My Green Grants project is the Multispecies Worldbuilding Lab, which is a small team of students, artists, ethnographers, and media designers who produce a podcast about climate change. We invite scientists, writers, and artists to talk about a particular organism, ecology or site that they study, and the interdisciplinary methods or tools that they’ve used or developed in the course of their research. We also discuss their teaching practices or how they engage others around difficult conversations about climate change. What makes our podcast different from other podcasts about climate change, I think, is that we are interested in giving voice to the human interviewee, as well as the thing or place that they study. So we aim to combine interviews with field recordings and experimental soundscapes to give listeners a more intimate and visceral sense of the liveliness of worlds outside. I’m interested in experimenting with ways of listening to nonhumans, or allowing animals, plants, microbes, water to speak alongside the human voice.
Category: Green Grant
Urban Food Lab First Annual Research Expo and Fundraiser
by Sophie Gumbs
On Monday, 11/18 from 6-9pm in the Tandon MakerSpace, the Urban Food Lab held its very first Annual Research Expo and Fundraiser! The Urban Food Lab is a Vertically Integrated Project in the NYU VIP Program, in which students from 9 separate departments conduct their own research on vertical farming as well as conduct their own farming. The Urban Food Lab is an aquaponic vertical farming class in which students come up with solutions to challenges in modern farming. It is located in the basement of Tandon MakerSpace and is open to undergrads, who are provided with grad student mentors. The Lab is currently funded by the Office of Sustainability Green Grants Program and is fundraising until December 3rd, as its Green Grant will expire at the start of 2020. As part of the Lab, students learn to implement sustainable project designs, and intro and exit exams demonstrate that students learn, both actively and passively, about aquaponic and hydroponic farming throughout the course. Skills around sustainability are brought outside of the farm itself through students’ extra credit opportunities to apply sustainable practices in small ways in the broader community. The class provides a gateway to academic research and entrepreneurship for many students.
GREEN GRANT UPDATE: The Carry Your Own! Challenge
Written by Sarah Dietz
The Carry Your Own! (CYO) Challenge officially came to a close on Thursday October 17th, culminating with a celebratory evening awarding the top three plastic waste mitigators for their efforts. (If you are unfamiliar with the CYO challenge, please visit the first blog post to learn more.) Winners were presented with reusable tote bags filled with generous prizes. In the totes were hundreds of dollars’ worth of low-waste lifestyle prizes, including gift cards to Precycle, NYC’s first package free grocery store. These awesome gifts were made possible largely due to donations from local, low-waste lifestyle companies, Precycle and Your Local. The winners were selected based on their level of participation in the three-week challenge, which asked them to eliminate as much personal plastic waste as possible, mainly through two items commonly used by students on campus; coffee mugs and utensils. The contest was judged by an NYU student who chose the winners based on quantity of posts about their challenge experience.
Green Grant Update: The Carry Your Own! Challenge
Sarah Dietz is a recent graduate of the Steinhardt Food Studies program, where she earned her M.A. in May of 2019. She has nearly a decade of professional experience investigating food related issues, focusing on health, food quality, garden education, and sustainability. She was born and raised in New England, moved to NYC while pursuing her master’s, and now lives in Portland, Maine. Sarah’s current research addresses sustainable entrepreneurship and the food system’s connection to ocean health. She is active with her local Surfrider chapter and is dedicated to teaching others how to take better care of the environment through food choices and other daily habits.
GREEN GRANT UPDATE: SUSTAINABLE MENSTRUATION INITIATIVE
Lubnah Ansari is a third-year undergraduate student at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is pursuing her B.A. in Social Research and Public Policy, along with a minor in The Environment. In 2017, she initiated the first Sustainable Menstruation Workshop on campus under the Ecoherence student interest group. In 2018, Lubnah was awarded the Innovative Leadership Award by the Campus Life Leadership Awards for her efforts towards the project. Here is an update from Lubnah about the Sustainable Menstruation Initiative at NYUAD. Read more