities available for students to learn about ethnoforestry in a hands-on and tangible way on campus. Volunteer opportunities will be available for all students while quarter long internship opportunities will also be provided for those interested in a more in-depth experience.

Education, Outreach, and Behavior Change

There will be a strong emphasis of education, outreach, and behavior change through this project targeting coastal tribal youth through a guided pathways approach.  Creating an interdisciplinary ethnoforestry course on campus open to all students would greatly increase educational opportunities. In addition, creating consistent internships and volunteer opportunities will teach students how they can help change behavior in the long term by their hands-on connection. We will partner with SER-UW, a club that consistently engages large numbers of interested students, to provide outreach to the UW community.

Feasibility, Accountability, and Sustainability

This ethnoforestry project is very feasible. The framework and beginning stages have already begun for this project including creating partnerships with coastal tribes and with the SER-UW Nursery, generating plant propagation curriculum for a sister nursery, and determining some cultural keystone species. This grant would provide the key funding we need to continue to push this project forward. We strongly believe that providing a space where students can learn about this new discipline of ethnoforestry will create and enhance sustainability on campus, but will also have a ripple effect as students move on into their future endeavors and take this knowledge and new skill set with them.

Project Budget

We are requesting $110,00 for this project. This amount would include funding for one research assistant position for the 2018-19 academic year, supplies for plant propagation and production needs, construction of a sister nursery, transportation to and from ONRC, and lodging for the RA position and interns throughout the summer.

Contact Information

Courtney Bobsin

cbobsin@uw.edu

Bernard Bormann

bormann@uw.edu

Frank Hanson

fsh2@uw.edu

Gould Hall 448F
3950 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
Brittt4@uw.edu

March 9, 2018

Campus Sustainability Fund
University of Washington Seattle Campus
Seattle, WA 98195

RE: Grant Proposal.

Dear Campus Sustainability Fund:

The Northwest Center for Livable Communities is providing you with this Letter of Intent (LOI) regarding a grant proposal for funding our organization in the current academic year  2017- 2018.  We hope that this effort will be the beginning of a long and productive relationship between the Northwest Center for Livable Communities (NWCLC) and the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) here at the University of Washington.    

As we discussed in our recent meeting on February 14, 2018, we are seeking funding to expand the NWCLC’s role at the UW.  During the past  36 years the NWCLC has sought to create a viable platform to connect the UW community with current leaders in the built environment.  The proposed NWCLC speakers’ bureau will highlight local, regional, national and international best practices in sustainable design, construction materials and methods, urban mobility, land use and place making. Currently, the NWCLC is unable to underwrite the cost of a speakers’ bureau which we believe will become financially self-sustaining in the near term. We will be requesting funding from the CSF to launch this exciting new program.

In addition, with funding in hand, the NWCLC will underwrite an annual student led project to be implemented on the UW Seattle campus.  This project will be designed and built by students for students. We anticipate the first project to be designed and built on campus in Fall 2018. 

Organization	NWCLC
3/29/2017
Funding Request	#1
Cost Item	#	Monthly Cost	One-Time Cost	Total Cost
Speaking Program Startup Cost
Space Costs	4	$1,500		$4,700
Event Staff	4	$750	$3,000	$3,000
Speaker #1			$3,000	$3,000
Speaker  #2			$3,000	$3,000
Speaker  #3			$6,000	$6,000
Speaker #4			$6,000	$6,000
Travel For speakers	4	$1,500	$6,000	$6,000
Stay for Speakers	4	$500	$2,000	$2,000
Speaking Equipment Rental	4	$200	$800	$800
Food and Beverage	4	$500	$2,000	$2,000
Miscellaneous			$1,000	$1,000
Total  Costs				$37,500
NWCLC & CSF Studio Study
Studio Development				$4,000.00
Studio Equipment				$500
Feasibility & Outreach				$1,000
Printing				$1,000
				-
Miscellaneous				$1,000
Total Quarterly				$7,500
Total Costs				$45,000

Please note that this LOI is not a complete proposal. We intend to deliver a complete proposal to your office by the required May deadline.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Best regards,

Tyler Brittain