SEA's Current Projects in a Nutshell:
Science and Conservation Cafes (Our first one was Apr. 6th 2011, a series on wolves coming soon this January 2012)
We're taking the plunge into organizing regular outreach events called "Science Cafes" and "Conservation Cafes". Researching students and experts are invited as featured speakers to share what they're learning with the public in an informal setting (over coffee, tea, cookies etc.). Is there something you'd like to learn about or help organize? Let us know!
Landscaping with Native Plants on Campus for Education and Financial Savings
Native plants do amazing things, they're also amazing in themselves. We seek to create an educational garden space for anyone who ventures into the heart of our main campus with the social, economic, and ecosystemic benefits of native landscaping. For those who wondered what and how native landscaping can be done at home in an aesthetically pleasing manner, or those who want to manage invasive non-native plants, this is for them to explore too. This project reduces grounds keeping expenditures by reducing areas for mowing, using plants that don't need fertilizers, watering, and pesticides. The money saved from this goes into maintenance and educational outreach at the University for sustainability, environmental and infrastructure literacy, and native landscaping!
Native Plant Seeds
We collect various native plants from the raingarden of the Environmental Interpretive Center at UM-Dearborn, process, package, and include fairly comprehensive educational information about how the project looks at sustainability from all aspects of the "triple bottom line"--society, economy, and environment. We distributed these and sold many to individuals in the area as well. We'll be collecting seeds again this September 18th! Feel free to join us and learn a bit about native plants in the company of kind fellows.
Sustainability Fest
SEA is organizing several events for the annual Campus Sustainability Festival, this year's is October 18th-23rd. You can find outstanding opportunities to learn, enjoy, and engage with during this exciting time, and we hope that you'll continue to do so throughout the year long after the festival concludes. This is most certainly open to the public.
Vegan Sub Sandwich Option
(Mentioned May 19th 2010, the September 2010 write-up was finally posted publicly April 2011)
Dr. Skrbina is a professor of philosophy who has been developing a vegan sub option proposal to the campus Subway for offering a to internalize health and environmental externalities/subsidize better food choices, and has outlined various ethical reasons for vegan food options as well. We looked at some ways to formally support his proposal, make it happen, and to ensure that the food is reasonably priced. The SEA passed the word on to a few other campus student orgs like Students in Free Enterprise and endorsed his petition. While we haven't noticed much change with the subway, Aramark's food options have improved, in large part likely due to the efforts of student government and several ethnic student organizations which appreciate halal, kosher, and generally healthy foods.
