Help us improve transportation options
&
enter for a chance to win
!
Want to win a gift card for an on campus food vendor? Take our survey! In collaboration with MSU's Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, we are
conducting a study to better understand student, faculty, and staff transit choices and how they might relate to different economic, demographic, and neighborhood influences. The information collected will help the ASCP better promote alternative transportation methods to-and-from campus and complete a more accurate greenhouse gas inventory.
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Community-Based Social Marketing Training
March 15th 10AM-1PM, Tivoli 440, RSVP REQUIRED.
Want to inspire sustainable behavior change among your peers? Have a sustainability issue you'd like to tackle on campus that involves "opt-in" participation? Come learn how to make it a reality! The ASCP will be hosting a working on Community-Based Social Marketing--an approach to achieving behavior change amongst peers and communities using social psychology. The workshop will be facilitated by CU Boulder's Kelly Simmons and will focus on frameworks and tips for planning, implementing, managing and evaluating sustainability initiatives that involve changing people’s behavior.
RSVP REQUIRED on
this form
, as we have to cap the event at 50 people.
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What's going on at the ASCP this month? Read on to find out!
Pedestrian Lighting Upgrade Project: The Auraria Sustainable Campus Program is always looking for the most efficient way to use our funds to further reduce our campus’ ecological impact and reliance on fossil fuels. Historically, energy efficiency projects have had some of the highest returns on our investment in terms of Greenhouse Gas emissions reductions so we strive to find opportunities to increase our efficiency. Well, after 8 months of planning we are proud to announce that the time has come to eliminate almost all of the remaining Metal Halide light fixtures on the Auraria Campus and replace them with LED heads! What does that mean? It means we’ll save an estimated 674 MTCO2e per year by switching our old pedestrian light bulbs to much more energy efficient lighting options. There are 436 lamp post heads needing to be replaced and there is no way we could afford to do all of these on our own, so we worked closely with AHEC and various other departments across the campus and the community to tackle this huge project together. The project is expected to begin after the spring semester and be mostly completed over the summer.
In addition to the energy savings, a byproduct of this project will be a brighter campus at night! Many of the concerning areas of campus that students identified during the annual Safe Night event will now feel safer. This is due to LED lamps, while using far less energy, actually are brighter and cast more light than an old-style Metal Halide bulb. We can do more with less when we switch to more efficient lighting which makes this a win-win project for our program and the campus.
Try this at home! Did you know that LED bulbs for home use have come a long way since they were first introduced? Not only have they become more efficient, but now there are numerous options for light type. If you tried one once and thought it was far too bright or harsh, there are now color options that mimic the old incandescent bulbs very well and even ones that change color on demand. They may be more expensive up front, but they often last 10 or more years!
Earth
Week Festival:
We are planning a 2-day Earth Week Festival (April 24-25) and we need your help! Join the ASCP and other Auraria sustainability organizations for an Earth Week festival featuring live music, food trucks, an art competition, lawn games and prize giveaways! This event will also highlight on and off campus organizations, student research and community projects that rel
ate to sustainability. If you are a Student Organization on the Auraria Campus, a Nonprofit Organization or Corporation with a sustainability focus or another interested vendor,
plea
s
e fill out this form
to table at our event. If you'd like to volunteer at the event, please e-mail scp_contact@ahec.edu!
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Waste Diversion Update
We have some really exciting news! Our campus is composting over 3x more material (by weight) than we were in January--and, our compostable items are ending up in the actual compost
bin
more often than they were in January! This is due to an enormous effort by our own SCP staff and volunteer Eco-Reps.
A few weeks ago, we placed waste sorting table tents in the Tivoli food court and volunteer Eco-Reps offered waste education beside bins.
The result? A 13% increase in the compost that ended up in the compost stream
. Before any signs or education were offered, 65% of the compost stream was actually compostable material.
During the week of education, contamination decreased tremendously, and 80% of the compost bin was, in fact, compost! The following week, in the wake of binside education, this % remained at 78%.
Any of our staff that performed the waste audit will tell you that we could
visually
see that all three streams (landfill, recycle and compost) were way more clean and accurate than during our initial audit.
Moving forward, we continue to finalize our comprehensive waste sorting guide and develop a plan for compost expansion and continued waste education--the table tents seemed to be a big help. In the meantime, you can access comprehensive guidelines for sorting your waste on
our website
. Also, check out this awesome
segment from CPR
!
Our representative from Alpine Waste (our waste hauler and recycling and compost provider) will be here on Wednesday March 13th from 11:30 to 1:30 PM to tour our food areas, provide clarity on the proper stream for specific food vendor packaging and field questions about where materials go, how clean recycling needs to be, etc. If you have questions or would like to join us for her visit, e-mail jackie.slocombe@ahec.edu.
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Above: Volunteer Eco-Reps in the Tivoli food court help students and staff sort their food into the proper streams and understand why it's important to get this right!
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March Campus Sustainability Hero:
Professor
Sara Jackson Shumate
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Sara is a Geography Lecturer in MSU Denver’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. She teaches several classes related to sustainability and has gone out of her way to incorporate the ASCP into her curriculum. Each fall, she requires her Sustainability in Mitigation Planning (GEG 4720) class to complete a group project in which they develop proposals to submit to the ASCP for funding. We get several great ideas from these class projects and, In fact, one of the waste diversion proposals from this past fall may come to fruition in the future! Working with SCP, a team of students, and Geography and GIS faculty, Sara is also the instigator for the Auraria Transportation Survey. This initiative seeks to collect baseline data on campus transportation patterns. We are looking forward to using the data to improve calculations of campus greenhouse gas emissions and campus transportation planning in the long term.
Sara's international research focuses on perceptions of political and environmental impacts from mining related infrastructure in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert. Having grown up in Aurora, CO, she is excited to be working on sustainability issues closer to home, here on campus.
Know someone doing awesome sustainability work on campus? Nominate them to be recognized as a sustainability hero in our next newsletter by sending a brief description to scp_contact@ahec.edu.
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March 13th:
Auraria's Alpine Waste Rep on Campus
, 11:0 AM - 1:30 PM: E-mail jackie.slocombe@ahec.edu to join the conversation about how Auraria can improve our waste diversion.
March 27:
WASSUP New Belgium Brewery Tour
April 24th-25th:
Auraria Earth Week Festival, Tivoli Quad, 10 AM - 3 PM Wed and Thurs.
April 27:
WASSUP Earth Day River Clean Up
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On Campus
Resources
Off Campus
Resources
Alliance Center
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Every year, the ASCP reviews or drafts dozens of proposals brought to us by students, staff, and faculty. Do you have an idea that could make the Auraria Campus more sustainable? Let us know!
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Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!
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