At the April 23rd Sustainability Projects Fund committee meeting we reviewed 6 projects and two letters of intent approving funding for the summer operations of the CHBE biodiesel project, honeybees at the UBC Farm, and the building of a prototype for an interactive art project in the New SUB for a total of just under $9,000. These new projects will… Read more Thank you to everyone who came out to our first Sustainability Movie Night! We gathered in the beautiful space of the CIRS building, and had the pleasure of having tea and brownies provided by Sprouts cafe before the movie. We then watched The Clean Bin Project, a documentary made in Vancouver! Jen, Grant, and Rhyannon pledged to try to buy… Read more The Geography Students’ Association’s Green Team recently held an event to raise awareness about reusing and recycling old clothes to reduce our consumption. At the GSA’s last BZZR Garden on March 16th, a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) activity was put on by the Green Team where students and staff could re-purpose old t-shirts by turning them into fashionable circle-scarves. Fabric paints… Read more   The worm experiment was modified from single environment chambers to a shared refuge.  Worm survival has increased with this change.  Worms apparently need a large refuge of mature compost from which they emerge to consume human waste.  Where urine was mixed with fecal matter, all worms died.  Source separation is a key aspect of vermicomposting human waste.  Interim… Read more by Brittany Jang On March 15th, we welcomed City of Vancouver social planners Mario Lee and Ali Grant as our last guests for the Geography Students Association’s highly successful Sustainability in Action! Series. The pair came to present Vancouver’s approach to social sustainability in an effort to foster dialogue on all issues regarding sustainability including environmental, economic and social concerns.… Read more by TY Chow Time flies and it’s almost the end of an amazing school year! We wish your year is as awesome as ours because this year, UBC Solar had made great progress on our solar car! First’s up – we have done some outreach at E-Fest 2012 at Vancouver Public Library Central Branch. We met many people, mostly students… Read more by Molly Henry On February 7th, the GSA Sustainability in Action! Series facilitated a tour of the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS).  The group of fifteen attendees from across the Geography Department were fortunate to have this tour led by John Robinson (Executive Director for the UBC Sustainability Initiative, and professor with the Institute for Resources, Environment, and… Read more Footprints: Stepping into a sustainable future is a student-run event for students from all different disciplines to come together with professionals to generate powerful ideas and conversations around sustainability. Previous years have brought topics such as political change, local food production, sustainable community planning, and carbon offsetting to the forefront of discussions. This year, the conversation focused on sustainable initiatives… Read more by James Butler, President, CHBE Sustainability Club Now we’re cooking with biodiesel! In January we made our first batch (50L) of biodiesel using the production plant in the Chemical and Biological Engineering (CHBE) Building. In one end of the reactor we put fresh vegetable oil (freight damaged and no good for people to use), methanol (obtained from UBC solvent recovery)… Read more UBC’s Got Skillz has been ticking along nicely this semester. We finalized our branding in January, which is the granny logo accompanying this post. Many thanks go to Jemma Titheridge for designing all of our posters and materials- she’s definitely “got skillz” when it comes to design! In February, we launched a major outreach campaign, to generate interest in our… Read more