A system that does not expire

Students team up to create a more sustainable environment at the college

By Tucker Swiastyn

A team of four students at the college have been chosen to be part of an inter­national sustainability competition. The Eco-Representative team is preparing a project to promote sustainability. This competition is sponsored by the Univer­sity of Kansas Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian studies and by the Center for Transboundary Coopera­tion (CTC) based in St. Petersburg, Rus­sia.

KU and the CTC are working together to promote sustainability. They have cre­ated a competition for anyone who wish­es, on the Russian side and U.S. side, to educate their community about sustain­ability.

The college’s Eco program members are Emily Reno, Kendyl McDougald, Me­gan Gladbach and Kait Bridges.

“[Sustainability] is the idea that you are creating a system that doesn’t expire,” said Reno. “It’s using your resources in a way that does not deplete what you have,” said Reno.

The goal is to get individuals in the lo­cal area interested in whatever project is being promoted. Right now, the Eco team at the college is working on a project to promote sustainability that they will sub­mit to the CTC.

“We are creating an interactive brochure that features that majority of all the sustain­able features on campus,” she said.
Galileo’s Pavilion, the storm water management system and charging sta­tions for electric vehicles are all sustain­ability features on campus. All these lo­cations will be put on a map which will allow students to correlate symbols with the locations of the sustainability features.
The brochure will include quick tips on saving money at the college and many unknown sustainability opportunities.

“I’m hoping [the students] will look at their campus in a new light and realize that this school is a lot more progressive about things than they might realize,” said Reno. “I hope they take advantage of all the information that they have in ways that are really helpful for them.”

When this project is submitted, it will be graded by CTC judges in Russia who will be looking for the results and impact the projects have had in the team’s vari­ous communities. The top teams in both Russia and the U.S. will get to go to a con­ference in the other team’s country.

“We would like to leave the project with the Center of Sustainability and the Student Sustainability Committee as a beginning of something much larger that they can add on to,” said Reno. “It is sup­posed to be designed to add on to what we have already started.”

The ECO project results will be sub­mitted by Saturday, Feb. 28.

 
Take the sustainability survey by following this link >>>.