I had just finished grade 11, and it turned out I only had twenty hours of community service completed – a far cry from the forty hours necessary to graduate from high school. I was not in the ideal position here. How was I going to get twenty volunteer hours in one year when that’s how many I collected over three years? So I decided it was time to get down and dedicate this summer to finishing my hours. But I wanted to do it in style, volunteer someplace cool, someplace where only a privileged few could say they volunteered. I thought the best place to look for such an opportunity would be at the University of Ottawa, especially since I plan to come here in the near future. After talking to a few people and sending a few emails, I landed up in the Office of Campus Sustainability. The project: create a map of the campus highlighting all the features and services accessible to persons with disabilities. My job: go through the campus and note down some of these features and servic...

Gardens have so many benefits that we often forget about some of them. For me one of the biggest benefits of gardening, and a reason why I am so hooked, is the amazing feeling it gives me: Stress relieving.  I have one garden in pots at home, I have a plot in the community garden, and I help take care of the Sustainability Centre’s teaching plot. I am actually looking into planting at my friend’s house and my mom’s yard, plus I spend time helping some other friends with their gardens. Anyways, I just cannot get enough of gardening.  And I am not the only one talking about the stress relieving benefits. “A recent study in the Netherlands suggests that gardening can fight stress even better than other relaxing leisure activities. After completing a stressful task, two groups of people were instructed to either read indoors or garden for 30 minutes. Afterward, the group that gardened reported being in a better mood than the reading group, and they also had lower lev...

This is killing me. A couple of years ago I read about this lady at UBC who is magically able to make her office paperless - you can check out the article for yourself. Of course I become instantly green with envy (you like what I just did right there). I must have a paperless office too! I mean, if there is an office at the University of Ottawa that is going to be the first to become paperless.... why not our office? A couple of years later and reality of still kicking us in the gut. My desk is still a monument to paper. And so is everyone else's actually. There are a couple of hard truths that I have been ignoring. 1- I work with engineers and architects and so there is a whole lot of paper lovin' going on here (blueprints) 2- We don't have super modern equipment here... no I-Pads in every corner 3- Almost everyone here is over 50 so the ageist part of me wants to lay the blame on old school thinking Beyond that, there are also a couple of things that I ...

A couple of weeks ago an email circulated around our office, the contents of which focused on lunch bags in the refrigerator. The message: don't put them in the fridge. My prognosis... best idea ever! There are actually a couple of really good reasons why you don't want to put these lunch bags in the fridge if you can avoid it. Our office was doing it because we were running out of space, but allow me to delve into the green side of this issue. They actually do take up too much space I remember when I was a kid my lunch bag was nothing more than a brown paper bag that could basically only last 1 week before it was shredded into oblivion. Nowadays, lunch bags are huge, space sucking behemoths. I kid you not, there are some people in my office who use their lunch bags as backpacks and purses. So what's the environmental impact? Well bigger lunch bags mean less space for everyone else. Think of it as the inefficient packing of the refrigerator space. If my lunc...

Gardening is both an enjoyable pastime and a great way to make your own delicious food. If you’re a parent like online savings guru Kate Sorenson, maintaining your garden can be a fun family activity and learning experience. But sometimes the costs can be overwhelming and you might prefer to just stay inside. Before taking your gloves off, however, learn the tricks to maintaining your hobby for as little money as possible. Seeds, Seeds, Seeds! When starting next year’s garden, you might be tempted to buy an already grown seedling plant and save yourself some trouble. FabulesslyFrugal.com warns against this, pointing out that a $2 package of seeds often costs the same as a single plant. They go on to suggest buying heirloom seeds, which can be harvested every year and will save you money in the long run. A recently published article on the Sacramento Bee also explains the importance of seeds, advising to take seeds from your full grown plants and using them next year. Once you ...

Welcome to our first ever Living Lab report. There are a couple of things I would like to highlight about the report and maybe one or two things I would like to say about where I see the program going. The Living Lab is not a novel concept. It is a program that is slowly being embraced by several universities around North America. The basic principle of the program is as follows Problems are identified in the community and on campus Students study the problems and propose solutions as part of their course work The University studies the proposals and implements the ideas that have the best chance of succeeding This is an incredibility simplistic view of what is in fact a very complicated open-innovation ecosystem. You can read this very technical Wikipedia entry if you want to dig deeper. What it boils down to is this... we have problems on campus and instead of burying them, we open them up for everyone to help solve. The only catch with us is that we focus ...

Yes, so it turns out that Ottawa is in the middle of the longest heat wave it has experienced since the formation of the continents some 2 billion years ago. This kind of weather puts environmentalists in a tight spot. On the one side there is the need to look out for Mother Earth: on the other, no one wants to actual experience what it feels like to melt. So, here is our quick guide to staying green when the going gets hot. Unplug everything Seriously, it may not seem like it but all the things you have plugged in at home are contributing to an increase in the ambient temperature. Think of what happens when you leave your laptop on your lap for too long or when you touch an old style incandescent light bulb. Try to put as many thing as you can unto a power bar and just power down during the day. Take cold showers This is a tried and true method to keeping nice and cool. The cold shower not only doesn't use any energy to heat the water coming through the tap, but it can ...

Qu’est-ce qu’une cuisine communautaire? Une cuisine communautaire ou la restauration collective se défini comme le regroupement de gens dans un contexte formel ou non formel pour apprendre à cuisiner et/ou partager ces connaissances de manière structurer ou non. Donc, une cuisine communautaire peut être un souper entre amis à un cours de cuisines que tu dois payer une large somme pour y participer. Pour moi, une cuisine communautaire c’est une façon d’apprendre de nouvelles techniques et de mélanges de saveurs, mais aussi d’apprendre à connaitre de nouvelles personnes et à renforcir des liens avec des amis. Enfin, je crois vraiment qu’une communauté forte peut se développer en passant par des cuisines communautaires et est essentiel à mieux comprendre les impacts et les alternatives à nos systèmes de production et distribution de nourriture. Ottawa est plein de foodies (des fans de nourritures qui aiment découvrir et expérimenter), donc il y a un bon nombre de participants e...

Vous cherchez des fruits et légumes locaux dans la région d’Ottawa-Gatineau, voici quelques choix. Chaque fruits et légumes a sa saison de cueillette par exemple : les asperges sont prête en Juin; les fraises en fin juin jusqu’à environ mi-juillet; les patates, les haricots, les pois mange-tout, les ognons, les carottes, les framboises d’été sont tous prêt en Juillet; les carottes, les poivrons, les concombres, les courges, le mais sucré, les tomates et l’ail sont tous prêt en Août; les framboise d’automne, pommes, les patates d’hiver sont prêt en Septembre; et évidemment les citrouilles sont prêt à cueillir en octobre pour l’halloween. Si vous voulez une liste plus complète des fruits et légumes ainsi que les viandes et fromages, voici la liste produite du Marché de Fermiers d’Ottawa . Vous trouverez souvent des marchés qui en vendent dans la région comme exemple le Marché de Fermiers d’Ottawa qui se situe à quatre localisations : au Parc Brewer, à Ottawa tous les dimanches d...

Are you a student? Are you stuck doing that thing where you pack your life into boxes and relocate to another place in the near future? Are you stressed and overridden with tonnes of stuff that you realize you don’t really need in your new place? (If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should probably continue reading. If not, maybe read anyways or continue browsing this blog for something more applicable to you.) Moving sucks, the effort that is required to sort through your junk and meticulously wrap your breakables is an arduous task at best. Hopefully some of these tips will help make the process a bit easier. 1. Gather the necessary packing equipment  DOs: Boxes- can be found on campus in “cardboard” recycling bins, be sure to recycle them after/give to others in the moving process! Crates- ask local stores (such as grocery stores) if they have any that you can borrow, some are surprisingly friendly if you offer to put a “deposit” down Grocery Ba...

When I was an undergraduate student at uOttawa I was really excited when the government of Canada launched the doomed 1 Tonne Challenge program . The program had only good intentions but it completely and utterly failed to be inclusive. As a student there were a bunch of things that were being suggested by the program that I just couldn't do. Buy an efficient furnace or car, insulate my house, purchase offsets?!?!? I didn't own a home, couldn't afford a car, and what the hell was an offset? Since then I have always had a hate on for things marketed to students that students have no control over. If I told you to turn down the heat in your classroom, would you even be able to do it? So here is a list of 5 actual things that you can do on campus to reduce the campuses environmental footprint. Don't use the elevator when you don't have to  I never understood why people didn't get this but elevators suck their fair share of energy. On a floor by floor basis...

Avez-vous déjà remarqué, lors des grands déménagements (mai, juillet et septembre) tous les meubles qui sont laissés à ramasser et jeter par la ville? J’en suis certaine! C’est le même cas sur le campus de l'université d'Ottawa; lors de grands déménagements ou rénovations, l’Université se débarrasse presque toujours des meubles. Ces meubles se sont fait jetés; jusqu’au jour où nous avons commencé le programme de recyclage de meubles. Le Programme de recyclage des meubles (PRM) a été instauré en 2008 dans le cadre d’un projet pilote visant à évaluer le potentiel que pouvaient offrir la réutilisation et le recyclage des meubles sur le campus. Après l’acquisition de la propriété située au 200, avenue Lees à la fin de 2007, l’Université s’est retrouvée avec une grande quantité de meubles qui avaient été laissés dans l’immeuble. Au lieu de jeter ces meubles et d’en assumer le coût connexe, le Bureau du développement durable (BDD) et le Service des immeubles (SDI) ont examiné la...

I, Merissa Mueller, am the conqueror of cartography, maker of maps, artist of the atlas, and most recently the foursquare flunky. See, I’m new to foursquare. I have heard of it, mostly because sometimes on Facebook my homepage decides to tell me the locations of my drunken friends. Other than that, the concept is quite familiar because of my work with mapping but I had no experience with it until recently. I had created a foursquare account quite a while back for the office to which I added “lists” entailing where on and off campus you should visit along with a short “tip” about the building/location. Since I have no access to a smart phone (hell, I don’t even have a real calling plan on my crappy phone, just texting) I couldn’t go much further with our profile than that. I could not “check in” to places, upload photos to my profile, become the “mayor” of a spot and most unfortunately, I could not earn a single badge which made me feel horrible. I mean, even if you’re crappy at ...

I was mobbed by a group of onlookers with a bunch of questions at my condo today. My crime?....having discovered the most amazing way to compost. (note to reader, I didn't actually discover it but I fancy myself a pioneer) Let me start this post by saying that I understand that composting is hard. It's not like recycling. Recycling means you put one thing into a container and voila, nice and easy. There are no odours, there are no bugs, and you can recycle almost everywhere. No so for composting, and in my case composting is doubly difficult because condos in Ottawa don't have a standard composting system. These creates three possible solutions. The first is to become a composting ninja. Wake up super early and find a house somewhere in your neighbourhood that composts. Quietly, without waking anybody up or drawing too much attention to yourself, open up their compost bin and depose the goods. Full disclosure, I have been caught doing this once before and I can tell ...

This past week the University of Ottawa installed new exterior recycling bins on campus. Now I promised myself I wouldn't cry so please bare with me while I pay homage to the old bins before getting on to the new ones. I really liked the old exterior recycling bins that we had on campus. Yeah they had there short-comings; they broke really easily, they were separated bins (I'll talk about that I a minute), and quite frankly they weren't a very good design. But they also represented one of the first real risks that we took to improve recycling on campus. Unlike any bin before it, and unlike the new bins, the old bins were transparent, you could actually see right through them. I know this doesn't seem like anything new today, considering Toronto is littered with transparent bins, but when we installed those old bins on campus, to my knowledge we were the first in Ottawa. Of course the benefit of doing this is that the transparent bin forces people to put things i...