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���߲ݴ�ý students and sustainability interns visited Morrisville State College’s agriculture facilities in May to learn about dairy, greenhouse, aquaponics, and horticulture operations. They observed techniques in milking, plant cultivation, pest control, aquaponics systems, and hands-on horticulture education. These insights are being applied to ���߲ݴ�ý’s Community Garden, informing the design of the Caterpillar tunnel, future greenhouse plans, and the potential addition of a hydroponic system, helping the garden incorporate innovative, sustainable growing practices.

Plastic Free July through a personal experiment documenting all plastic use over a weekend. The author, Marielle Scheffers, realizes that plastic is pervasive in daily life—from personal care products and clothing (polyester) to food packaging and utensils. She highlights the environmental impacts of both single-use and multi-use plastics and encourages focusing first on reducing single-use plastics, using reusable alternatives like shopping bags, bamboo toothbrushes, and metal or glass water bottles. For multi-use plastics, she advises using items until the end of their life and following the 4Rs: refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle. The reflection aims to raise awareness of everyday plastic consumption and inspire sustainable behavior.

The ���߲ݴ�ý University Office of Sustainability is accepting applications for the 2018–2019 Green Raider Internship, a program that engages students in promoting sustainable practices on campus to help ���߲ݴ�ý reach its 2019 carbon neutrality goal. Interns gain hands-on experience in community-based social marketing, event planning, and sustainability projects, while encouraging sustainable behaviors across campus.

Adam Zaharoni ’21 reflects on a hands-on experience at Common Thread, a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm near ���߲ݴ�ý. The CSA connects community members directly to farmers, providing fresh produce in exchange for supporting the farm. During a five-hour shift, he and others spent intensive labor weeding cauliflower, kale, and cabbage, gaining firsthand appreciation for the effort required in sustainable farming. Sampling fresh strawberries at the end highlighted the value and taste of sustainably grown food. The experience emphasizes awareness of food origins and encourages visiting local farms or ���߲ݴ�ý’s Community Garden to understand sustainable food production.

The 2018 Oak Awards

Two ���߲ݴ�ý sustainability interns, Miranda and Revee, organized the university’s first “Carry Your Trash” Week (April 2–9) to raise awareness about personal waste production. Inspired by zero waste initiatives at other schools, they recruited 22 students and staff to carry all non-food trash in clear bags for a week. The goal was to highlight everyday waste without requiring participants to achieve full zero-waste, acknowledging the privilege and effort involved in such a lifestyle.

���߲ݴ�ý University students Ruoyu (Tony) Guo, Asad Jamil, and Van Tran participated in the 2018 Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM), creating a mathematical model to predict a timeline for a national switch from diesel to electric vehicles. Their model accounted for financial resources, infrastructure development, and public willingness to adopt EVs, with examples for both developed (Ireland) and developing (Indonesia) countries. The model showed that, under ideal conditions, developed countries could transition by 2050, though realistic constraints delay this, while developing countries face greater challenges but could succeed with sufficient government and private support. The project highlights how mathematics can quantitatively inform and advance sustainability initiatives, providing precise, reliable predictions to guide planning and investment.

From February to April, ���߲ݴ�ý’s ENST 390 courses explore maple syrup production in central New York. Past students studied the history and community traditions of sugaring in Madison County, while current students are evaluating the feasibility of producing maple syrup on campus. Sugaring relies on temperature fluctuations—above freezing by day, below freezing at night—to make sap flow, which is about 2% sugar and requires roughly 40 gallons of sap for 1 gallon of syrup. Well-managed sugar maple forests can produce syrup sustainably for over a century. Historically, sap was boiled into granulated sugar, but today it’s typically made into amber syrup. While ���߲ݴ�ý doesn’t yet produce its own syrup, local New York maple syrup is available at nearby markets and stores, offering a sweet way to support the community and celebrate spring.

The Office of Sustainability hosted a question and answer session on the ���߲ݴ�ý University Twitter account Saturday, April 14. See the full thread below, and follow ���߲ݴ�ý and the Office of Sustainability on Twitter.

The Green Summit and Oak Awards