F&S Newsletter: New Conservation Record!
Please see the attached link to read the F&S newsletter.
Please see the attached link to read the F&S newsletter.
The link below is an informational letter with information on how labs can join the International Freezer Challenge.
https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/91/1674395291.html
The following is an email sent by John Marlin on May 16, 2023:
As most of you know I am retired from campus and involved in other off campus conservation activities. I will no longer be overseeing the Burrill Hall native planting.
During the pandemic, maintenance at campus native plantings by volunteers was not allowed. This coupled with very dry conditions caused deterioration of several sites including the one at Burrill Hall. F&S bought the woodland wildflowers for the planting and the Entomology Department installed them and provided some maintenance in conjunction with some students.
Department head May Berenbaum has put together an effort to revitalize the planting and has some limited funding for some maintenance of the native plants. F&S plans to make some changes in part of the area and the path is to be restored. Daniel Bush will initially work with the native plants and supervise any students.
In the past weeds removed from the site were placed by the two square concrete benches and I notified Ryan Welch who had the maintenance crew remove them. I assume a similar arrangement can be made possibly with Mr. Dalby as the contact.
This site was quite popular with people walking past and provided a good instructional resource, especially the area near the sidewalk. I hope that this will continue.
John C. Marlin
Dennis Dalby replied:
Thank you John,
It was nice meeting you today to gain some of your tips and input regarding the planting and upkeep of this area. I’ve been working with Ryan Welch and SIB to get this area brought back up to its current level and look forward to its improved upkeep with the discussions that we had today. We’ll be working with Ryan to have a wood chip path added once again and will add a few small plants of our own within the areas that we (MCB) will maintain. SIB will maintain the areas of the native plants. It will look and function much better once all is in place.
Thanks again for stopping by to share your experience,
Dennis
Greetings, Colleagues,
I hope the start of 2023 is going well. I’m reaching out today to send you iSEE Quarterly update for Winter 2022 from the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment.
For more up-to-date news from iSEE, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.
IN RESEARCH
IN EDUCATION & OUTREACH
IN CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY
Thanks for reading, and best wishes for the remainder of the spring semester!
Best,
Madhu Khanna
Madhu Khanna
Pronouns: she, her
Alvin H. Baum Family Chair & Director, Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment
ACES Distinguished Professor in Environmental Economics
Co-Director, Center for Economics of Sustainability
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
1301, W. Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801
Several students apart of the Sustainability Living-Learning Community attended the 2017 AASHE Student Summit and participated in a Bee Campus USA workshop. These students decided that the University should obtain Bee Campus USA Certification for UIUC. Displaying signage focused on pollinator conservation was one of the requirements for this certification. Four signs were installed, and since their installment UIUC is a part of Bee Campus USA.
Attached is the full report.
Below is the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories Winners for Sustainable Achievements. UIUC was awarded excellence for the following.
Excellence Winners in the Renovation/Retrofit Category
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Attached is the "Save the Date! March Monarch Meeting" invitation:
Information about how commercial bee keeping functions and its impact to overall bee populations was inquired about by Brent Lewis, Landscape Architect. Below is the response from Adam Donzel, an Assistant Professor in Entomology.
'Hi Brent,
Yeah, there is work on that. Here are links to couple studies about it:
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep32023
https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/22/1/17/6523145
Basically, yes, there are some stresses involved with migratory beekeeping but sedentary colonies can also have similar issues. In some scenarios, migratory colonies could be healthier as they are moved to areas with good nutritional resources all the time, while those left in place have to deal with times of low food availability. In reality, though, migratory colonies do undergo a lot of stress as they are used to pollinate crops and a lot goes into that - the stress of confinement, heat, exposure to agrochemicals, etc. From a beekeeping perspective, this is calculated into the fees charged for pollination (to some extent at least). Right now, beekeepers charge about $200/hive to pollinate almonds for example (the most lucrative pollination event). Big beekeepers manage 20,000-50,000 hives! "Small" commercial beekeepers usually have 2-5000.
Migratory beekeeping uses about 85% of the managed colonies in the USA (incredible!). One big issue with this is that, if a new pest or pathogen is introduced, it will be spread throughout the country very fast. And in big pollination events, like almonds, hives are concentrated at very high densities, which does present a lot of opportunities for spreading diseases. They do mitigate this to some extent, however, as there are health checks required to move bees across state lines, and almond growers usually require checks of colonies to make sure they are healthy.
Hope this helps - always happy to answer questions when I can!"
UIUC is the first image on the My Green Labs web page. The link of the webpage is https://www.freezerchallenge.org/
UIUC was within top 4 for energy savings in the Freezer Challenge this year among academic organizations.
And, in the top 2 in terms of normalized points earned. UAB beat UIUC in both categories this year, with over 100 labs participating from their campus.
UIUC was within top 4 for energy savings in the Freezer Challenge this year among academic organizations.
And, in the top 2 in terms of normalized points earned. UAB beat UIUC in both categories this year, with over 100 labs participating from their campus.
From: Foote, Gerard Paul <gfoote2 at illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2022 4:01 PM
Subject: Urgent poll for photo shoot & 2022 Freezer Challenge results
Hello Everyone,
Congratulations, on another world-class performance and international recognition in the 2022 International Freezer Challenge!
You have reduced over 290,000 kWh’s annually, an energy cost savings of over $25,500, which is our second highest results since participating in this competition and has earned the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign an Honorable Mention in the 2022 Freezer Challenge!
Yes, I know this is not the same as first place or even the innovative Winning Streak Award that we helped create, but it is a testament to our world-class example and leadership in sustainable laboratory practices in research sample cold-storage management.
Most importantly, your continued efforts, participation and documenting these lab practices reflects efficient adoption and implementation of sustainable laboratory practices that have long lasting impacts once incorporated into the labs day-to-day operations.
On a side note: My competitive side suspects that we once again may have outperformed or at least participated in the top tier of participating universities worldwide, more follow up to come.
Please add your availability in this When2Meet calendar: https://www.when2meet.com/?16378891-ETV5Z by August 19th 2022 deadline?
FYI- The overall impacts are still being accumulated and will be shared in a campus wide media release and mass email.
The rules now state we are only able to be recognized for 1st place or the Winning Streak Award if previous winners surpass their previous year’s energy savings calculations and while we achieved are second highest reductions to date, overall it was not higher than last year’s reductions of over 383,000 kWh’s.
Thank you
Paul Foote
Think Globally. Act Locally
Energy Efficiency and Conservation Specialist
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
F&S Energy Services Retrocommissioning
Email: gfoote2 at illinois.edu
Office: 217-244-1048
https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/1684374878.html
Register your lab for the 2022 International Freezer Challenge and help maintain the Illinois research community’s track record of 1st place in cold-storage sample management.
The Spring 2022 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:
Greetings Colleagues,
Attached, please find the Spring 2022 edition of iQ, our quarterly update. You will see that in this six-page pdf recapping the recent semester, we had plenty of news and updates from our research, education, events, and campus sustainability fronts.
But the work did not end there! Since the semester ended, we have had two other exciting announcements:
For more up-to-date news from iSEE, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.
Best wishes for a healthy and productive summer,
Madhu
This link contains the 2022 Freezer Challenge Newsletter:
More information can be found in the attached link.
Join Piatt County Master Gardener Kent McFarland as he explains the importance of having a Mason Bee House in your garden, and walks you through the steps of building one using recycled and natural materials. Registration is required; $15/person, includes all materials.
March 26, 10–11 am • Registration Deadline: 3/18/22 • Greenhouse Auditorium at Allerton Park & Retreat Center
Olivia Warren • Allerton Park & Retreat Center
From: White, Morgan
To: Moore, Meredith Kaye
Hi Meredith,
Where on the portal do you think BeeSpotter belongs? I'm thinking it should be in the Resilience theme, but I'm not sure whether it should be under one of the other projects or just under the main one.
Morgan
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From: Moore, Meredith Kaye
To: White, Morgan
Hi Morgan,
That’s a good question. In my opinion, it doesn’t seem to fit well with any of the other projects under the resilience theme page. So unless we want to create a new project “support local pollinator projects” (or something of the sort) with the intention of adding additional pollinator projects, I vote for now let’s make it a project under the main theme. Does that make sense?
Thanks,
Meredith
Link to proposal:
https://uillinoisedu-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/fandsamaloto2_ad_u...
Link to BeeSpotter:
Becky Chambers Hennessy, writer of R&D World magazine, wrote a Q&A style piece on UIUC's "Winning Streak Award" for the International Freezer Challenge. The piece contains answers from Deborah S. Katz-Downie, Martin Gruebele, and Paul Foote. The piece can be found here.
The link was updated for the primary Bee Campus USA page and some adjustments were made to links that were not responsive. The following links were added in the Bee City/Campus USA main page:
http://beecampususa.web.illinois.edu/
https://www.facebook.com/Bee-Campus-USA-at-UIUC-228849297661692/
https://www.beecityusa.org/what-is-a-bee-campus.html