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CSUN Receives Four Statewide Sustainability Awards
CSUN added four Best Practice Awards to its repertoire at the 2018 California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC) in Santa Barbara last month. The awards were for the Sustainability Center LEED Platinum Building, Sustainability Center Composting Toilets, Sustainable Food Systems, and Launching a Dockless Bikeshare Program.
David Crandall, Associated Students General Manager, states, “CSUN and its Associated Students have made great strides in the past decade in attending to standards for sustainability. This recognition is testament to those strides. AS students are all very proud to have funded, designed and built CSUN’s first LEED Platinum building and the first Sustainability Center in the CSU.”
The Institute for Sustainability has been proudly housed in the Sustainability Center since the building opened in October 2017. The Center serves as a multi-functional space and hub, providing an expanded central collections location for campus recyclables and a focal point for educational programs and services related to the environment and sustainability.
Frida Endinjok, a CSUN graduate student and former Chair of the AS Sustainability Committee shares, "It was such a great experience to attend CHESC. I had the opportunity to network with other professionals who are working on projects similar to mine. I was so happy to know that food insecurity and food waste were on the agenda. Since attending the conference, I have made great connections with people who work in sustainable food systems. We can learn from each other. I am so honored to represent CSUN!"
The 14th annual Higher Education Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Best Practice Awards competition at CHESC highlights the achievements that California campuses have made through innovative and sustainable operations, showcasing specific projects as models and Best Practice projects that could be replicable across campuses statewide.
Thank you to all campus partners and individuals for making change happen at CSUN and beyond.
From left to right: Austin Eriksson, David Crandall, Ken Premo, Frida Endinjok, Sarah Johnson, Nikhil Schneider, Basille Zoe Jimenez, Rolando Valiente, Sanda Delgado, Melat Amha.
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Teachers Rocket Start Curriculum with NASA
Educators from local schools for grades 5-12 gathered at CSUN's STEM Summer Institute July 16-20 to spend time with STEM colleagues delving into the most effective tools and methods for implementing the new science standards in their curriculum.
This NASA-funded grant provided a professional development opportunity to help teachers develop techniques for engaging their students in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) using data collected by Earth-observing NASA satellites, understanding the issues that affect our planet's health.
Institute for Sustainability's Interim Director, Dr. Erica Wohldmann, opened the Summer STEM event on July 16 with a presentation about the work performed at the Institute. The program continued with presentations by CSUN faculty Dr. Priya Ganguli, Geological Sciences department and Dr. Maria D'Orsogna, Math department. Dr. Helen Cox, former Director of the Institute for Sustainability, facilitated the World Climate Simulation exercise.
The following days were comprised of STEM focused problem-solving endeavors using NASA data sets, Google Suite, culminating in workshops to create NGSS-aligned curricula addressing critical issues around climate change. The group also spent a full day at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL). The Institute was led by Co-Principle Investigators on the NASA EPDC grant Dr. Norman Herr, Secondary Science Education and Dr. Susan Belgrad, Elementary Education. Dr. Jeanine Mingé, CSUN's Director of Community Engagement, attended JPL and contributed to the event as well.
We're proud to have hosted the kickoff of the STEM Summer Institute in the Sustainability Center!
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Fall 2018 - Save the Dates
The Institute is hosting a number of exciting events and workshops in Fall 2018.
Our newest event is a weekly Green Bag Lunch Series. Bring Your Own Green Bag (BYOGB) and enjoy lunch moderated by sustainability champions:
- Thursdays Sept 6 - Dec 12 from 12:30-1:15pm. Location: OST Lawn (West of Sustainability Center). RSVP at sustainability@csun.edu.
- Saturday, Sept. 8, 9-11am. Matador Day of Service with the Institute. Location: TBD.
- Monday, November 12, 12-1pm. Designing a Native Plant Garden. Location: CSUN Sustainable Garden Education Center.
Click here for a full list of Green Bag Lunch Series events and other Institute events.
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Faculty Spotlight: Professor Priya Ganguli
Dr. Priya Ganguli joined the department of Geological Sciences in January 2018 as part of CSUN’s new interdisciplinary Water Science Program, along with Dr. Erin Bray in the department of Geography and Environmental Studies.
Dr. Ganguli and Dr. Bray are forging ties across campus (e.g., Political Science, Center for Geospatial Science and Technology, Engineering, Biology, Health Sciences) and establishing partnerships with local stakeholders and environmental resource agencies to expand CSUN’s growing research presence.
 Dr. Ganguli studies the transport and fate of contaminants, with a focus on mercury, a neurotoxin that bioaccumulates in the food web. In addition to addressing basic research questions regarding mercury transport and toxicity, Dr. Ganguli is eager to evaluate how coastal and terrestrial remediation projects affect mercury cycling (e.g., Malibu Lagoon, New Idria Mercury Mine Superfund Site). By partnering with Dr. Tyler Hughes in the Department of Political Science, Dr. Ganguli’s work will help address questions regarding the public’s perception of environmental risk and how science communication influences interaction among stakeholders.
Dr. Ganguli is excited to merge her research and teaching experience as she develops an Environmental Sampling and Analysis course. Students in the course will work through the process of developing a hypothesis and determining what samples to collect. They will learn how to prepare and conduct water and sediment sampling events, analyze a subset of parameters in Dr. Ganguli’s Water Science Lab and evaluate the results.
The course will culminate with a poster session to highlight the importance of science communication. After completing this course, CSUN students will be able to gauge their interest in field-based research as they consider graduate school. Additionally, they will develop a competitive skill set for jobs in the environmental science field. The sampling location for this course will become a long-term study site.
Finally, the results each class generates will add to an ever-growing data set, enabling students to contribute to ongoing research in a meaningful way.
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LACI Update Corner
As part of our partnership with LACI (Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator), we will be featuring a monthly LACI Update:
Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and California Clean Energy Fund invite startups to apply now for the first-ever California Climate Cup and a chance to present on a world stage at the Global Climate Action Summit in September for a $25K grand prize!
Details and application are available here.
Internship Opportunity
The Water Resources and Policy Initiatives is seeking interns for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funded Water Resources Experiential Learning as part of the USDA Careers Internship Program.
Program details and eligibility info can be found here.
Contact Christina Rodriguez at chrodrig@csusb.edu for more information or start the application.
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Matadors Work Toward a Resilient Northridge
Institute Faculty Associates Dr. Craig Olwert and Dr. Zeynep Toker in the Urban Studies and Planning department completed the Resilient Northridge Plan, with support from a group of 15 Urban Planning graduate students.
Funded by the CRUX grant and Second Nature, the purpose of the plan is to assess the urban resilience needs of Northridge and enable CSUN to work with the community to recover quickly and well from a crisis, as well as to prevent crises from occurring. The plan lays out a framework for a Better Community & Campus, with 28 recommendations for Better Mobility, Better Community, and Better Environment.
The analysis was performed in collaboration with Northridge Vision, City of Los Angeles Council District 12, Second Nature, CSUN and the Institute for Sustainability.
In September, CSUN students were invited to an Open House, organized by the CSUN Urban Planning department, to give their ideas and thoughts on how to shape the plan. Approximately 90 students and other campus members attended the Open House, hosted at the Sustainability Center, to include their voices in the planning process to identify potential hazards that Northridge and CSUN face in the near future.
Dr. Olwert will be presenting this Resiliency Plan at our new Green Bag Lunch series on October 18 from 12:30-1:15pm in the Institute's Sustainability Center Conference Room. Join us to hear the highlights of this important plan. Please email sustainability@csun.edu to RSVP for this event.
CSUN Urban Planning graduate students.
Photo credit: Dr. Craig Olwert.
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Global Green Challenge
Want to change the world?
Participate in the Global Green Challenge 2018 and compete to win a free trip to California and a $10K Grand Prize package!
The competition is a global call to action to help inspire students to transition their lifestyles from conventional to conscious.
For more details on the challenge and application, sign up here.
Summer Movie Fest
Thursday Nights until Aug. 23
5-8pm
Oviatt Library Lawn
Summer isn't over yet! AS Summer Movie Fest will be screening free outdoor summer movies with food, activities and great company until August 23.
Click here to see which movies will be shown at Summer Movie Fest.
And before you go, don't forget to read these sustainability tips to go 'green' at these events!
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5 Ways to Help the World in Los Angeles
From the rainforest to the deserts, undergraduate researcher and field technician, Richard Rachman, shares his experience from travelling these last six months while observing environmental degradation. It made him think about global ways students could help the environment, locally!
 1. Eat Less Beef: Eating less beef will decrease your water consumption, promote more land-wise agricultural products, and slow the speed of manmade climate change.
2. Use Less Plastic: Single-use plastics are easy to ditch. Eat at home and save money. If there is a non-plastic alternative to anything you use, take it. If cost is an issue, try your best and recycle everything you use made of plastic, like soda bottles and bags.
3. Use public transportation, ride sharing, and biking: Public transportation contributes less to global warming than a single passenger car. By more people switching to bikes and other modes of non-gas transportation, there are tremendously lower amounts of air pollutants. Consider ditching the car to get a ride-share.
4. Be water wise, especially with landscaping: Los Angeles is a Mediterranean type climate, meaning many of our native plants naturally consume less water. Palm trees, Eucalyptus, and Acacias are not native and consume much more water. Planting native plants and trees can cut your water bill and there are also alternatives to lawn grass that are drought tolerant or native to California.
5. Breathe, it might be ok: In all of my travels, I’ve learned that people are becoming more educated on issues facing the environment. Even if we don’t agree on everything, people are having these tough conversations more than ever before. However, we have to walk the talk and take action!
Full story provided by: Richard Rachman. Edited by: Marlene Walter. |
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Campus Sustainability Resources
 AS Children's Center: Working or studying on campus with little ones? The AS Children's Center provides a nurturing child care program. You can find an overview of their fees here.
- Women's Research & Resource Center: serves as a place where students on campus and in the community can find resources and services. Their Food and Toiletry Pantry is open for all CSUN students, providing resources on Wednesdays from 10am-2pm during the Summer.
- CSUN Lactation Accommodations: The Institute for Community Health & Wellbeing promotes the availability of Lactation Spaces on campus, as CSUN faculty, staff and students work towards normalizing breastfeeding on campus. Click here for a map and instructions to reserve a space.
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Sustainability is a key priority at California State University, Northridge, integrated into all aspects of the university from operations and infrastructure to outreach, education and research. We’ve taught thousands of students how to grow their own food, to rethink “waste,” to conserve energy and water, and to take what they learn at CSUN back to their communities.
We rely on the generosity of donors to expand CSUN's sustainability leadership - from academic learning opportunities for students to cutting-edge research and engagement that benefit our campus, state and planet. Please consider giving to the Institute for Sustainability. Your tax-deductible contributions help support our mission and invest in our students, faculty and staff who make a difference both on campus and in the community.
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