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Kelly Allsup, University of Illinois Extension Horticulture Educator, is hosting a Swallowtail Butterflies Webinar on June 14, 2021, from 12-1 pm.
During this presentation, Kelly will tell you what plants need to be put in your garden to help 6 species of swallowtail butterfly caterpillars! Make sure to tune in via Zoom to learn more.
Here's an interesting solar power / art installation: https://smartflower.com/.
The final stage of the Solar Farm 2.0 project is wrapping up this month with the planting of a native pollinator habitat. The farm will serve as a major demonstration and research site for pollinator-friendly solar arrays, with more than 6.5 million flowering plants and native grasses around the 54 acres of panels creating a natural habitat for birds and beneficial insects. With this second solar farm, the campus has achieved clean energy goals outlined in the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) nearly four years ahead of schedule. Clean energy production will now support roughly 12 percent of annual campus electricity demand. Congratulations to Facilities & Services for all of the hard work on this important project; iSEE and its SWATeam members were proud to provide key support for Solar Farm 2.0 by pushing for an increased renewable portfolio in the iCAP. Students in iSEE's sustainability minor also helped assess the new array's carbon footprint!
This year, we awarded 38 green certifications on our campus! Congratulations to all! This includes 28 events (including iSEE Congress and the “TED Talk: Eco Edition” series) seven Greek chapters (including gold-level awards for Delta Delta Delta, Pi Beta Phi, Delta Gamma, Kappa Delta, and Zeta Beta Tau), and three offices: International Student & Scholar Services, Department of Communication, and Department of Chemistry Administrative Office. Learn more about all of iSEE’s Certified Greener Campus programs.
Greek Chapter Gold Certifications:
Greek Chapter Silver Certifications:
Greek Chapter Bronze Certifications:
The 350 square-foot pollinator garden at the National Soybean Research Center is planted! The weather was beautiful and we had a fun time hearing plant stories and learning about our very own native species from Layne Knoche. Check out our Facebook post here.
Huge thank you to Layne Knoche, Eliana Brown, and the whole Red Oak Rain Garden team, Eric Green, Michael Dzianott and the Red Bison team, Joey Kreiling, Blake Cedergren, and the From the Ground Up team, and all friends who helped out with the planting.
Stay tuned for more fun!
The Spring 2021 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) highlighted a diverse array of campus initiatives that made this year's Earth Month one to remember. Ranging from hosted events to sustainable energy, the article discusses the launch of the "TED Talk: Eco Edition" series, Solar Farm 2.0, community trash pickup, and more!
Read the article in the attached files below.
The Spring 2021 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:
Dear Colleagues,
Attached, please find the Spring 2021 “iQ” – the quarterly update from the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).
It has remained a busy time here on our campus, as we bolstered our outstanding Congress and Critical Conversation events with the addition of two experts — activist Catherine Coleman Flowers and nuclear expert Denia Djokić — who are serving as Levenick iSEE virtual resident scholars.
Thanks to the support of experts Eban Goodstein, Tami Craig Schilling, and Harriet Hentges, our new Environmental Leadership Program workshops for undergraduates were a rousing success.
And we were so pleased to have a mix of virtual and in-person Earth Month events to engage students, faculty, and staff from across our campus!
Please take a quick look at those updates and more in this six-page “iQ.” For more regular news, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.
Best wishes for the summer,
Madhu
Brent Lewis provided the following update to the Land and Water iCAP Team:
One of the iCAP objectives under Land and Water (4.2.1) involves a service learning project to better understand our historic and current tree canopy percentages. I just wanted to reach out and say that I’ve worked it out with our NRES faculty member, Jennifer Fraterrigo that she will work with her students in the fall to prepare this analysis. As our last 2 tree surveys were generally on 2008 and 2018, they will take a look at those years and put together an analysis. Over this time, I believe we lost between 10-12% of our tree inventory on campus. It is my thought that this loss in older trees would have meant a much larger loss in actual tree canopy. This would generally equate to a loss of habitat, increase in ambient temperatures and increase in rainwater that would otherwise have been used by the trees. I have been wanting to get a handle on the loss as I push for resources to replace what we had, as well as enhance what we will have for the future.
Halie Collins is the officially the next President of the Illinois Solar Decathlon (ISD) team! In her new position, she will be leading the efforts to form the next Build Team and Design Team.
The outgoing president, Shashikiran Duraisamy, shared this note of thanks with Morgan White at F&S: "The Illinois Solar Decathlon team is extremely grateful for all the support that you have provided in the last two years. Your support was extremely valuable for our success and to support and contribute towards University’s sustainability initiatives. We are so much grateful for the Facilities and Services’ decision to allow ISD to store our construction materials in the Physical Plant Services Building and the constant support that the Receiving team (Dave Boehm & Jim McGuire) provided us to access the materials with ease. This was a lifesaver for our project. I look forward to the continued relationship between Illinois Solar Decathlon and Facilities & Services."
All, Our first week of summer hours was successful! We were steadily busy and able to sell some bikes, accept some donations, and only had one person bemoan our new hours. Yoshi, who volunteered a couple weeks back was able to come lend a hand, which was super helpful.
This week I’m hiring a new employee who’ll start ASAP. They have loads of experience and will be able to hit the ground running, which will be great. Since the E-week/newsletter blast that Sarthak sent out, we’ve received 12 donations here, so we’re working our way through that stock of bikes; we’ll continue that for this week if it’s slow.
The numbers:
Visitors: 44 (?)
Sales: $918
Bikes (refurb): 3 for $455
Memberships: 1 for $30
U locks: 4 for $84
Tire/tube: 16 for $73
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center
USDA Forest Service's R&D posted a 5-part video mini-series about the importance and benefits of urban tree monitoring. As highlighted in the series, urban tree monitoring can serve several types of management and research goals. For example, a plant program's performance can be evaluated by analyzing the growth, health, and survival of trees! Each of the videos correlates to different topics: Getting Started with Urban Tree Monitoring, Mortality Status, Trunk Diameter, Location Methods, and Managing Field Work.
To watch the series, please go to USDA Forest Service's R&D Homepage or proceed to their YouTube playlist.
Chancellor Jones highlighted the Solar Farm 2.0 "Noteworthy at Illinois" Newsletter. In its final stage, this project makes the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign the third-largest producer of onsite clean power among U.S. universities.
A document of ideas brainstormed for the displays and kiosks in the ECE lobby was sent to Joyce Mast by F&S contacts. These ideas were created with the goal of having students actively engage with the display through physical interaction, as well as passive engagement while students look at the stations in passing.
Thank you for attending another excellent TED Talk: Eco-Edition series discussion all about bikes on 5/26! Sarthak Prasad led a great discussion on Wednesday evening after watching Adam Stone’s TED Talk, “How cycling transforms people and places.” Sarthak’s presentation is attached. Be sure to check out the Bike @ Illinois website for more information about the Bike Center, bike routes, safety, and other helpful resources! You are welcome to contact bike@illinois.edu at any time with questions or feedback.
Thank you again for attending on Wednesday, and we look forward to seeing you at our next TED Talk discussion in June on the topic of water! Stay tuned for more details by checking out the iSEE Sustainability Calendar and signing up for the newsletter. Have a nice and safe Memorial Day weekend!
Dr. Yi, Joe Villanti, Tom Keller, and Morgan White met on 5-25-2021 to kickoff this collaboration for developing Energy Models for campus facilities. The Agenda included:
Joyce Mast met with MSTE and F&S contacts today to brainstorm ideas for energy and atmospheric data to be displayed in the ECE lobby on the digital touch screen.
During a conversation between U of I staff across multiple departments, the following resources were compiled to brainstorm content for the display and kiosks in the ECE lobby:
All, This week’s report is delayed as I was off last week.
From the 10th – 14th we had some volunteer interest, slightly busier times, and some more donations. Just today we received another batch of donations: tires/tubes, a wheel, and whole lot of jerseys/clothing that we likely will not be able to even give away. I’ll reach out to some cycling clubs and see if they’re interested.
This week we’ll be debuting our new hours of M/W/F 2 – 6p. These will be our hours all summer, effective immediately. iSEE is hosting a Zoom TedTalk thing on Wednesday and tonight is TBPs member meeting.
I’ll be understaffed to start the summer as one of my summer workers got an internship and won’t be available after all. I’ll work on drumming up some more help this week.
The numbers:
Visitors: 24 (I-card only)
Sales: $565
Bikes (refurb): 2 for $340
Membership: 1 for $30
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center
Irene Lira-Andsager, Jason Webb, and Daniel Xu spent the spring 2021 semester researching local environmental vulnerability factors and conducted vulnerability assessments to be included in the Environmental Justice Plan. The recording of their presentation of findings is found here (download to view).
With the final stage of Solar Farm 2.0, UIUC is now the third-largest producer of onsite clean power among U.S. universities. Solar Farm 2.0's completion marks the achievement of key sustainability goals nearly four years in advance.
