Last quarter, students in Program on the Environment’s Sustainability Studio class worked with the Special Olympics team to strategize ways to green the games, set to take place in Seattle this summer.  

On a quest to better understand sustainability in a global context, two Program on the Environment students, Tyler Ung and Olivia Scott have joined the UW’s Grand Challenges Impact Lab for its pilot program in Bangalore, India. 

Wilderness means different things to visitors of the country’s national parks and wild lands. For Program on the Environment alumni Emily Noyd, who was featured in REI’s Keepers of the Outdoors series, being outside and helping people navigate relatively untouched lands is an incredibly rewarding experience. 

Examining the impact of human behavior and actions on the environment is a focus of both Program on the Environment and the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at UW. To further highlight the interdisciplinary teaching and research of both units, we are co-hosting a monthly Rabinowitz Speaker Series: Society’s Role in a Changing Environment, featuring a different faculty member each month. 

For a trip of a lifetime, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs student Katie Keil rearranged her travel to join Tim Billo and his ENVIR 495C: Landscape Changes in the Pacific Northwest course as a teaching assistant.  

This quarter’s newest addition to the teaching team is Thao Huynh, a graduate student at School of Marine and Environmental Affairs who is teaching our popular Sustainability Studio course.
Welcome, Thao! 

This Spring, a vibrant outdoor learning space, located on the northern side of the School of Aquatic and Fisheries lawn was built.
The garden space, adorned with nature-themed quotes, hand-crafted wood benches, native plants, a bioswale and rain garden is the result of a tremendous team effort by students, faculty and staff across campus.

Sword ferns in Seattle's Seward Park are disappearing and nobody really knows why. UW's Tim Billo, Paul Shannon and national fern experts are investigating the phenomenon.

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. 

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.