Kristi Straus’s popular class on sustainability gives students an introspective look at how they contribute to the waste stream, via personal habits, consumption and daily resource use. Her course is offered in the Autumn, Winter and Summer quarters. Kristi is a recent recipient of UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award and is leading a flipped classroom study abroad experience in China as part of this sustainability course.
The course is a featured class on the College of the Environment‘s site. Read more and consider signing up for Autumn quarter while spots are still open.
ENVIR 239: Sustainability: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts – Present frameworks of sustainability and learn about the history of sustainability. Experience sustainability in action and learn how your personal choices impact the world.
Thinking about courses for the Autumn quarter? Here are our featured courses:
ENVIR 100: Introduction to Environmental Studies – Great course for exploring environmental majors. Learn about environmental issues in a local and global context. Add a service-learning component for 5 cr.
ENVIR 239: Sustainable Choices, Broad Impacts – Present frameworks of sustainability and learn about the history of sustainability. Experience sustainability in action and learn how your personal choices impact the world. This course is a featured course on the College of the Environment‘s site. Check out the video to get a taste of this unique class!
ENVIR 250: Research Methods in Environmental Studies – Get experience with data collection, through an environmental lens.
ENVIR 280: Natural History of the Puget Sound – Explore and understand the landscape of Western Washington and the species that inhabit it. Field trips to the Olympic Peninsula, Whidbey Island and east slopes of the Cascades.
ENVIR 300: Analysis of Environmental Cases – Learn to use data from the social and natural sciences to inform how environmental decisions are made.
Sword ferns provide valuable ecosystem benefits, holding soil in place to prevent erosion and invasive plant growth. They also provide a habitat for forest birds such as the Pacific wren, and a food source for wildlife, such as mountain beavers. And in Seattle’s Seward Park, they are dying off at alarming rates.
Nobody really knows why, but Program on the Environment lecturer Tim Billo and Seward Park steward Paul Shannon have some ideas, which they shared with King 5 News reporter Alison Morrow last Friday. Check out the video.
Paul Shannon (2011), Jordan Jackson (2017).
Sword ferns flourish in Seward Park, in the 2011 photo on the left. The same area is almost devoid of ferns in the 2017 photo to the right.
According to Tim, sword ferns are just not regenerating. He’s been monitoring the decrease of ferns in Seward Park for the past two years to measure the rate at which ferns are dying, and to identify any known causes. Paul Shannon has noticed the decrease of ferns in the area for even longer and predicts all the ferns in the park could be gone in 10 years. There are concerns about the reverberating impacts of this unnatural phenomena, which may have implications in other parts of the region.
With Tim as his faculty advisor, Environmental Studies student and recent graduate Justin Beach investigated the fern die-off phenomenon as part of his Capstone project, and tested the effects of native mountain beavers on the ferns. Beavers are unlikely the cause of the die-off and are at risk if this primary food source is less available to them. There may be an as of yet unknown pathogen that is preying on the swordfern. Continued research is needed to save the ferns. Read more about Tim’s research on the sword fern die-off in one of Seattle’s beloved parks.
For Jasmmine Ramgotra, dance is a way to engage with the community, and a means to express tough social and environmental issues we face in today’s society. She’s looking to shift the culture of dance away from abstraction, in order to lead the way for a more connected and inclusive tomorrow.
Jasmmine recently received the honor of being named Miss Next Century by Future-ish, a creation of UW Sustainability’s Sean Schmidt. Future-ish celebrates and promotes the ideas and people that shape our future through science, design and culture. The Miss Next Century award was created to honor “next century citizens” who are ahead of their time and actively creating a better future, today. You can catch Jasmmine’s performance “Change from Within” next week to see her in action.
We sat down with Jasmmine to learn how she is making change through her art, and why she sees it as a tool for deeper collaboration.
Who are you?
I’m a performer, choreographer, visual artist, student and social change agent.
I grew up in Saskatoon, Canada and I have been dancing since I was four years old; first classical indian dance (influenced by my Punjabi heritage) and later, jazz, modern, ballet and various improvisation-based street styles (when I moved to Seattle). In high school I trained intensively in the pre-professional division at Seattle’s Spectrum Dance Theater, but decided that my heart was set on pursuing choreography and my own compositional work.
Why do you study the environment?
When I was a student at Seattle Central University, I saw Oceans, a nature documentary narrated by Pierce Brosnan. It depicted the stories and lives of stunning marine creatures around the world, and also highlighted the negative effect humans have on our planet. The film was beautifully shot, unexpectedly funny, and truly memorable – and it was the first message that connected my feelings to the real and horrific impacts of climate change.
It made me ask: “What can I do about it?” And I knew then that I had to study the environment. After an extra year at Seattle Central and practicing dance, I transferred to the UW, and am a double major in Environmental Studies and Dance.
After taking Kristi Straus’s sustainability course (ENVIR 239: Sustainability: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts) I was compelled to switch my major from Environmental Science to Environmental Studies, because I wanted to focus on people, the economy and social justice in addition to science. Once I saw how much of an impact I could have, both positive and negative, I couldn’t turn away.
What do you see as the most critical environmental issues?
Climate change, because it shows how we are all interconnected. Also, I’m very concerned about the lack of diversity in the environmental field. I feel there is a need to intersect and work together with people that come from different places, have different experiences, and hold different perspectives. We have more to offer when everyone is involved. We need to bring all the values and stakeholders to the table!
What are you working on right now that you’re excited about?
My Environmental Studies Capstone and upcoming performances! Through my internship with the Center for Creative Conservation, I conducted a series of interviews about the current state of diversity within the environmental field and brainstormed ideas about how we can improve human social diversity within the various sectors – government, NGO’s, business, and academia. The research is culminated into a written report and a public, movement-based performance and deconstruction/feedback session.
The performance “Change from Within: Diversifying the Environmental Movement” asks: What comes to mind when you say diversity and conservation? What solutions do you recommend for improving diversity in your organization, and the environmental field at large?
The performance is a collaboration created between myself, 4 dancers, and local compositional artist Eli Hetrick/HETRIK. My focus is to make connections across disciplines in order to create the most meaningful experience for collaborators and the audience alike.
The ultimate goal is the sharing of ideas and creating a bridge between art, knowledge, and comprehensive understanding that leads to insight, inspiration and positive behavior change.
Change from Within is my first attempt to combine both performance art and intensive research to educate, entertain, and inspire: connecting facts to feelings.
What are your career aspirations?
I have a vision to build my own company, Culture Shift, an interdisciplinary group of visual and performance artists and designers, scientists, researchers, photographers and other collaborators to broaden our collective understanding of social and environmental issues, rooted in feelings and creative expression. I enjoy organizing people and want to use art for the purpose of engaging others, as an outlet for community connection and expression.
Culture Shift is the group, and the ultimate goal is to make art that is meaningful and accessible to all people regardless of their status or upbringing – to bridge the gaps in our knowledge through expression, discussion, and collaboration.
Upcoming performances
Jasmmine’s work will be performed:
At the Olympic Sculpture Park, Paccar Pavilion on June 1, 7-8pm (performance followed by audience and collaborator discussion). RSVP.
At the UW Racial Ecologies Conference, Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center, on June 2, 3:30-4pm. Free with RSVP for post-conference reception.
Support Jasmmine’s GoFundMe campaign and her upcoming work so everyone can attend at no charge.
From 2008 to 2013, Tikvah Weiner worked at the Program on the Environment, as a graduate program adviser and then administrator, and was a much beloved staff member who is remembered fondly for her positive and joyous spirit.
This Spring, thanks to the generosity of donors to Tikvah’s Fund; the Campus Sustainability Fund; UW Landscape Architecture; UW Department of Urban Design & Planning; and UW Department of Facilities Maintenance & Construction, an outdoor learning and teaching space is under construction in honor of Tikvah.
Under the guidance of Daniel Winterbottom, Landscape Architecture students have designed a vibrant space on part of the School of Aquatic and Fisheries lawn, across the parking lot from Wallace Hall. The garden will contribute in lasting ways to the Program on the Environment community, as a place to gather, learn outside, reflect and enjoy.
Twelve Program on the Environment students are participating as part of an independent study project, with Director Rick Keil as their faculty advisor. The students’ work includes partnering with the Landscape Architecture team in on-site work to bring their design to life, by planting native species, paving pathways and building an ADA accessible outdoor educational space which will include chaise lounge chairs and large boulders engraved with inspirational quotes. The design will also have interpretive signage and a rain garden that will house native and pollinator plants and feature a foot bridge.
The students’ research will include an assessment on the garden design’s environmental and sustainability features and an analysis of how landscape design can augment natural space for human use and create a viable habitat for native species.
The project is slated to be complete by the end of Spring quarter. Stay tuned for details about a celebration of the new space.
Sean and Frieda Cohen at work on the garden build project.
The Program on the Environment will host our Spring 2017 Capstone Symposium on May 24 at Alder Hall Auditorium. We welcome all to attend and support students as they present on the culmination of three quarters of hard work.
Topics include: achieving sustainability through behavior change and policy, environmental education in theory and practice, approaches for community engagement, and the link between art, technology and our relationship to nature.
Symposium Schedule
Wednesday May 24
1:30 PM Welcoming remarks
1:40 PM Housekeeping
Session A – Sustainability through behavior change and policy
1:45 PM Introduction
1:50 PM Johanna Ventre – Examining tap vs bottled drinking water preferences and how to overcome unsustainable habits
2:00 PM Caroline Suttie – From the ground up: Identifying solutions to improve energy management in business
2:10 PM Josephine Strauss – Renewable energy and public policy: Barriers in working towards implementation
2:20 PM Amber Sonka – The more you know: Improving environmental assessments using ecosystem goods and service-based assessments
2:30 PM Q&A
Session B – Theory and practice of environmental education
ENTRE 443/543, ENGR 498A, ENVIR 495 (Soon to be ENGR 443, ENVIR 443)
Is the doom and gloom of environmental problems weighing you down? Be part of the solution as a student in this course! Each weekly seminar will inspire you to make an impact as experts discuss the circular economy, water innovation, land use, greening the built environment, and more! Instructed by Deb Hagen-Lukens, this course helps students discover how cleantech and innovative solutions are addressing environmental issues and learn how to be a part of the solution.
Inter-disciplinary teams form to put inspiration to action by creating project-based solutions to environmental issues, are coached throughout the quarter by environmental professionals or entrepreneurs, then present to classmates and judges.
Open to all majors. Recommended for juniors, seniors, and graduate students.
Now’s your chance to reflect on your accomplishments and receive some compensation for being the rockstar student you are!
The Environmental Leadership Scholarship recognizes the outstanding achievements, leadership skills, and potential of students pursuing a future in the environmental field. Two Environmental Leadership Scholarships of $1,000 each will be awarded to two students in the major who demonstrate a passion for environmental studies, integrative thought and action in their academics and activities, and a vision of how they hope to make a positive difference in the world.
Be officially declared as an Environmental Studies major at the time of application and receipt of award
Be registered for UW credits for Spring Quarter 2017
Demonstrate academic excellence with a minimum cumulative UW GPA of 3.25
Not have previously received an Environmental Leadership scholarship
Application Process
Submit the following application materials via Catalyst
Personal Statement (2 page max) that addresses:
How you define and demonstrate your passion for environmental studies.
Your commitment to and engagement in integrative thought and action in your academic studies and other activities (this could be through research projects, community engagement, or other examples).
Your vision of how you hope to make a positive difference in the world once you complete your environmental studies degree.
Résumé, including the names of two references from whom you requested recommendations (.pdf, .doc, or .rtf file format)
Recommendations
Two recommendations (at least one from a UW faculty member, the other can be a supervisor, advisor, or other instructor). Recommendations are submitted by your reference through a brief Catalyst survey (quick questions followed by a space for additional comments or a letter of recommendation).
Application, résumé, and recommendations must be submitted by May 14, 2017 at 5:00 pm. Please contact Ana Wieman with any questions: enviradv@uw.edu. Thank you!
Scholarships are used for tuition, books and/or fees for the academic year.
Teaching, studying and modeling sustainability in action is a hallmark of the Program on the Environment.
This year, the Program is thrilled to congratulate three superstars who are leading change for a more just and sustainable world, through environmental student club leadership, environmental justice capstone work and creative teaching methods.
The 2017 Husky Green Awards winners, honored on April 20 at UW Sustainability‘s Earth Day festival include Environmental Studies majors Cassie Maylor, Shelby Cramer and Program on the Environment (POE) lecturer Kristi Straus. Another winner from the College of the Environment was Judy Twedt, graduate student in Atmospheric Sciences, who founded a Climate Change Speaker’s Bureau to engage with labor unions. Judy is also a Teaching Assistant for POE lecturer Beth Wheat’s class Attaining a Sustainable Society.
The awards are in their eighth year of recognizing leaders on the UW campus who demonstrate their dedication to the environment.
UW Sustainability
Shelby, Cassie and Kristi with their Husky Green awards.
Cassie is co-president of SAGE (the Student Association for Green Environments), and co-organizes activities and events such as Art to Inspire, which was a group effort to gather the UW community to celebrate art as a vehicle for raising environmental awareness. Cassie is interested how companies can lessen their impact on the planet, and is the vice president of operations of ReThink UW, a student group centered on business sustainability. She’s also a student assistant for the UW Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship where she helps coordinate events and outreach.
Cassie Maylor
“I’m grateful to have so many opportunities in Seattle to practice, research, communicate, create, and share what sustainability is and can be. The Husky Green Award has been a wonderful reminder to work harder, reach more people, and not be afraid to share the true environmental geek that I am. Don’t forget, that the “out there” is right here, and can start with you.”
“A lot of us in the dynamic and broad field of the environment struggle with just wanting to save the world. I find that as I get closer to fully aligning my values with my beliefs and actions, I get closer to knowing that I can achieve the change I want.” – Cassie Maylor
Don’t forget, that the “out there” is right here, and can start with you.” -Cassie Maylor
Shelby also played a key role in the Art to Inspire event as an officer of SAGE. She is interested in how communication can be a valuable tool to guide sustainable decision-making at the community level. Her capstone project with the EPA examines how organizations are engaging with the community around the Duwamish SuperFund site and how that outreach impacts the community’s actions. She’ll couple these insights with research on how effective communication can benefit outreach efforts.
UW Sustainability
Shelby Cramer
As a UW Environment undergraduate student ambassador, Shelby is available to connect with prospective students and as a student student assistant for the College of the Environment, she links students to resources and professional opportunities.
“I am grateful for the time UW Sustainability takes to recognize efforts made by individuals and groups for greener, more sustainable environments, and I am constantly proud and heartened by the many Program on the Environment students, staff, and faculty who are devoted to that effort.”
We don’t just study the environment here; we connect to it and foster its welfare.” -Shelby Cramer
UW Sustainability
Kristi Straus
Kristi recently received the Distinguished Teaching Award for her efforts to empower students to take ownership of their personal impact on the world. She teaches sustainability and environmental courses at the Program on the Environment and is launching a new flipped classroom study abroad experience through her sustainability course in partnership with Tsinghua University in China. Read more about Kristi’s philosophy and teaching path on the Whole U Faculty Friday feature.
“I think that the students in my sustainability course all “lead change for a sustainable future.” That class is SO inspiring to me – every quarter that I teach it, the students give so much of themselves, thinking so deeply, really working hard to see the way our society is structured around consumption.”
By working to reduce our individual impacts around waste, and food, by thinking deeply about consumption and happiness, we are all the beginning of a much bigger change.-Kristi Straus
Come learn about the Washington State Legislative Intern Program! This is a paid, for-credit internship opportunity for college students of any major to work as staff at the State Capitol during the Legislative Session (January through March or April). About 70 students are hired each year from colleges around the state. Political experience is not necessary. Students from diverse backgrounds who are active leaders, engaged in campus communities, and excited to learn about government and gain practical job skills are encouraged to apply.
Information Sessions with the internship coordinators (Paula Rehwaldt and Emily McCartan) and some past interns will be held on the UW-Seattle campus in Gowen Hall, room 1A on April 24th and 25th. Any students who are interested or just curious are encouraged to come to the sessions to ask questions and get a good idea of the whole experience and application process.
Monday, April 24th sessions in Gowen 1A:
10:30-11:00AM
2:30-3:00PM
3:00-3:30PM
4:00-4:30PM
Tuesday, April 25th sessions in Gowen 1A:
9:30-10:00AM
10:30-11:00AM
1:00-1:30PM
1:30-2:00PM
3:30-4:00PM
The 2018 internship will run from January 3, 2018, through March 8, 2018. Applications for the internship will be due in October, 2017. Students must be enrolled juniors or seniors, in good academic standing, and receiving academic credit for the internship. Students of all majors are welcome and the internship provides amazing opportunities for networking, shadowing, and real-world experience in a wide variety of fields, from state government and politics to business, law, criminal justice, communications, social work, environmental policy, education, and public health.
More information about the Legislative Internship Program is available on their website at www.leg.wa.gov/internships or on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Students are also welcome to contact the UW liaison (Mark Weitzenkamp) or set up an appointment with him at the POL S Advising Office: http://depts.washington.edu/polsadvc/signup.php to learn more about the internship and the related credits at UW-Seattle.
