Let's Make a Green Residence Room!

A green key sitting on a wooden table

There are two realities for students that call the University of Ottawa there campus. On one side there are tens of thousands of students that scurry in and out of the classrooms, lounges, sports facilities, etc. And on the other side there are thousands of students that call the university more than just there campus... it is there home.

Here at the UofO there are 2885 residence beds spread out over seven residence buildings on campus. In addition, there are some residence houses in the Sandy Hill community and a few students that stay over at the St. Paul residence. So in the end, we are talking about 10% of the community that lives on campus.

So imagine our reaction here at the Office of Campus Sustainability when the idea of a model room in residences started floating around.With such a huge number of the campus community living in residences, it would be a gigantic win for us if we could get students to practice sustainable living habits.

So here is what we are proposing, an online residence room that shows everyone the top things that they could do in their rooms to be green. Hopefully we will be able to create an interactive dashboard to really draw people in. As of late, we have been collecting ideas from other universities but it would be great if we could get ideas from the community too.

University is usually the first time a young adult gets to move out of the home and start doing things for themselves. It is technically at this time that independent living habits are created and with a little nudging, maybe this is the time that sustainable living habits could be created.

Just as a quick reminder, the average Canadian:
If you have any suggestions, tips or tricks to make residence rooms greener, we would love to hear them. Send us an email.

~jON - campus sustainability manager
photo credit - jonathan rausseo

2 comments

ilockitdown said...

it would be amazing if you had a sustainable floor or Green floor in one of the residences just to see what a group of students (who apply for that floor) could do once already in a sustainable environment!

uOttawaSustain said...

Good idea. I think I have heard of other universities trying something like that but it would be cool to see what that would look like. If people applied ahead of time, they would have the double whammy of probably already being green people and then having the benefit of being surrounded by more green people.

It think I will have a conversation with our friends over in Housing Services. Thanks for the idea. ~jON