Congratulations to Environmental Studies student, Kristen Smith, one of UW’s 2017 Husky100!
The Husky100 recognizes outstanding students on all three University of Washington campuses who are making the most of their time in college and exhibiting leadership, passion and drive. As interim provost and executive director Jerry Baldasty notes, this honor is reflective of the caliber and spirit of a student body that “gain the skills they need to prepare for rewarding careers in industry, community and life.”
Kristen has a passion for environmental education and fostering environmental stewardship in young students.
For her Environmental Studies Capstone, Kristen worked with Seattle Tilth to find ways to support environmental educators so they could in turn help autistic students succeed in their programs. She worked in Seattle Tilth’s Children’s Garden as an instructor and observed and documented teaching practices that worked for students with autism.
The Husky 100 students will be recognized at a special event on April 10.
Communicating on Twitter about environmental topics and Capstone project experiences has become the new norm for Environmental Studies students in Sean McDonald’s three-quarter Capstone Course Series. Some are still skeptical of the power of social media, while others, like Amy Haymond, have taken to it, finding value in the access it gives to myriad environmental leaders and organizations.
During the course’s “topic of the week” Twitter assignment, students were called to find and connect with an expert doing work related to their Capstone, and Amy tagged Conservation Corridor, who then reached out to Amy to provide a student perspective on studying wildlife connectivity.
Conservation Corridor aims to bridge science and the practice of conservation corridors. Amy’s Capstone focuses on the impact of humans on wildlife. Her main research question is:
“Does the implementation of wildlife corridors significantly reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions?”
Ready Amy’s blog post on Conservation Corridor to learn more about her research as she digs into mounds of information and explores the language around conservation corridors and why they are so vital to preserving wildlife.
“Twitter has become a powerful tool for connecting students, such as myself, to experts in the environmental community. I have connected to more people doing the work I want to do later in life because of Twitter than I have any other social media tool.” -Amy
Follow Program on the Environment on Twitter at @uwpoe and Amy @ahaymond5 and see what Capstone students are up to on @POEcap.
Encouraging students to examine their personal impact on the environment by carrying their waste for a week is just one way Program on the Environment lecturer Kristi Straus pushes the envelope when it comes to teaching students about sustainability.
Kristi
Kristi Straus
To honor her dedication to engaging students with innovative teaching curriculum and methods, Kristi has been awarded the Center for Teaching and Learning Distinguished Teaching Award, one of the highest recognitions at the University.
Recipients of the award display extensive knowledge and mastery of the subject matter and guide students through independent and creative thinking. At the Program on the Environment (POE), we can attest to Kristi’s capacity for collaboration and her propensity to get all of us pumped up about education.
Congratulations, Kristi!
Kristi is deeply invested in sustainability education and wants her students to understand how the choices they make in their own lives matter in the world around them. She is committed to making education accessible and fun, and is a MESA instructor in her spare time. She is also passionate about mentoring teaching assistants to develop their skills as educators.
Recipients will be honored in a public ceremony in June 2017. Stay tuned for more details from the Center for Teaching and Learning.
I feel so grateful to be a POE lecturer. I have the freedom to be creative, to try new things in the classroom, to share so much of myself with my students, to focus on what I find inspiring. I love the connections I make with students, faculty and staff.
To find so much joy in my work is the real prize. To be honored in this way is a wonderful surprise, and feels like icing on the cake. –Kristi
As one of the Program on the Environment’s core faculty, Kristi teaches a variety of courses, including introductory environmental studies and analysis courses to the ever popular Sustainability: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts which heightens students’ awareness of the impacts of their consumption.
As part of her leadership with the UW Center for Teaching and Learning Initiative, Kristi is launching an exciting new flipped classroom study abroad experience through her Sustainability course, in partnership with Tsinghua University in China. Applications are still being accepted for this opportunity to bridge learning on sustainability education on a global scale.
Today, the UW’s Livable City Year program published its first reports from a year-long partnership with the City of Auburn. Reports represent a diverse range of applied learning projects students and faculty implemented to address the City of Auburn’s sustainability challenges.
The Livable City Year program (LCY) is a new initiative led by UW faculty directors Branden Born (Urban Design and Planning) and Jennifer Otten (Public Health) in collaboration with UW Sustainability, Urban at UW and the Association of Washington Cities. The program connects local governments with talented students and faculty at University of Washington to work together on critical projects. LCY partners on sustainability and livability goals by engaging students and classes across the university.
The teams working on the projects included students in Public Health, Built Environment, Environmental Studies, Sociology and more. Read the individual project reports which cover cultural city mapping, community place-making, responsible purchasing, homelessness and affordable housing.
Be sure to check out the summary report on Auburn’s Buy Local project, written by Environmental Studies student Sungkun Choi, as part of our program’s Sustainability Studio course. In the course (last quarter’s topic was on socially responsible and equitable purchasing), students developed a website and mobile app to gather information about local businesses and help promote local products and services to a wider consumer base.
The Buy Local project was created in response to a loss of sales tax revenue, and as a way to stimulate the local economy of Auburn.
The first LCY projects were considered a success and forged connections between the UW and City of Auburn communities. Auburn mayor Nancy Backus said the program “helped us make major strides forward in areas that are critical to the health, safety and happiness of our residents.” Read the full announcement.
ENVIR 200: Communication for Environmental Studies – Develop the skills necessary to engage, analyze, write, and speak about complex environmental issues in a variety of disciplinary contexts with particular values and emphases. Course restricted to Environmental Studies majors.
ENVIR 240: The Urban Farm – Learn about the UW Farm and food production techniques in urban settings.
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 480: Sustainability Studio – Focus on how to make UW Health services more green; analyze and visit real-world examples of green healthcare providers.
Last Friday, January 20, a group of driven students welcomed two notable National Geographic photographers to the stage and more than 150 students, family members, friends, faculty and staff at UW for a night of contemplation about what it means to be a steward of the earth and all its creatures.
The Student Association for Green Environments (SAGE), currently led by: Frieda Cohen, Cassie Maylor, Shelby Cramer and Summer Cook, orchestrated Friday’s event with the support of their Environmental Studies major unit, the Program on the Environment. The event, Art to Inspire: An Evening of Community, Art, and Environment, was an intentional gathering to remind everyone that whatever actions are taken to dismantle environmental protection or social justice, there are also people out there protecting the rights of people and nature.
The goal was to gather people in an inclusive and positive environment and inspire action moving forward. The audience was treated to a moving presentation by Natalie Fobes, who showcased a slideshow of some of her Pulitzer award-winning photography from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, accompanied with haunting music that stirred emotions and captivated the room.
For Natalie, taking photos, at times of the hard moments we look away from, is an important form of story-telling and can spur a call to action. She’s well known for her photography on salmon. Dubbed the ‘salmon lady,’ Natalie shared how she was compelled to tell the story of the Pacific salmon (“the salmon chose me,” she said) and the cultures that depended upon it. Her art provides a space to celebrate and appreciate the incredible species.
Cassie Maylor, co-president of SAGE said: “The SAGE officers are incredibly proud of the event we put on last week! We set out over a month ago with this vision to create an event that hosted vivid speakers who could instill some inspiration or motivation into our audience, and I think we created just that! Together with the packed auditorium, we laughed and cried together on this big day and held our energy in so we could harness it later into each making a difference. I’m still running on a high from creating something I was passionate about while helping people through the same feelings of pain and fierceness I was feeling.“
It’s an event we hope to continue doing in some capacity as it truly fits with the PoE students’ drive to create something of purpose. -Cassie Maylor
The event’s second speaker was Chris Jordan, known for his gripping images of American consumption, and famous for his devastating and beautiful photography of albatross on Midway Atoll, a remote island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Chris ventured out to the Pacific ocean to photograph the Great Pacific garbage patch, only to find he wasn’t “seeing” the vast amount of garbage on the water. He was directed to the albatross, and there began a life-long relationship of love and endurance.
Chris Jordan
Albatross on water
In his presentation, Chris mostly talked directly to the audience, sharing three stunning videos (one of which he narrated live) from his new upcoming film: The Journey to Midway. His main message was to implore us all to feel deeply, and to recognize that grief is a form of love, something we can channel to spend our life’s work to protect the animals, land and people we cherish.
In sharing his personal journey out of grief and into hope, he touched hearts and urged the audience to have courage, and like the baby albatross, “take a leap before we can fly.” Ultimately, to feel connected to that which we want to protect is essential in order for us to persevere and dedicate ourselves to this important work.
“I’m so grateful to Chris and Natalie for seeing the importance of having a conversation about the environment and making the time to share their work with us,” reflected co-organizer Shelby Cramer.
They understood our positions as students and community members to affect change and encouraged us to harness our power and grief as individuals to inspire a dialogue about the future of the environment. -Shelby Cramer
“The event inspired me to make more personal connections in the environmental community, and I would love for SAGE to make an effort to make those connections on behalf of its members in the future. The event reinforced my feelings of love and family I already had as a PoE student,” shares Shelby.
To catch more of what was shared during the event, check out the live-tweet feed, #SAGEinspire, with tweets from students in Sean McDonald’s @ENVIR495 Environmental Communications class and @uwpoe.
The Daily, UW’s student newspaper, also covered the event.
Huge thanks to everyone for coming out and sharing in this memorable event, and a special shout out to Environmental Studies student and photojournalist at the Daily, Mike Liu for his images of the event!
PoE Director Rick Keil welcomes everyone.
SAGE leaders welcome everyone.
A packed room ready to be inspired.
Guest speaker Natalie Fobes presents her work.
Guest speaker Chris Jordan tells his personal story.
Shruti Parikh is a junior at UW, majoring in Environmental Studies and Environmental Sciences and Resource Management (ESRM), with a QSCI minor. She’s lived in Washington for the majority of her life and is passionate about good air quality.
She recently won a Mary Gates Research Scholarship for her research on using plants to purify air and reduce pollutants such as arsenic, a known carcinogen.
The increased concentration of arsenic in many areas has impacted human and ecosystem health. Phytoremediation is a cost-effective, eco-friendly technology that uses the natural ability of plants to remediate pollutants from contaminated soils. Shruti’s research uses endophytes, or beneficial bacteria that live inside of plants, to see if they can help improve the tolerance of their host plants to arsenic, thereby enhancing the process of phytoremediation.
Which environmental issues most concern you?
I think pollution has always been a really big environmental issue to me. As someone who has asthma, I consider myself to be a pretty good indicator of air quality and I think it’s really concerning when I visit places like Atlanta, my birthplace, and have trouble breathing because of the terrible air quality. I really got into the whole Bellingham coal terminal issue when I was in high school because I was concerned about coal dust and the effect it has on humans. It actually connected me to the research I’m currently working on at Sharon Doty’s lab.
What is your research focus?
Shruti at work in the Doty Lab.
Four years ago, as a junior in high school, I decided to focus on arsenic found in coal dust and seek a way to remediate the coal dust contaminated soil. Since there are no known local hyper-accumulators of arsenic, I decided to test whether the Western Sword Fern could be a possible candidate, (there are a few non-native ferns that are known to accumulate high amounts of arsenic in their fronds). This experience got me really interested in research and after learning there was similar research being done at the UW, I decided to apply to the Doty Lab.
The Doty Lab is unique because it takes plants and pairs them with endophytes, bacteria living inside of plants to create a “plant-microbe partnership” that allow the plants to survive stressful conditions such as soil contamination.
While working at Dr. Doty’s lab, my research interests have broadened to include microbiology, molecular biology, and soil sciences.
What does your Mary Gates scholarship entail? How did you find out about it?
The scholarship gives me $5,000 over the course of two quarters, as well as the opportunity to be a part of the Mary Gates Scholars community. I get to attend events such as the annual Gala and Spring Breakfast that allow me to connect with other scholars, and take part in other networking and career development opportunities.
I will be using the scholarship money to pay my tuition, which in the long run can help me save up for graduate school. I found about the scholarship through my Environmental Studies adviser, Ana, and one of my lab friends.
Shruti’s Mary Gates Research poster.
Shruti presented her research at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. If you too want to showcase your research, submit your application by February 13, 2017.
I want to get a Ph.D. I’m not sure in what exactly, but it will be related to environmental science. I love research, and I want to continue doing it. However, the reason I started majoring in Environmental Studies before ESRM is because I think the application of environmental research is really important. A lot of times, research is published but no one ever does anything with it, and my goal is to see that my research actually gets applied; whether that’s through starting my own business, or becoming a professor and licensing my products to businesses – I have yet to decide!
Danielle Bogardus takes on independent research in Peru with a goal to divert waste and contribute to healthy forests and communities.
Riding on ponies as a child shaped Danielle Bogardus’s experience with nature. Her mother was a horse trainer, and being around horses was a typical part of her day.
“I have never known anything but nature. It’s been in my backyard for as long as I can remember, and that’s where I center myself,” shares Danielle.
Danielle applied to UW to be an Environmental Studies major, citing as her impetus the disconnect between the scientific world and the communities being affected by environmental issues. Merging arts, humanities and sciences was a way for her to bridge this divide between science and society.
Why I study the environment
Danielle on the Las Piedras River, between Hoja Nueva’s land and the community of Lucerna.
Danielle grew up on Bainbridge Island, in Washington. She knew she wanted to pursue education related to the environment but it wasn’t until her brother suggested that she speak with her TA from ENVIR 100 (Introduction to Environmental Studies), incidentally his good friend, that she discovered her niche.
This friend was Samantha Zwicker, also an Environmental Studies alumna, and current PhD student at the School of Environment and Forest Sciences at UW. Zwicker had started a non-profit called Hoja Nueva, focusing on permaculture practices in Madre de Dios, Peru. The mission of the organization is finding balance between agriculture, the environment and people’s prosperity.
Hooked by this conversation with Zwicker in her freshman year, Danielle began conducting research for Hoja Nueva in Peru, around waste management, and in particular on compost.
Why composting?“My mother focuses on composting horse manure at a large scale so I was exposed to that earlier on and realized there’s always a way to find value in waste!”
In communities in Peru however, the larger problem is what to do with items that aren’t biodegradable. Danielle modified her research, and took on helping with marketing and communicating with the community to find ways to handle the waste on hand and eventually divert waste from the waste stream.
In Winter 2015, Danielle secured an independent research project through the School of Environment and Forest Sciences as part of the Vogt lab, with Kristina Vogt’s mentorship, and Program on the Environment faculty member Tim Billo as her advisor.
Navigating a different culture, dedicating to a cause
The goal for that first trip was to immerse herself completely into a new culture, explore the area and understand it, and build relationships in the community. Hiking through the jungle was one way to know the environment and see how ecosystem services work. It was an incredibly humbling experience.
Language was a challenge; Danielle knows intermediate Spanish. She spent a week in Cusco taking one-on-one Spanish lessons. Each trip strengthens her ability to converse with the community.
For Danielle, it was critical to see the juxtaposition of preservation and destruction in Peru. She learned that “China (had) recently built a railroad through the last pristine area of rainforest in the region of Peru where I traveled. I have never been exposed to devastation at that scale, and the rate of it – to notice barren orange land from extreme mining amidst swaths of trees – that’s something else.”
What was your biggest memory?
“Walking through Hoja Nueva’s protected land of 90 hectares was a pivotal moment. The land was so vibrant, so dense. The land just encapsulates you, it is so alive and so biodiverse.”
“And then suddenly we came to the border of this land, to 10 hectares of adjacent deforested land. It was so eery – silent and devoid of life. A sad moment.”
Danielle at the lookout point on Mirador Cliff, where one can view a dense swath of treetops over the horizon.
This experience provided inspiration to see what can be done if land is protected, and how she can make a positive impact. She is a firm believer that the solution lies in seeing not just the beauty, but also the devastation.
Piloting a waste management plan
Danielle returned to Peru to conduct a case study in Lucerna, a town of 65 people, with a goal to create a practical management plan. The plan focuses on handling the waste the residents accumulate, broken up into organics and non-organics, recyclables, chemical waste (hygiene), and mechanical fluids.
New challenges have emerged: the influx of goods due to increased development and China’s railroad plans resulting in new roads being built to access remote towns. Increased access to packaged food increases packaging waste. There are limited means to dispose of this waste; much is buried, burned or thrown into the river.
“In talking to some members of the community, I found they don’t understand why waste is bad….out of sight is out of mind (as is the case for some back home too).”
For Danielle, a point of leverage is to demonstrate how waste is directly affecting the residents’ lives. This means conducting soil, water and pig feces sampling and conveying the detrimental impacts to human health.
Soil samples taken from Lucerna.
An example of waste separation in the nearby town of Pianchon.
Danielle and Hoja Nueva have received support from the Mayor of Puerto Maldonado, the nearest city in the Madre de Dios region, and the community commissioner of Lucerna. Danielle has permission to use the government lab facilities in the city to conduct her water sampling, for free.
She conducted daily waste audits, and followed three families (one of whom she stayed with) for a week to observe how much waste they accumulated. The residents welcomed Danielle, in part due to her introduction into the community on her first visit.
“The problem is that there is nowhere for this waste to go,” sighs Danielle. The landfill in Puerto Maldonado is at capacity and Danielle has been advised to reach out to share her data with the private sector or NGO’s to make the case for increased support. Her primary goals are to incentivize the community (e.g. receiving money to collect recycling), raise funds for sustainable disposal, explore different uses for waste and increase education about waste and health.
Danielle digging a biochar pit
Burning biochar.
Rejoicing in a waterfall upriver.
From Danielle’s perspective, the need is dire. “We can tackle this, one community at a time. I see the opportunity that is there. And I feel invested in the community, for whom living sustainably should be a natural right but is simply not accessible right now. I see that maybe all it takes is one more person to really attack the problem and facilitate the necessary steps towards communication with the government.” Her inspiration is the children in the communities, and their future.
Danielle intends to weave her research project into her Environmental Studies capstone. The end goal would be to establish a practical, sustainable waste management system in Lucerna.
“My work won’t be done until then. This might have to grow into a graduate level project. Whatever it takes.”
Funding to fuel big dreams
Danielle Bogardus
On a nightwalk in Peru, with a caiman.
Last year, Danielle applied for and was awarded a forestry alumni scholarship from the School of Environment and Forest Sciences, which helped pay for tuition. Her first trip to Peru was funded through crowdsourcing donations from friends and family.
Earlier this year, Danielle received the environmental studies leadership scholarship, which she again put towards her tuition. As she embarks on her third trip to Peru this Winter, she needs additional funding through her CrowdRise campaign to help quantify the daily volume of waste she collects in Peru and seek the private funding necessary to dispose of waste in Lucerna.
If you feel compelled, Danielle welcomes your support. “As I’ve found since I had that first conversation with Samantha and asked to be a part of Hoja Nueva, the worst thing people can say to you is no, so why not ask for help or that opportunity.”
The Office of First Year Programs is seeking student leaders to help freshmen transition to college. Gain valuable leadership experience AND earn course credits with this opportunity!
The FIG program is looking for students from all departments who are UW-Seattle undergraduates with strong organizational skills (i.e., not over-committed), and a genuine interest in working with freshmen as they face the challenges and opportunities presented to them as new students. For more information visit the FIG Leader page or email figs@uw.edu.
Orientation Leaders play a vital role in the orientation process, working closely with new students and their families on a wide variety of topics including academics, student involvement, housing options, and more. Orientation Leaders work during summer quarter and are paid 30-40/hrs per week. Please email us at uwao@uw.edu or come to one of the information sessions below with any questions.
Applications are available online at fyp.washington.edu/apply. The application deadline is Monday, January 23, by 8:00am.
