Nurturing our elm for years to come | |
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This Month's Highlights
- New Bike Room at Baltimore Grand Garage
- Sustainability Champion Series: Kenneth Wong, PhD
- Transportation Listening Sessions
- Self-Service Rollout Complete
- Community Compost Pilot Update
- This Month's Creative Prompts
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New Bike Room Available Starting Feb. 5
To increase our sustainability footprint, the Baltimore Grand Garage will have a secured bike room for University faculty, staff, students, and affiliates. The bike room will be available starting Monday, Feb. 5, 2024.
Spaces are limited, and availability will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Sign up through the Parking and Transportation Website.
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Transportation Listening Sessions
The Transportation Working Group is seeking feedback from students, faculty, and staff on how they can improve their amenities to better serve the UMB community. The working group wants to hear about your experiences traveling to, from, and around campus and how they can improve your commute.
In-Person Listening Sessions on Tuesday, Feb. 13
Session I: 10 to 11:30 a.m. Session II: 1 to 2:30 p.m.
Elm Ballrooms, SMC Campus Center
Virtual Listening Session: Wednesday, Feb. 14, 10:30 a.m. to noon
Register for a session using this link.
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Self-Service Rollout is Complete
The self-service waste model has now been rolled out now in every building across campus. Centralized waste stations decrease waste stream contamination and improve our recycling rate. We appreciate people keeping an open mind to change and continuing to demonstrate our core values. By using the new waste stations, you are playing a direct role in helping reduce the University's impact on the environment.
Check out the Environmental Services FAQs page for more information on the rollout.
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Community Compost Pilot Update
We’re switching to a new compost dropoff model to allow for more flexibility.
How will it work?
Participants can now drop off their food scraps and plant material to our two dropoff locations (Community Engagement Center and Campus Center) at any time. Scan the QR code on the bin and submit demographic data to get access to the bin’s code.
Stay in the know by checking the Community Composting Dropoff page for the latest updates.
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Newsletter Creative Opportunity!
The Sustainability Newsletter is now accepting responses to creative writing prompts that are centered around sustainability. This could take the form of art, poems, writing, story-telling, and more. Written responses should be 400-1000 words, while visual responses should be a maximum of 11x17" in size.
The submission deadline for the March 2024 Newsletter is February 26, 2024.
Email your submissions to sustainability@umaryland.edu with "Creative Writing Prompt" as the subject line.
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February Creative Submission
Check out this submission in response to our prompt: "What is the best natural environment you’ve experienced?" This person submitted a collage of some of their favorite pictures they've taken of the natural environment they have experienced.
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Our February Green Tip contains various environmental justice resources. Our first resource is the Bullard Center for Environmental & Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. Named after the "Father of Environmental Justice", Dr. Robert Bullard, the Center has many resources like webinars and publications. The second resource is a podcast from NPR's Code Switch about the movement, Free Your Voice, led by South Baltimore teenagers — young people of color who are spearheading a call for climate justice.
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Get Involved in Baltimore | | |
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Purple Haze: A Conservation Film
Sunday, February 11, 2024, at 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Vollmer Center, 4915 Greenspring Avenue Baltimore, MD 21213
Join us for an exciting afternoon at the Vollmer Center at Cylburn Arboretum as Captain Zach Steinhauser partners with the Baltimore Bird Club and Baltimore City Rec and Parks for a screening of Purple Haze: A Conservation Film, a documentary on one of the many wonders of South Carolina, the Purple Martins of Lake Murray.
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Sustainability Term of the Month
Geothermal energy: Geothermal energy is a renewable energy form derived from hot water or steam within the earth. It usually creates electricity.
If you're interested in learning more about geothermal energy, check out the Geothermal Technologies Office website with lots of resources, articles, and programs.
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Join a Sustainability Working Group
Looking for a way to get more involved with sustainability at UMB? Join one of our four sustainability working groups! Working groups are open to students, staff, and faculty. Working group meetings are held once every two months for a total of six meetings each year. Meetings last one hour, and some work outside of bimonthly meetings will be required.
If you are interested in joining any of the four working groups (Reduction, Resiliency, Engagement & Education, and Green Labs), please fill out this form. For a brief summary of each working group, visit this page.
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An Assessment of Electrification Impacts on the Maryland Electric Grid
The Maryland’s Climate Pathway Report demonstrates how Maryland can meet its ambitious climate goals of 60% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2031 relative to 2006 levels, and attain a net-zero economy by 2045, all while realizing health and economic benefits for Marylanders, including improved air quality, new jobs, and household cost savings. This study modeled electrification scenarios that would result in direct building heating emissions reductions consistent with Maryland’s Climate Pathway report.
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Maryland's Climate Pollution Reduction Plan
This is Maryland’s plan to achieve its near-term climate goals and place the state on a path to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045. New policies will transition the state from the fossil fuel era of the past to a clean energy future. Marylanders will benefit from cleaner air, improved public health, lower energy costs, and more jobs with higher wages.
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How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.
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February Environmental Dates
Find a cause in February to support!
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Month of February
2/2
2/27
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Black History Month
World Wetlands Day
International Polar Bear Day
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