The University of Washington Farm (UW Farm) proposes to purchase and install a composting toilet at the Center for Urban Horticulture (CUH) farm site. There is increasing need for an outdoor bathroom facility at the farm, to support student famers working and volunteering at the UW Farm, as well as other groups using the space. In 2015, there were over 180 volunteers working at the farm. In addition, the farm offered tours to over 500 UW students in 2015 alone.
Composting Toilet at the Center for Urban Horticulture
Amount Awarded: $33,000
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
2016 UW Night Market
Amount Awarded: $1,000
Project Status: Completed
Since 2001, the Taiwanese Student Association (TSA) has brought this dynamic, cultural event to the University of Washington campus. Given its success, the UW Night Market has quickly become an annual Seattle tradition. Our goal is to bring people together in celebrating and appreciating Taiwanese culture. The event includes many vendors selling various Taiwanese foods, on-stage performances, as well as cultural activities. However, we don't want it to be just a cultural event, we also hope to increase community awareness of how to maintain a sustainable enviroment.
2nd Annual UW Resilience Summit
Amount Awarded: $1,250
Project Status: Completed
Last year the UW student group ReThink used a CSF grant to organize the first UW Resilience Summit. This year they recieved another grant to host the event for a second year, with a paneled event that focuses on a specific topic relating to environmental and economic resilience.
ASUW Student Food Cooperative Bulk Buying Storefront
Amount Awarded: $2,500
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
Hey everyone. The ASUW SFC seeks to create an on-campus food co-op. This means we- the students of UW- will collaboratively staff it, vision growth, and create a campus community around yummy food! The storefront will consist of a variety of popular dried/pantry bulk food items, ranging from snacks (nuts, dried fruit, candy) to kitchen basics (flour, beans, sugar). With this grant we can speed up construction and open the pantry by early 2017! We are currently seeking food and people enthusiasts to help run and staff the storefront once open!
Ballo Conservatio: Dance Conservation (Photography Piece)
Amount Awarded: $5,350
Project Status: Completed
This photographic series, soon to be created by Ballo Conservatio, will investigate the relationship that humans have with environmental resources and the resulting outcomes of our daily decisions when considering sustainability.
Campus Illumination: An Implementation Strategy for Sustainable Exterior Lighting
Amount Awarded: $50,965
Project Status: Completed
The Campus Illumination team envisions a campus with truly sustainable exterior lighting that enhances the campus experience, mitigates disruption to wildlife patterns, and operates with the most efficient use of energy. The team will collaborate with UW students, faculty, staff, and off- lighting design professionals to create a roadmap to guide future development and retrofitting efforts on campus.
Earth Day 2016 Celebration
Amount Awarded: $1,000
Project Status: Completed
The Earth day celebration is a popular annual gathering at the University of Washington. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the event. On April 22nd, 2015 the event was put on by UW’s student run Earth Club and assisted by the UW sustainability staff. The goal of the organizers is to bring as many people together as they can to talk about our planet and sustainability. This year the celebration was located in Red Square in the center of campus.
Electronic Waste Educational and Information System
Amount Awarded: $13,694
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
Our vision is to provide consumers at the University with the accurate knowledge of what is and what isn’t recyclable or compostable. Our software is built for tablets, and designed to be mounted on-site in front of waste containers. When a consumer approaches with waste, they can utilize the software to determine how to properly dispose of their waste, thus reducing the University's improper waste stream and improving consumer education.
Learn more about their product on the EvoEco website.
Environmental Display for Paccar Hall
Amount Awarded: $890
Project Status: Completed
While built environments provide people and society with a lot of benefits, they also have significant influence on our environment. According to EPA, people in the United States spend more than 90% of their time in the built environments. However, many of them feel less engaged with buildings since they have limited access to the information and knowledge about the buildings such as how the air is heated within the buildings? Many studies show that this lack of engagement will influence how comfortable occupants feel and how much environmental awareness they have within buildings.
Fossil Fuel Divestment Pacific Northwest Network Spring 2016 Convergence
Amount Awarded: $1,000
Project Status: Completed
72 hours. 50 people. 12 schools. One World Changed!
Students from the Confronting Climate Change RSO are doing the exciting work of planning a student divestment convergence this spring 2016. Students from colleges across the northwest region will be coming together to strengthen the current fossil fuel divestment movement of the region.
Green Square: UW Tower Urban Garden Demonstration
Amount Awarded: $59,730
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
Through student-led innovation and design, the UW Tower Demonstration Garden team aspires to transform the Tower plaza by enhancing the appearance of the expansive red brick with an attractive oasis of green urban food production. The garden will demonstrate University of Washington's sustainability goals through an adaptive appropriation of urban space. With the traffic of visitors and staff at the UW Tower and high degree of public exposure from the adjacent Link light rail station, Green Square will represent the innovative mission of the University and the Campus Sustainability Fund to a broad audience.
Kincaid Ravine Restoration Budget Amendment Proposal
Amount Awarded: $35,000
Project Status: Completed
Ecological restoration efforts have been ongoing in Kincaid Ravine since the winter quarter of 2014. The roughly 4 acre ravine located in the NE corner of campus was overgrown with invasive species, severely lacking in biodiversity and littered with trash when Martha Moritz (MEH ’14) began to plan restoration work to transform the ravine into an asset for the University and its surrounding community. There is much work still to be accomplished, but Kincaid Ravine is well on its way to becoming a healthy urban forest on the UW campus.
Lab Glove Recycling
Amount Awarded: $2,000
Project Status: Inactive
Labs account for over 20% of all space on campus. Nitrile lab gloves are a significant source of waste produced in labs across all departments. A recent waste audit concluded that gloves are the second largest source of waste in campus labs. UW Sustainability and UW Recycling propose a pilot program that would recycle used, non-hazardous nitrile lab gloves that are currently being sent to the landfill. The gloves would be collected then shipped back to their producer, Kimberly-Clark, where they would be recycled into products like park benches and chairs.
Next System Teach-In
Amount Awarded: $1,000
Project Status: Completed
The UW Center for Communication & Civic Engagement’s Rethinking Prosperity project organized the Next System Teach-In in partnership with the UW Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies. Rethinking Prosperity is an initiative that seeks to identify and communicate economic models that work for more people, within planetary boundaries. It emerged from a seminar of undergraduate seniors in Communication. The Teach-In took place on April 25th, 2016 at Kane Hall.
Planting and Installing Pollinator Habitats at the University of Washington Farm at the Center for Urban Horticulture
Amount Awarded: $1,000
Project Status: Completed
This project will be to design and plant a hedgerow along the southern boundary of the UW-CUH Farm; it will be composed of woody perennial plant species that will act primarily as pollinator habitat, providing forage, shelter, and most importantly, overwintering habitat for insects. By installing suitable habitat for local pollinating insects, this project will both enhance the biodiversity of the surrounding Union Bay Natural Area and benefit student food production at the UW Farm by potentially increasing the yield of vegetables grown and the genetic diversity (stress-tolerance) of the cr
Putting the Green in Greenhouse Revision
Amount Awarded: $34,365
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
This is a student initiated project to decrease the use of Seattle City water in the UW greenhouse for single pass irrigation purposes. Fertilized and clear irrigation water in the existing 14,000 sq ft greenhouse exceeds 127,000 gpy.
SER-UW Native Plant Nursery Improvements
Amount Awarded: $67,967
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
The SER-UW Native Plant Nursery is a student-run nursery established in 2013 that grows native species to provide a source of plants for restoration projects for the UW campus and UW students. The nursery has spent the last year, with money from the CSF grant, expanding and building a new hoop house to house all of our plants. Currently, we provide native plants to student-run restoration projects like Whitman Walk, Kincaid ravine, and UW restoration classes like ESRM 473. We are working to also provide native species to UW Grounds Management to increase the native plants grown on campus
Sustainable Shellfish Aquaculture (Phase 2): Engaging Students and Public in Marine Conservation
Amount Awarded: $23,872
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
The UW Shellfish Farm concept is a collaborative effort between students and faculty from the UW School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences (SAFS), School of Marine & Environmental Affairs (SMEA), and Department of Biology, along with Taylor Shellfish Inc. and other shellfish industry stakeholders. We seek to establish a student-run shellfish farm at the Big Beef Creek Research Station, a SAFS field site on Hood Canal. The Farm is a two-phase project, and was awarded one year of funding from the Campus Sustainability Fund in Summer 2015.
Tribal Water Security Colloquium: Rethinking Our Relationship With Water
Amount Awarded: $960
Project Status: Completed
The Tribal Water Security Colloquium (TWSC) was hosted by the Water is Life: water, health and “ecosystem services” class taught by Dr. Clarita Lefthand-Begay in the Department of American Indian Studies. Undergraduate students enrolled in this class collaborated by picking, inviting and hosting leaders to speak about water. In the TWSC we focused our attention on creating a space where we could learn directly from influential tribal leaders whose communities are at the forefront of climate change and environmental challenges.
UW Floating Wetlands Project Phase I
Amount Awarded: $11,379
Project Status: Completed
Floating wetlands are an emerging green technology that mimic naturally occurring wetlands by using floating frames as a base upon which to grow native wetland plants. Across the globe, floating wetlands have been deployed with positive results in carbon sequestration; reduction of metals and pollutants; climate adaptation and water temperature mitigation; habitat renewal; and shoreline protection and beautification.
UW-Solar Life Sciences Building
Amount Awarded: $7,500
Project Status: Completed
UW-Solar is a student-led organization working with architecture firm Perkins+Will to install building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) on the new Life Sciences Building of the University of Washington Seattle campus. The intended installation will serve both as an ancillary source of electrical power and a heat gain control measure on the building envelope. The BIPV panels will also be highly visible and showcase UW as a steward in sustainable construction.