Plymouth state university Office of environmental sustainability spring newsletter 2016
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n February 9th, 2016, the Office of Environmental Sustainability hosted the Wild & Scenic Film Festival at The Flying Monkey, located in the center of downtown Plymouth. Despite the chilly weather, over two hundred inspired people scurried in to embrace an action-packed lineup of environmentally focused films. Along with the great films came several speakers from around the area and even a visit from an osprey, provided by Squam Lakes Natural Science Center. Yes, that’s right, an osprey made an appearance at the festival promoting a movie centered around the important species of birds. The rather large bird collected quite a few laughs but the food, drinks, raffles, and environmental information were popular attractions to many as well. When asked about his time at the festival, Plymouth State freshman Wesley Gunselman said “it opened my eyes to how outdoor activities can really promote environmental conservation” and that the biggest thing people could take away from the experience was “how much one per-
WILD AND SCENIC FILM FESTIVAL BY TUCKER HAYFORD
son can have an impact just by adopting small ways to be sustainable”. This attitude carried through the rest of the crowd as well, filling the beautiful theatre with like-minded individuals. The festival, consisting of both long and short films, runs nationwide and has gained major sponsors like Patagonia, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., and Clif Bar along the way. The night, overall, was a huge success. T h e amount of people and the energy they brought was amazing, and all of the sponsors were greatly appreciated as well as everyone who made the night possible!
Thank you to our sponsors; Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, OES, PSU Maps, PSU Outdoor Center, PSU Center for the Environment, PSU MTD Department, and PSU Social Science Department!
Take Back the Tap
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any efforts have been made in tackling the environmental and health concerns with bottled water in past years on campus through the Take Back the Tap campaign. Take Back the Tap is funded through the a national non-profit organization known as Food and Water Watch. The main objectives and efforts of this campaign are to reduce the amount of plastic water bottles sold and consumed on campus as well as raise awareness about water related issues such as privatization, and environmental pollution and destruction caused by the consumption of water bottles across the world and country. The campaign is also making an effort to increase the number of water bottle filling stations on campus, to encourage the use of reusable water bottles. Most recently, in regards to accomplishments made by the University, a new water bottle filling station was installed in the Grafton Residence Hall! The University continues to add these filling stations across campus, while the campaign encourages the use of these filling stations, and the reduction in consumption of plastic water bottles. This year, the campaign is developing new approaches and methods for community outreach. Historically, the campaign has had only a few individuals involved in running the campaign, with major support from the student workers in the Office of Environmental Sustainability (OES). This year, Take Back the Tap has new goals. The
By Nicole Stevens
campaign is making efforts to recruit students across campus to not only sign a petition and pledge to consume fewer plastic water bottles, but join the campaign. Other efforts involve collaboration with a student led research project to collect resourceful information using Community-Based Social Marketing methods. This research will help identify incentives and barriers to the consumption of plastic water bottles on campus, and will help develop new outreach methods using effective CBSM tools to creating successful and lasting changes on campus. Through the efforts made from this research, Take Back the Tap will help create significant, lasting changes within the coming years. Take Back the Tap is always welcoming new participants and volunteers, and is always excited for new ideas! If you have questions or comments about the campaign and its efforts on campus, or would like to know how you can become more involved, please contact the campaign coordinator Nicole Stevens via email; nstevens1@plymouth.edu. The campaign looks forward to collaboration with the campus community, and incredible sustainable improvements for the university throughout this year and into the future!
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hen one hears of sustainability today, it is rarely in the same sentence as Information Technology Services (ITS). Computers and technology use a vast amount of energy to run, so there’s plenty of potential for improvement to technologies that consume less energy and provide the same performance. Plymouth State’s ITS Department has already taken many steps to be more sustainable, most recently the installment of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) technology with repurposed older desktops. VDI technology uses a main host server to run multiple desktops across campus. Each time you log onto a PSU desktop in the library or at the clusters for students, it uses the VDI technology to load your personal desktop from the host server. Typically, the installment of VDI technology requires the purchase of expensive computers to act as the desktops, but PSU did something a little different. The ITS Department repurposed old desktop computers and configured them to work with the VDI technology. “This is a wonderful way to repurpose an old item, with an added bonus.” said
Alan Baker, Systems Administrator at PSU.One place “where we are having a significant sustainability impact is in the amount of E-waste that we would be producing.” He further explained that a typical desktop would have a three to four year life cycle at PSU, then go on to surplus to be repurposed, donated or sold, and eventually recycled if too old. The new VDI technology will increase the life cycle to seven or eight years. Plymouth State’s ITS Department works to be more sustainable in other ways too. They provide the programs like myPlymouth and Moodle that enable paperless courses, and also allow professors and commuters to work from home thereby, decreasing their carbon dioxide emissions from travel. Other efforts provide means to virtually share documents using Google Drive accounts, Microsoft OneDrive accounts, and the University M-drive, all of which can be accessed through the myPlymouth account. Using these systems, PSU students, faculty, and staff can share documents and articles without printing a copy for each student, including submitting documents and assignments virtually.
There are a few different ways we can all decrease impacts from our computer use! Simple actions, such as not having a screen saver and allowing your computer to hibernate, save a significant amount of energy. When charging mobile devices, unplug the charger when the device is fully charged or it will continue consuming energy. Another great tip is to turn off a desktop’s monitor when not in use. It’ll help conserve energy, and the monitor takes seconds to turn back on. It’s the little things that have a big impact. Here at PSU, we must put ITS in the same sentence as sustainability. ITS has taken many steps to be more sustainable, and plans more to come. The VDI technology that allows the repurposing of old computers is a great example how Plymouth State works to reuse materials and reduce our E-waste, and we look forward to continuing to celebrate the efforts of ITS to make PSU a more sustainable community.
Sustainability meets Information technology services By Cassandra LaVoie
-Save energy! Use task lighting (eg. desk lamps) when possible and shut off overhead lights. -Wish that the Farmers Market ran year-round? It does! Visit localfoodplymouth.org to order weekly! -Moving out? Need to donate old gear? Need affordable gear? Check out the following: Boomerang Used Furniture (5 Main St.) Off the Hanger (103 Main St.) Plymouth Ski & Sport (97 Main St.) Etcetera Shoppe (65 NH-25, Meredith)
-DID YOU KNOW?
PSU currently composts lawn, leaf and garden waste -Make your own Multi-Purpose Cleaner (safe for you and for the Earth!): 2 tbsp. baking soda 1 tbsp. white vinegar
TipS & TRICKS
Sustainable structures: the tiny house project BY TAYLOR MCKENZIE
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djunct professor Bryan Felice and PSU go way back. Beginning in 1999 as a student at what was then known as Plymouth State College, Bryan took a few graduate courses in Environmental Education before transferring to a different school. In the next stages of his career and personal development, Bryan traveled and learned to build with a focus on sustainability and craftsmanship. Eventually, a desire to share that knowledge led Bryan back to PSU. Plymouth State University offers a myriad of courses having to do with sustainability. One of the most popular is Sustainable Structures, a course
taught by Bryan Felice. The course is an upper level one that counts towards the sustainability minor. Bryan likes to describe it as “not easy, but a ton of fun.” Each semester the class is organized around designing and building a sustainable structure. The course is split into thirds; the first third is focused on reading and lectures that teach the core concepts of sustainability in buildings and beyond. Essentially, students learn an entire semester’s worth of information on how buildings work. The second third of the class is about designing whatever the building/project is the focus for that semester, and obtaining a building permit for it. Tradi-
tionally these projects are either on the PSU campus, or benefit a non-profit organization in the region. The rest of the semester is dedicated to actually building what the class designed. The course project this year is a tiny house! A tiny house is a simple shelter with simple means and simple materials, and the small footprint and careful design make the structure “sustainable”. What makes this particular tiny house interesting is that Bryan’s class is building it on top of a trailer, so they do not need a building permit, as it is on top of trailer. This tiny house will be located at D’Acres permaculture farm, who is also the community partner for the project. Tiny houses can cost anywhere from 0-$30,000. Yet, for this semester’s Sustainable Structures class, they are building their tiny house on a $0 budget. Tiny houses embody a more sustain-
able way of living. As Bryan puts it: “they are almost undoing the Mcmansion idea of living.” Building small means using less material, as well less heating and cooling. Living in a tiny house also forces the need to consolidate; live life with less materialistic possessions. Less stuff! Of course there are some challenges to living small. It is definitely an adjustment and for most are not accustomed to living a simple lifestyle. Sustainable Structures is an opportunity for students to work with their hands. Students are able to make that hand/head/heart connection. A chance TO DO. This is an appealing class to active learners, as well it is very much a hands-on experience.
Sustainable Spotlight: Student Profile
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his past fall the Office of Environmental Sustainability began work with a new Permaculture Coordinator, senior Emily Hyde. Emily first became interested in sustainability during her sophomore year here at PSU, when taking a permaculture class. While taking this class she began to understand the words sustainability and resilience, and what it means in an environmental context. She started to understand many aspects of the the sustainability movements; and that there are a lot of people taking charge within them. As an Environmental Planning major and Sustainability minor, Emily has done a lot of work for PSU; in class and out. She has been involved in putting together a low impact development document for stormwater management for AllWell North. She has helped create rain gardens in AllWell, EcoHouse, and at Lamson Library; all through classes she has taken. As for her position at Ecohouse, Emily is creating an edible permaculture garden. It will have different fruit trees as
well as a butterfly garden. The fruit will be provided to the residents of Ecohouse, and along with the garden there will be a tree arbor structure. Hopefully this will be an eyecatcher to others and create interest as to what is happening on the site and our campus. Emily has also taught a grafting workshop at Ecohouse. Emily’s favorite project was creating the library rain garden. She mentions that she enjoyed working with the entire class for this project, as it only took three class periods to put it together. A lot of planning beforehand was put into it. When asked if there was one thing that she could change about Plymouth in accordance to sustainability, Emily answered with changing the center of town. She feels it is constantly congested, and that is not structured for a society using multi-modal transportation means. She would like to make it a little bit bigger for some of these alternative uses, as well as make it biker/walker/skater friendly. Emily believes that complete streets, streets that have a sidewalk, a green
space, a bike lane and a car lane, would be a great way to plan for the future and improve the downtown of Plymouth. Emily finds it important to create a self journey for herself to live a simple life as she gets older, as living simply is difficult to do in college. In regards to a career, ideally Emily would like to combine environmental planning with sustainability and permaculture into some sort of land restoration and water conservation job. She entertains the idea of creating her own firm with people who have the same interest to combine all three. Straight out of college that may be difficult, so she understands she will start at a smaller level first and build to achieve her professional goals. Overall, Emily enjoys working with the water aspect of sustainability and environmental planning, and looks forward to doing so successfully after graduation. Keep an eye out for her work!
BY TAYLOR MCKENZIE
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herri Covell is the head gardener at Plymouth State University. Her work here isn’t just a job, but is also her passion. For Sherri, gardening is more than digging in the dirt; it’s an art form that brings people together. JUSTIN - Tell me about your education. SHERRI - I have a BA in Pyscology from UNH, I graduated in ’95 and I played division l women’s ice hockey. I just recently started exploring the possibly of getting a masters in Environmental Science and Policy here at Plymouth State. JUSTIN you
start
When working
did here?
SHERRI - I started back in March of 2012. Prior to that, I worked with a green house in North Sandwich called Wayside Farm - I’d been there for three seasons. I had a small gardening business of my own called Bear’s Den Designs. I essentially started in the green industry back in 2000 when I bought my house; I started tinkering there and realized this is fun, I like this and then I started working with other landscape companies and other gardeners until a friend of mine then sent me the link for the gardening position here. So I applied in August of 2011 and started in March of 2012. JUSTIN - What’s your official title? SHERRI - Gardner. Originally, they had it listed as horticulturist but I don’t have a horticulture degree, and don’t like to
portray myself as something I’m not. So, I garden, it’s a passion of mine, it’s what I love to do - I’m much more comfortable with the title Gardner. JUSTIN - Are there other gardeners on campus? Are you the head gardener? SHERRI - I’m the head gardener. What I do is gather a group of students and part-time staff for seasonal work. JUSTIN - I know you worked with students on the rain garden next to Lamson Library; was that your first experience with student collaboration? SHERRI - Yes, that was the first time Steve Whitman and I had a chance had a chance to sit down with a class. I was not only involved in the outdoor project, but with the classroom as well. So, the students would essentially prepare their design, look at the site and explain why they chose certain plants and I would show them different aspects of the location as far as temperature, how much sun it’s getting and the type of exposure to wind currents it might receive. It was really fun for me to sit down with the students in a classroom setting and throw out questions to them. It was a great experience for me to actually get them to think outside of the box. The students, they’re honestly fantastic. JUSTIN - Do you see staying at Plymouth for
yourself awhile?
SHERRI - I sure hope so. I like it, I love
my job. How many people can say that they dig in the dirt and get paid for it? I look at my job - well it’s a job, everyone needs one - as a passion. You have a lot of immediate gratification when you go into an area that’s overgrown and just not looking real hot and you get to re-edge and pull some stuff out, bring things back and when the project is said and done, you can step back and see a final result that is beautiful and you can also add an artistic flair to it. It gives you a chance to be creative in a more artistic manner JUSTIN - The importance of sustainability, what do you think about it? Sherri - It’is very important. The fact that now we have solar power on Hyde Hall is huge. With where our world is going, we as a university should be thinking down the road on how we can better our environment, how we can better our community. JUSTIN - Describe the Plymouth State community in 15 to 30 words. SHERRI - The community - vibrant, energetic, forward thinking, fun - we have a lot of fun stuff we do around here - family oriented, the community wants to get everybody involved. We care, we’re passionate. I don’t think you can run into a person that’s either employed by Plymouth State or lives in the community or takes classes here that doesn’t have at least one positive thing to say about it.
Sustainable Spotlight: Staff/Faculty Profile By Justin Hardesty
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n the fall semester of 2016, students in the Sustainability in Residences course will implement a landscape design that restores ecological services to the south side of ALLWell North. The ecological design implementation will boast habitats with native plants, including fruits, herbs, and medicinal plants.
by emily hyde
The creation of these rain gardens began when Physical Plant reached out to professor Steve Whitman early in 2015, and builds on their work in other locations on campus. “Arguably, one of the neatest aspects of these projects is the collaboration between PSU students, professors, and Physical Plant staff. During the actual physical grunt work of re-shaping the garden, and planting the vegetation, energy levels on-site were high, and everyone shared the same excitement for what is to come,” said student, Liza Tetley. Rain gardens are a form of stormwater management that slows the movement of surface water and infiltrates it into the soil. This allows for the collecting of pollutants that would otherwise make their way to the Pemigewasset River. The first rain garden was implement-
allwell north rain garden ed next to Lamson Library. The garden was designed by students in Introduction to Permaculture, and reviewed by Sherri Covell and revised and built with help from students in the fall 2015 course, Sustainability in Residences. This marked the first collaboration between Physical Plant and university students. “As an instructor, I am really excited to create hands on learning experiences for our students'. The partnership with Physical Plant staff allows us to expand the classroom experience, implement positive ecological changes on campus, and deepen the students understanding of the issues at hand” said Whitman. Planning for the ALLWell North implementation began in the fall of 2014, when students reviewed the construction plans and provided feedback based on knowledge gained from their Environmental Planning course. The implementation of rain gardens at Lamson Library and ALLWell North are parts of a campus wide initiative. In the future, we envision rain gardens and other forms of storm water management across the campus. This will help build a more sustainable campus while limiting pollutants that enter our rivers and creating new visually appealing sites on campus. “I think this project is just a glimpse of the future here at PSU. It goes to show that when we take an interdisciplinary approach to issues on campus, and participants from all different sorts of backgrounds come together, we have the power to create really awesome, cutting-edge learning opportunities and outcomes,” said Tetley.
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rom February 7th through April 2nd of this year, PSU competed in the national RecycleMania competition. RecycleMania is an 8 week competition in which more than 350 schools from the US and Canada carefully measure how much recycling and trash is collected on their campus and are ranked by their recycling practices. This year PSU competed in 4 categories of RecycleMania: Grand Champion, Per Capita Classic, Gorilla, and Waste Minimization, and our results are summarized in the table below: Gorilla 204/276 48,680 lbs Waste Minimization 30/114 33.36 lbs/person Grand Champion 140/207 27.19% Per Capita 145/269 13.062 lbs/person How do these results compare to previous years? 2016 shows our potential to continue to improve our recycling. In 2014 we recycled 35.56% of our waste, but this year our recycling rate declined to 27.19%. The Per Capita Classic measures the amount recycled per person on campus, and we saw a decrease from 2016 of about 3 pounds per person. Waste Minimization is an important measure for sustainability, as it measures the total amount of waste produced by a campus. In 2013 PSU produced 35 pounds of waste per person, which dropped 1.54 pounds per person in 2016. While the continued reduction is waste is encouraging, we need to improve our recycling rate. Complete results for all 13 categories can be found at http://recyclemania.
by jason phillips org, including a breakout that shows how schools performed by athletic conference, institution size, state, and other groupings. The national winners of each category are recognized with an award made from recycled materials. Recycling and RecycleMania are important parts of our sustainability efforts at Plymouth State University. In 2008, President Steen signed the President’s Climate Commitment, which committed PSU to being carbon neutral by 2050. As part of this commitment, we are required to participate in RecycleMania each year, specifically in the waste minimization category. Doing so helps us track our recycling over time, and draw awareness to the issue. The impact of this focus is evident in our campus today in the increased recycling efforts shown all over campus. Brian Eisenhauer, the director of the Office of Environmental Sustainability at Plymouth State University, asserts that participating in the competition is beneficial for our campus. “We can all contribute to living more sustainably, and many of the things we can do are simple changes in our everyday living. Continuing to remind people about the importance of recycling is an important part of the effort to integrate it into everyday life as the normal way of doing things. Closely tracking our recycling practices against a national standard of other universities helps us ensure we are doing all we can to reduce our environmental impacts, and can help identify areas we need to improve. “ The Office of Environmental Sustainability would like to thank Physical Plant for making RecycleMania at PSU possible, as well as the efforts of the campus community. We look forward to an even better set of results next year.