Donations, Sustainable Events, and Climate Stories Day

So much going on this February, we’re excited to share it all with you! There’s of course Black History Month, and the Diversity Center and Sustainability Club are hosting a film showing on February 28th, and we have Climate Stories Day! ”Chrisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed”, a documentary about her 1972 presidential campaign.

Did you also know that it’s National Canned Food Month – check out the food drive and awesome blog by the Kodiak Cave below! This link should take you right to all their information, we’re excited to help feature their efforts! They have various donations boxes across campus, and the food will be distributed to students in need through the Kodiak Cave!

February is National Canned Food Month!

The Sustainability Office is also hosting a second donation drive – to support our unhoused neighbors. We’re looking to take donations in similar boxes to the canned food drive, and connecting these items to a community partner, Compass housing alliance! 

Finally, both sustainability offices are extremely excited to help host Climate Stories Day – in partnership with the library community reads team on February 20^th!

Community Reads is thrilled to host Lindsey Brodeck, the author of the short story “Afterglow,” for a visioning event launching our Climate Fiction Writing Awards. Lindsey will be giving a short presentation about her own writing process and climate fiction, and then will be available to answer some questions and moderate a community brainstorming session for our own campus visionary fiction writing. This event will be at 11am-12pm, in Mobius Hall.

At 5:30-7:00pm also in Mobius Hall, join us for an evening with Madeline Ostrander, author of ‘At Home on an Unruly Planet’.  The book covers climate change impacts on American families currently, ongoing, and in the recent past.  It talks about adaptation, survival, and managing the climate crisis—something that is vitally important as we move forwards with sustainability and justice.  The event will host local climate action groups, the City of Bothell for a resilience visioning activity, a time for book signings, and refreshments. 

We hope you can join us for any and all of these events! Have a sustainable February! 

Recycled Art – Non-recyclable Plastics

This series of blogs features guest student author Devon G on his recycled art project, featured in Mobius Gallery in Spring of 2023. Join us here for this final article in the series of thoughts and considerations on art, community, and society, and how they impact and are affected by sustainable practices – through non-recyclable plastics! 

With confusion around plastic recycling, another motivation for my capstone project was aiming to find a temporary solution for plastics that are typically not accepted at recycling plants. Plastics with Nos. 3-7 on the bottom are less likely to be taken at recycling facilities throughout the United States. If these plastics are not accepted and end up in a recycling bin, they get sent to landfills. This is also similar for a lot of PLA’s – plant-based plastics – and plastics that are too small to be recovered in the sorting process [1]. These plastics that make into our landfills, oceans, rivers, and so forth, and pose a threat to our environment, animals, and us. These plastics pollute our waterways, get mistaken as food by animals, break down into microplastics (which poses threats we have yet to fully uncover), and so on [1]. 

These pieces were painted on large plexiglas plastics – which are not recyclable.

By using plastics that are generally not recycled, in the creation of art pieces, people can find a temporary solution for keeping non-recyclable plastics out of our waterways and oceans. More education on what plastics are accepted in an individual’s county/processing service are needed, but this is a fun way to encourage people to learn about their local recycling inputs, while also making art and contributing to less harmful waste in our waters. Eventually, it is possible for this art to take off, with styles emerging, and plastics becoming recognized for their art potential, resulting in less plastic polluting our water. This would be a temporary solution until plastic recycling is advanced, and or different packaging materials become the norm, or we find more ways in daily life to use less single-use plastics. While I recognize this is idealistic, I do believe there is potential showing this message by making art with current-day, non-recyclable plastics.  Read the next blog in this series to consider more about reducing consumption and use of single use plastics!

These pieces were painted on large plexiglas plastics – which are not recyclable. These were submitted by Chris Gildow’s class!

Citations:

1. Frost, K., & Goodman, A. (2023, March 29). The inconvenient consequences of a culture of convenience. ASU News. https://news.asu.edu/20181003-solutions-asu-researchers-plastics-pollution-recycling

Recycled Art – AI Artists…

This series of blogs features guest student author Devon G on his recycled art project, featured in Mobius Gallery in Spring of 2023. All the opinions and statements are his own. Join us here for this series of thoughts and considerations on art, community, and society, and how they impact and are affected by sustainable practices – through AI art discussion! 

Another motivator for my capstone project was the recent interest and shift towards corporations/companies using AI art in their promotional pieces and entertainment. This is becoming more common practice, and is concerning for the future of job security in art/entertainment, as well as a plethora of other unrelated sectors/industries. With mega corporations such as Disney – which pride themselves on their art/creations – using AI tools to craft their promotional pieces and parts of their show sets a standard for other corporations, businesses, people, etc. This standard encourages and normalizes the use of AI tools for work previously done by a human, trained in their expertise. 

Corporations utilizing AI instead of specialized workers paints the picture that this is the new “normal”, and that the use of AI should be accepted in the art-space. This is risky behavior, especially from corporations with massive budgets that could very well pay the artists for promotional work, and have done so in the past. Not only does the use of AI art take the livelihoods of artists, but in most cases, its datasets and learning is based on the work of millions of artists, without their consent – creating an IP and copyright can of worms. With AI models learning from millions of pieces of art, corporations using AI programs to generate their art are possibly committing copyright infringement [1]. This creates an ethical, moral, and legal dilemma – all in the name of saving money. Ironically, the legal fees associated with settling lawsuits and settlements could cost more than the savings achieved from utilizing AI art. 

If there is any time for the creation of human art, now is the time to encourage it. With AI art being normalized and encouraged, even for people that are not artists, now is an appropriate time to focus on human art and the people behind it. AI art will likely never be able to truly capture the nuances and characteristics of human art, this is advantageous for artists and society.
Human concepts and new artistic designs cannot be created by AI art currently, as it mainly re-uses and changes existing pieces in its creation. More must be done in terms of laws and regulations surrounding AI and copyright infringement, as well as job protection for artists and other careers potentially impacted/replaced by AI – this was in part the cause of the recent strikes from actors, writers, and more. 

Sustainability vs. AI Art

AI art also relies upon a large amount of electricity and server farms to operate, with cooling and other required infrastructure, all needing electricity and energy to run. While there is no specific data surrounding AI art and the energy requirements(as AI art is relatively novel), expected energy requirements for AI servers and infrastructure could match some heavily-populated European countries [2]. AI computation and its requirements has the potential to take-over cryptocurrencies in terms of emissions generated through use of these services. Opposition of AI art can be endorsed by supporting artists and human-made art, creating your own art, opposing media made with AI, and contacting your congressional representative with your concerns on the implications of AI and AI art. 

Citations:

1. CAIR. (2023, May 2). Ai open letter – cair. Artistic Inquiry. https://artisticinquiry.org/AI-Open-Letter
2. Erdenesanaa, D. (2023, October 10). A.I. Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/climate/ai-could-soon-need-as-much-electricity-as-an-entire-country.html

New Plastic Bag and Film Recycling on Campus!

Welcome to a new Waste Ambassadors waste management program! We in the joint Cascadia/UWB sustainability offices are introducing a Plastic Bag and Film Recycling Challenge for 2024!

Challenge details

The challenge is to collect 1,000 pounds of bags and film and divert them from the landfill. The Sustainability team will track weights, and work with the Woodinville Haggen for recycling. If we reach the goal, campus can earn a free bench made from post-consumer plastics! We’re hoping to get this amount/weight throughout 2024 entirely – and have a community partner in NexTrex to increase this hard to recycle material! Remember – do NOT place plastic bags, film, or packing materials (and tape!) in regular recycle bins! Also, please do not put in any plastic foams blocks. We sadly cannot take those in these bins – but do message us if you have larger styrofoam blocks!

We’re putting this out into the community, as we also know that many grocery locations, where people generally bring soft plastics or bags, so we’re working to have several of the soft plastic recycling locations in public places. In addition to specialty recycling already available – we are happy to be a hub for the community to drop off various items. For instance, every month or so – there’s hazardous waste drop off event on campus – the next one should be in February. 

Materials accepted for recycling

Plastic bags: includes grocery bags, bread bags, ice bags, produce bags, dry cleaning bags
Product wraps: includes the plastic around paper towels, electronic wrap, the plastic wrapped around cases of water bottles
Shipping material: includes plastic shipping envelopes, bubble wrap, air cushions, pallet wraps

Drop off bin locations

• CC1-341- lunch room, next to the shred bin
• CC1-154 – Student Learning Office workroom
• CC2- Information Services Office Help Desk (on 1st floor)
• CC3-326 – Workroom on the 3rd floor
• ARC-ILO – right by the entrance doors on the right
• INV- 2nd Floor Innovation Hall, by the specialty recycling bin (batteries and E-waste!)
• The Collaboratory in Discovery Hall
• 2^nd floor of Innovation Hall (next to the green e-waste collection bin)
• Break room in Husky Hall

We’re excited to share that our partners at UWB IT, Cascadia IS, the mail rooms, Gold Brew, campus facilities, and the ARC are internally collecting their plastics for this challenge with us! 

Important reminders

• Please try to re-use your materials whenever possible. Recycling is a last resort!
• Plastic should be clean – please avoid food waste or too much tape
• Don’t know if it can be recycled – just grab it and pull, make sure it can stretch a bit. If so, it’s good to bring to these bins!

Recycled Art – Inspiration

This series of blogs features guest student author Devon G on his recycled art project, featured in Mobius Gallery in Spring of 2023. Join us here for this series of thoughts and considerations on art, community, and society, and how they impact and are affected by sustainable practices – through recycled art! 

The main inspiration for my recycled art capstone project was a documentary we viewed in one of our classes in the Bachelor’s program in Sustainable Practices, with professor Soraya Cardenas. The name of the documentary is called Waste Land, which follows the Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz. Earlier in Muniz’s career, Muniz would work on a piece called Sugar Children, which involved photographs taken of children on a Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Upon viewing the photographs, Muniz wondered why the children photographed seemed so happy, while the adults were the opposite. Muniz realized it was the 16-hour work shifts on sugar farms that changed the adult’s moods. In other words, the sweetness was taken out of them over time, due to intense, grueling work. He realized he could use sugar to recreate those photographs, symbolizing the value of these materials and resources, while also using a medium not commonly seen in the art-world. These art pieces went on to transform Muniz’s career. The act of using sugar as an unconventional medium for art blossomed into using trash for art pieces. 

Muniz’s plan was to spend two years at one of the world’s largest garbage dumps in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, looking to explore the vastness of classicism rooted in the country; to learn from the locals and workers in the area, trying to find the intentions and plans behind his upcoming pieces. Upon meeting the catadores (garbage pickers), Muniz was amazed by the spirits of these workers in unfavorable working conditions. Their spirits shifted Muniz’s plans into a collaborative effort between the catadores and Muniz. Muniz took photographs of the catadores, projected them onto a warehouse floor, and constructed the portraits using recyclables and trash collected from the trash dump. This inspired me to explore using trash/recyclable materials as a medium for art [1].  

With an art medium that is not commonly used, but found everywhere, creativity and improvisation are necessary. In my experience, using trash and recyclable materials in art was a fresh undertaking. Going through the process reminded me of how much waste is generated on a daily basis, even for one household. Additionally, it raised questions around our current consumption habits, packaging amounts, future use of packaging materials, and so forth. 

Art can show us the hardships and beauties present in our society. Furthermore, it can show us the intricacies and inner workings of the minds’ of artists. In exhibits and pieces like Muniz’s work, people can see workers such as catadores in a new light, and with a new level of respect, while also re-imagining art in a fresh, new way, with infinite possibilities. So below are some images from my capstone project art show in Spring 2023 in the Mobius Gallery, showcasing various artists’ art from recycled materials!

Citations:

1. Almega Projects. (2011). Waste land. 

Student Internship: Waste Management

written by BASSP student Rhianne J

During my winter quarter, I experienced many new responsibilities as an Outreach Coordinator that were valuable to my growth as an employee. Each of these responsibilities improved my administrative, presentation-oriented, and educator experiences. Being an outreach coordinator for WM gives you tremendous opportunities to teach the communities you’re contracted with how to recycle. These opportunities are in the field, virtually, over the phone, in schools and leading internships, at multifamily apartments and commercial businesses, at events, through social media, through intensive reporting to Departments of Environmental Quality, and more; your voice is heard and requested by people, entities, and state departments seeking to learn more about recycling, composting, and waste sorting processes.

I want to reflect on one of my proudest projects this quarter: the time I spent working closely with a school called Green Gables Elementary in Federal Way. I was contacted by a teacher, Karen Conrad, who is looking to jump-start their school’s composting and recycling collection and seeking recycling-related education for their students. We have met several times this year to coordinate education geared toward understanding why recycling is essential. One of the best ways to educate students is to show them the sources of the materials we create products from and built-in education about how to sort waste on top of this previous education.

I was introduced to Karen’s Green Team, around nine students from the 3rd-4th grade. On our first visit, we got to know each other, learned about which materials come from which of earth’s resources, and played recycling sorting games. I was then advised that Karen wanted to empower her students to inform all of their peers about what they had learned with my class sessions, and she asked for my help training students to develop a script and visual materials so these students could teach their peers! I was initially worried—if I were a 3rd-5th grader, teaching my friends isn’t something I’d typically jump on. But after a few training sessions with the team, they were undoubtedly empowered and had an excellent time teaching once familiar with the content. Through the remaining months of the school year, all of their classes will be trained to sort compost, recycling, and garbage in their classes, and I will be posted as a waste steward during their lunch hours! To ensure their hard work is accounted for, I will also be training janitorial staff and teachers about how to sort their waste to make sure their materials can be reused repeatedly.

Through the winter quarter, I have also educated adults through a virtual presentation of a material recovery facility and visited multifamily properties to help them sort out their waste collection issues. Surprisingly, teaching these concepts to adults and seeing behavior change is more of a challenge than it is with children! I’ve learned that educating youth is an important focus area. We are helping WM solidify itself as a valuable community partner and assisting children in inheriting a cleaner, resource-stable world in the face of so much change in our climate and productivity. Giving them an education that sticks with them through interactive means is fun and keeps them keenly aware of anyone around them improperly sorting. Many children involve their families in their waste-sorting journey; they love teaching parents and guardians about what they’ve learned. Building community through sustainable education has been a joy, and I’m grateful to be a part of the WM team!

Our Bachelor of Applied Science students get real hands on field experience, and opportunities to learn in a variety of interested careers! For more information on BASSP, please go to https://www.cascadia.edu/programs/degrees/bassp.aspx or check out other student stories on the main Sustainability page!

Annual Report – Sustainable Practices Office 2021-2022

Another end of year is upon us, and we’d like to report out to the community the Office of Sustainability’s activities and accomplishments this year here at Cascadia. It’s been a varied year of online, hybrid, and in person activities due to COVID and the continued pandemic and the great transition. We hope you find some interest in this report, and could see what things you, our community, could become involved with us in future!

As usual, the office’s goal was to engage and educate students – through the Bachelor of Applied Science in Sustainable Practices (BASSP) and Environmental Technology and Sustainable Practices (ETSP) programs, but also our general student populace, clubs, and our greater area community. Equity and Inclusion are still a vital part of all of this, as we cannot build a better society without justice.

National Campus Sustainability Award – Top School in Sustainable Grounds

• Our campus won an AASHE national Campus Sustainability Achievement Award – for our Cornucopia Food Forest
• We were recognized as the #1 campus for Sustainable grounds (tied) for the 4th year running!
• We were recognized for our grounds management by non-profit Herbicide Free Campus!

Presentations and Workshops

• WOHESC Presentation 2022: “Nonprofit Land for Student Projects” – speaking with non-profit Ruta Verde on land preservation and land use with plans for Ecovillage design.
• Campus Garden Workshops – having speakers on various garden and soil topics for prospective and interested gardeners!
• Wellness Fest presenting on native bees and Campus sustainability

Integrate It! Campus Blog and Common Caws Podcast

We published 20 blogs over the year – focusing on topics from our student showcasing, campus partners, waste reduction, and sustainability guides, right here on Integrate It! blog!

Two new Mini-series in our Common Caws for Sustainability Podcast were launched by student groups:

• Transportation in a Sustainable Style
• Earth, We’re just living in it! (Health Studies and COVID management)

You can listen to the podcast on any pod-catcher or podcast app!

Campus Activities

• Assisted Student Sustainability Club – multiple events, clothing upcycling, spring planting, and seeding, trash pick-ups, and sustainable swap giveaways, guest speaker Dr. James Conca
• Supply Swap – allowing staff and faculty to bring and exchange office equipment
• Tabling at the Lake Washington Students of Color Conference, and Wetland Day!
• Hosted Seattle Foragers MeetUp
• Student social events – beach clean up, herbalism tour, local trash clean ups, Beacon Food Forest visit, and alumni/student mixer
• Fall Cider Event
• Site visits for classes – Bullitt Center, 21 Acres, Recology MRF, Brightwater Treatment plant.

Earth Week events including:

• Waste Sorting Activity
• Sustainability tabling and activities with Recology and community groups
• Terracycle Speaker on specialty recycling
• Kiss the Ground Film Showing
• Farmer Frog Farm Tour
• Story of Plastic Film Showing with Oceana

Grants and Progress

We’re moving along with the two sustainable grants we are currently managing. We have grants from both King County Water Treatment Division – for Stormwater, and from the Washington Native Plant Society (WNPS).

The Student Led Solutions for Stormwater Management project trained various students from both Cascadia and UW Bothell. The project does weekly sampling of stormwater entering our wetland, and is working on berm restoration and construction this summer! Any student is welcome to join and volunteer, and learn about both field and lab sampling of stormwater!

The WNPS grant was focused on funding new plantings on campus of native plants. The goals of the project was to support native bees and pollinators on campus. The CCUWBee native bee research initiative is set up to track and study native bees on campus. CCUWBee found times in the summer when there were limited or no blooming plants, which could allow bees to starve – known as bloom gaps. This grant was designed to close those bloom gaps – and we have three newly planted areas on campus thriving in the spring!

Capstone Presentations

• Business plan for Ecovillage design
• Business plan for Sustainable Fashion and clothes design
• Waste Ambassadors 2022 – reducing waste and education
• Campus Bicycling engagement for Cascadia Mail and Facilities

And more to come this summer!

We’d love to engage with you all, and please take a look at our campus sustainability YouTube channel!

Read the 2020-2021 Annual Report! https://cascadiaupdates.wordpress.com/2021/06/14/have-a-sustainable-summer-yearly-report/

Winning a Campus Sustainability Achievement Award

Cascadia has won a 2021 Campus Sustainability Achievement Award, from the Association for Advancement of Sustainability at Higher Education (AASHE), an international certifying organization for sustainability. We’re so honored to receive this award recognizing the amazing effort our campus community has put in to create, preserve, and use the Cornucopia Food Forest!

When the Food Forest was first envisioned, it was an idea to create more engaging outdoor space, and what better way to connect people than with food they may recognize, and teach them about edible plants.  Fruit and berries on over 30 trees and shrubs creates a space for people to explore, forage, and pick food from all over the world!  Since we planted our Permaculture Cornucopia Food Forest, it’s quickly become a loved portion of campus; as faculty use it in their classes, staff eat their lunches there, and excess fruit can support our campus food pantries. 

We have to also thank all our amazing partners at University of Washington Bothell, particularly in Grounds and Facilities, for their incredible support for this and all our projects!  For Cascadia, we’re such a small college, it’s a huge honor to be recognized with an award on our progress – I hope it can inspire others across the world that local and individual actions truly make a difference in people’s lives and communities!

If you’d like to watch the award ceremony recording, you can see it here on YouTube:

And read more about our case study and the other award winners for 2021 and the past here: https://www.aashe.org/get-involved/awards/winners/?utm_source=Higher%20Logic%20Marketing%20Automation&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Marketing&_zs=OaJta&_zl=fRCs2

We were the winners in the Associate College level category, specifically for Campus Programs achievements – for sustainability. There are categories in Racial Equity and Sustainability and Campus Sustainability Student Leadership, so more of our work could be recognized in the future!

This is another part of what has made Cascadia College truly an incredible place to go to school, to work, and to teach at – for our living laboratory of our campus grounds, which of course has been recognized as the #1 sustainable campus grounds in the nation for four years now. We’ll be putting up the plaque on campus, and adding that to our other certifications and recognitions, such as the Bee Campus USA certification, National Wildlife Habitat Certification, and Salmon Safe certification (all shared with UWB, of course!). To be nationally recognized hopefully puts Cascadia on the map for students interested in studying sustainability, and will come to our campus to gain accessible, equitable, and superior education, integrate their experience with us, and inspire them to lifelong learning.

Thank you all so much – staff, faculty, students, this award is truly for you – for the love of the Food Forest you’ve shown through use, exploration, and meandering, but also with support and enjoyment throughout it’s 6 year existence! You all make Cascadia special.

AASHE also put together this word cloud of congratulations that was being created during the ceremony!

Sustainability on campus – events, engagement, and sharing (and cider)!

This week, we’re sharing a bit of how we’re getting back to campus and continuing our work on Sustainability here at Cascadia College!

We have a Cider Pressing event this Thursday, to showcase the Campus Farm. Bring your own apples and a cider container and come learn to press apples into cider! It will be held on October 14th, 12:30p-2pm,
on the UWB Promenade in front of Discovery Hall, and all UWB and Cascadia Students and Staff welcome!! The grounds team has a cider press – if you bring your own apples or jar/cup, you can see how apple cider is made, or use some of the apples and cups we will provide! (More sustainable to bring jars or cups to drink!) NOTE: we moved from the Campus Farm hosting, as there’s a UWB engagement event on the promenade, and so will have more student access!

• 

• 

• 

• 

Photos from the 2019 cider pressing event! We’d love to have you stop by and enjoy!

You can stop by any time, and we’ll be happy to chat cider and apples, and the campus farm! The farm is located between the North Garage and the campus sports field – so you can find it and forage at your own time!

Native Plantings to support Pollinators

In the next few weeks we’ll be planing native plants around campus, and you can join us for those events too! The Washington Native Plant Society (WNPS) gave us a grant to support pollinators and close bloom gaps on campus (periods of time where there aren’t any flowers blooming – so bees and butterflies may starve in those weeks!), and we have three locations where we are planting on campus! Thank you very very much to the WNPS for their support!

Oct 19th, 9a-11am, we’ll be planting at the pollinator mounds near the Campus Farm, by the North Garage!

Oct 26th we’ll be planting at the Discovery Forest (behind UW2/Discovery hall, across from the physical plant – to add to the small forest there! 9am-11am!

• 

• 

These images are from our summer planting, by the flagpole! You can see the plants establishing themselves there!

Also, as we are returning to campus, I’d like to reopen the Sustainability suggestions form! You can submit it anonymously, and tell us about what you’re already doing, what we could improve on, or how we can include more people, groups, or you! Please feel free to use this here, or email us directly too!
https://forms.gle/mQJGkH7MTGPxtSC86 We are here to help, work with you, and find a path forwards together!!

Finally, check out this new Food Forest feature video, created by a Cascadia BASSP student!

Common Caws for Sustainability Podcast

The Sustainability Offices at UW Bothell and Cascadia College have released a campus sustainability podcast! Of course, sustainability has been a core concept and value of the University of Washington Bothell/Cascadia College campus, and this podcast showcases our sustainability efforts and solutions for our planet and society. Not only will our sustainability staff share their experience and best practices, but will also bring in guests from both on- and off-campus for interviews and to share their stories. 

Why “Common Caws for Sustainability”? 

If you have been to campus between dawn and dusk, you may have noticed our approximately 15,000 crows circling overhead that roost in our wetland each night. We want to highlight this unique campus feature, while diving deeper into sustainability causes and hot topics. 

Mini-series

We will be launching multiple mini-series under this podcast, created and produced by students from both institutions. They will choose their themes, interviewees, etc., and use this as an opportunity to share their voice and perspective. We look forward to sharing those with you as well! 

Sustainable Living – Two UW Seattle students, Noah and Emily, describe their experiences with integrating sustainability in their lives, and help teach us through how to live more sustainably in an unsustainable world!

Climate Change is Happening. Now What? – Two Cascadia students in the BASSP program, Camilla and Miguel, interview professionals about the challenges we may face with climate change, and what we can do to make a difference from here!

Main Episodes

Find all episodes and descriptions on our Podcast Dashboard!
Common Caws for Sustainability Main Podcast – Episodes will launch at the beginning of each month
Mini-Series – Episodes will launch weekly, on either Monday, Wednesday, or both! Try our first episode:

Episode 1: Campus History and Campus Sustainability Common ‘Cawses’

Listen to the podcast at: Anchor.fm or any common podcast listening sites!