Karina Mazhukhina's blog

Trucks stationed in the middle of Greek Row on Friday afternoon were ready to collect items students couldn't take with them for the summer, including goods like electronics and refrigerators.

UW Recycling, in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities and the UW Office of Regional Relations, is offering free disposal of unwanted items to students moving out of the north campus area as part of the Husky Neighborhood Cleanup. Reusable items are donated to local charities, and things that can't be reused are recycled or disposed of.

Sound Salmon Solutions is seeking two to three long-term Community Stewardship Partners to help with salmon habitat restoration work. Volunteers will help raise public awareness on the decline of salmon populations, water quality problems and solutions.

UW Environmental Studies majors gathered in Alder Hall last week to present their capstone projects, which ranged from in-depth looks at millennials’ involvement in environmental advocacy to research on improving our connectedness with nature.

“I’m always impressed by students,” said capstone instructor Sean McDonald. “They apply their environmental degree to the professional world.”

The UW relies primarily on freshwater purchased from Seattle Public Utilities to water landscaped areas on campus. A group on campus wants that to change.

A team of students, faculty and staff are proposing to alter the existing irrigation system to distribute rainwater as opposed to fresh drinking water, and they received a Green Seed Fund grant to help make it happen.

Over six million gallons of water is used to sustain the assortment of trees and flowers in the Washington Park Arboretum, much of it along Azalea Way, the main pathway through the Arboretum. But a group of UW students, staff and faculty are hoping to significantly reduce the amount of water used.   

At 15 feet tall, the new hoop house for the Society for Ecological Restoration's UW Chapter (SER-UW) serves as a reminder of all the hard work 50 student volunteers put in over the course of six days.

Working eight to ten hour shifts, students from UW’s Construction Management department, Sigma Lambda Chi and volunteers from SER-UW set out to construct a 30 foot by 48 foot hoop house at the Center for Urban Horticulture. Now, the student run native plant nursery has room for about 5,000 plants in the hoop house.

There's a whole new lineup of sustainability events this week, ranging from environmental studies students presenting their green projects to marine conservation. Some of the week's highlights are listed below, and you can find out even more items happening on campus with our full Sustainability events calendar, which is the best place to find the most up-to-date listings and details on all events. If you know of any events that should be added to the calendar, please let us know.

The UW Law, Societies, and Justice (LSJ) program held a panel last week to encourage students to think about ways of alleviating our collective carbon footprint. More than a dozen students gathered in Smith Hall to dive deep into the widely debated topic of climate change.

“Climate change is a reality,” said Trace Chaplin, a doctoral student in the Jackson School of International Studies and one of the panel facilitators. “Not only is it here, it’s going to continue.”

Get ready for the 4th annual "The Living Breath of wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ: Indigenous Foods and Ecological Knowledge Symposium" this Friday and Saturday. The event starts at 9 a.m. each day in the Intellectual House.

For some UW students and even faculty choosing between eating a sufficient meal or paying for rent, books, or tuition is a daily struggle. In an effort to eliminate that choice altogether, the UW now offers an on-campus food pantry.  

During its grand opening last Monday the pantry was stocked with 954 food items, including 106 cans of fish, 80 cans of beans, and 276 cans of soups and stews. The pantry served about 10 to 15 people while it was open.