A rainwater system for the Construction Materials Laboratory in More Hall

Amount Awarded: $32,000
Project Status: Completed

The Construction Materials Laboratory at More Hall is an instruction laboratory where undergraduate students of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and the College of Built Environments (CBE) study different construction materials and gain hands-on experience with mixing portland cement concrete. In order to achieve the desired strength and durability of the concrete, the concrete structures are cured in a fog room adjacent to the CML.

Conservation and Sustainability at Manastash Ridge Observatory: Planning For the Next Forty Years

Amount Awarded: $59,559
Project Status: Active: Planning phase

Forty years after its dedication, it's time to make changes at the University’s Manastash Ridge Observatory (MRO) that reflect the realities of how we use the facility and respect our impact on natural resources, particularly our water and energy consumption. We propose to upgrade our bathrooms, kitchen, and lighting to conserve water and energy, and to build a rainwater catchment system and a solar energy system to reduce our reliance on outside water and power. The budget for this proposal is approximately $60,000, of which $49,000 is for the solar energy system.

Earth Day 2015 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.

Educational Signage + Benches for Kincaid Ravine

Amount Awarded: $3,385
Project Status: Completed

Educational signage and benches for Kincaid Ravine aims to install 2 benches handmilled from leftover timber cut down by the campus arborist, and three 12"x12" educational signs designed by UW Museology students and produced professionally by Fossil Graphics. This educational "nook" is located just south of the wetland, on the eastern perimeter of the Kincaid Ravine restoration site, approximately 15 feet off of the Burke Gilman Trail (BGT). It will create an essential education and outreach component to the sustainability initiatives already occurring in Kincaid Ravine.

Engaging Students and Public in Marine Conservation Through Sustainable Shellfish Aquaculture

Amount Awarded: $27,400
Project Status: Completed

The UW Shellfish Farm is a project conceived by several graduate students, faculty and staff at the School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences (SAFS), in collaboration with the School of Marine & Environmental Affairs (SMEA) and the College of the Environment. We seek to establish a student-run shellfish farm at the Big Beef Creek Research Station, a SAFS field site on Hood Canal. The overarching goals of the project are:

Expanding Education and Outreach at the UW Farm

Amount Awarded: $16,100
Project Status: Completed

The proposed project's goal is to create an education program for elementary school children to tour the Farm and learn about sustainable agriculture and healthy food choices.  The proposed project requests funding for two main components: 1) the creation of a physical space on the Farm where children can explore and garden and 2) the acquisition of educational materials and supplies needed to run an educational outreach program that provides rigorous, curriculum-driven field trips with engaging and interactive educational activities.

HydraPower

Amount Awarded: $8,616
Project Status: Inactive

Our project, HydraPower, is a new, innovate technology that produces clean, alternative energy. HydraPower functions by capturing and generating energy from light, specifically infrared (IR) light. The device collects energy from ambient IR light, which is ubiquitously present at all times of day. Therefore, it provides stable power at all times of day without needing additional power supplied by rechargeable batteries. The ability to generate constant, stable power is a stark improvement from solar photovoltaic technologies, which are limited by sunlight.

Kincaid Ravine Bioswale Hydrological Assessment

Amount Awarded: $5,000
Project Status: Completed

The Kincaid Ravine Bioswale Hydrological Assessment seeks to conduct a feasibility and assessment study on potential hydrologic modifications and designs for a bioswale in Kincaid Ravine will not only help address the issue of flooding on the Burke-Gilman Trail at the edge of Kincaid Ravine, but will also add to the ongoing efforts to restore the ecological functions and habitat of the previously underutilized and ecologically degraded four acre open space located in the northeast corner of campus.

Prairie Rain Garden

Amount Awarded: $398
Project Status: Completed

The Prairie Rain Garden is a student run project located near the botanic gardens on the north-east corner of campus. The students involved are trying to improve the ecosystem of a small plot of land by removing invasive species, improving the topography and planting a healthy native plant garden. The garden’s location is just uphill of a trail which is frequently flooded during the rainy season and becomes extremely muddy and impassable. The Prairie Garden is designed to capture some of the rainfall, filter the water and drain it to prevent runoff flowing onto the path.  

ReThink- Student Resilience Challenge

Amount Awarded: $1,605
Project Status: Completed

While many RSOs focus their events on a single topic or target a specific major, ReThink’s goal is to reach as wide of an audience as possible, and we are seeking funding for an event that will do just that. We are requesting $1726 to host a “Resilience Challenge” which will implore participants to consider and engage with real-world problems surrounding predominantly business and the environment.

SER-UW Nursery Expansion

Amount Awarded: $54,426
Project Status: Completed

The University of Washington’s Society for Ecology Restoration student guild (SER-UW) native plant nursery was established at the Center for Urban Horticulture in the spring of 2013. The SER-UW nursery maintains an inventory of 1000-1500 containerized plants native to the Puget Sound and used in planting efforts at two CSF funded restoration sites: Whitman Walk and Kincaid Ravine.  The nursery also delivers educational benefits to students studying horticulture and ecological restoration at UW by providing experiential learning through volunteer activities.

Sustainable Lighting for UW Farm, Phase 1

Amount Awarded: $3,818
Project Status: Completed

Food scarcity in urban populations is a significant and growing problem that the world is beginning to address. Indoor farming is a solution that many are adopting. Growing food indoors allows food to be localized in densely populated areas, which can significantly decrease costs and increase quality and quantity. The largest obstacle to realizing these benefits is the prohibitive operating costs associated with traditional horticulture lights. The University of Washington is dealing with this same problem in the wide variety of greenhouses throughout campus.

Sustainable Stormwater Coordinator Phase 2

Amount Awarded: $9,051
Project Status: Completed

The Sustainable Stormwater Coordinator (SSC) position designates a SEFS research aide appointment to spread awareness about and physically improve stormwater treatment on campus. This is accomplished by investigating the current quantity and quality of campus stormwater, analyzing a suite of suitable water management tools, and building a collaborative student-faculty-administration approach to this pressing issue.

Tap That

Amount Awarded: $7,457
Project Status: Inactive

Project Tap That's goal is to educate University of Washington (UW) students about the harmful effects of single-use plastic water bottles, promote the use of reusable water bottles, and ultimately ban the sale of plastic water bottles on campus. Many students do not equate their food and consumption choices with real world problems because the effects are not immediately (or ever) felt or seen by the consumer.

Understanding Pro-Environmental Behavior

Amount Awarded: $700
Project Status: Completed

Doctoral Canidate Julie Kriegh is local architect and a graduate from the University of Washington. She works towards environmental health and sustainability across the Northwest. Her specialty is in the design of sustainable buildings that fit LEED certifications (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.) She has organized a panel which included multiple other experts in their fields. The speakers come from a broad range of academia and origins.  Dr. Manzo is an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington.

UW Campus Salvage Wood Program

Amount Awarded: $43,603
Project Status: Completed

UW Grounds Management and UW Facilities Construction (Facility Services) seeks $43,603.00 to obtain the necessary infrastructure to augment the salvage wood program which creates products from trees that are removed from the campus-wide landscape. By keeping the tree material on campus, money is saved in disposal cost, less energy is used in waste transportation, some of the asset value of the tree is retained by being incorporated into campus projects and the investment made into that tree over time is preserved, especially if the final product becomes a permanent feature on campus.

UW Night Market

Amount Awarded: $400
Project Status: Completed

The UW night market is an annual event, which is put on by the Taiwanese Student Association (TSA). The night market brings up to 20 vendors to red square to promote Taiwanese culture. Vendors sell a wide variety of cultural foods as well as running games and activities for market goers to participate in. There are also free musical performances put on by the TSA.