Sustainability Mini Projects

This semester the Office of Campus Sustainability partnered up with the ENV1101A course on a Community Service Learning Project. This isn't anything new because we do a project with this course every year... but this time, under the supervision of professor Tom Boggart, we mixed things up and had students work on mini sustainability projects.

The change in format was to see what kind of innovation we could spark from the students if we tightened up some of the parameters. For instance, this year we gave the students a maximum budget of $1,000, limiting the scope and hopefully getting the students to think outside the box. We also had students produce a poster presentation rather than a formal report so that they could engage a more visual audience.

So here are some of the results; they are spectacular. What impressed me the most were the really innovative things that people did to incorporate environmentally friendly design concepts into their posters.

compostable twine

newspaper emboss

disposable paper cups as the background

newspaper as the background

vines to add a plant motif

packages of seeds and soil samples

Over the holidays I will do a more complete assessment of the projects but for now I wanted to show you a little bit of impressive results that the students were able to accomplish with their posters. There are some very engaging visual elements that I think greatly increase how attractive their proposals are.

To ensure that none of these posters go to waste, our office is partnering with the SFUO Sustainability Centre to have a wine and cheese poster session during Green Weeks. These posters will be displayed and some of their creators will be on hand to answer questions about their projects.

Stay tuned for details.

~ jON - campus sustainability manager
photo credit - jonathan rausseo