The Education iCAP Team had its virtual March meeting on Monday, February 27th, at 4 PM. The team discussed potential capstone classes for the Sustainability Economic Analysis Recommendation of Resilience iCAP Team and new recommendation ideas. Meeting minutes are attached.
Attached documents were generated as part of an independent study on a sustainability internship program. It highlights similar programs, both at UIUC and elsewhere, as well as some identification of local opportunities.
The education iCAP Team met for its February meeting on Monday, February 6th, at 4 PM. The team had Resilience iCAPTeam chair Stacy Gloss as a guest. Stacy presented the Sustainability Economic Analysis Recommendation of the Resilience iCAP Team, and the team discussed some revisions and educational support ideas for the recommendation. Afterward, the team discussed incorporating sustainability into 100-level courses.
Meeting minutes are attached.
Education iCAP Team had its first virtual meeting of the semester on Friday, January 20th, at 3 PM. The team has a new student member: Sydney Wei. Eric Green gave updates on his meeting with the BUS 101 course instructor Aimee Barbeau about implementing sustainability in Business classes. Afterward, after briefly explaining the iWG approved Sustainability in Study Abroad Recommendation to Sydney, the team discussed its goals and recommendation ideas for Spring 2023.
For this semester, the new chair of the team will be Eric Green and the vice chair will be Sydney Wei.
Meeting minutes are attached.
The iWG met on 12-12-22 and discussed the following agenda. The meeting minutes are attached.
Next meeting:
Education iCAP Team had its final monthly online meeting of the semester on Monday, December 5th, at 5 PM. The team had two guests from GIES College of Business: Gopesh Anand and Sharon Shavitt. The team discussed potential ways to improve sustainability education at the College of Business with the guests. Afterward, the team further discussed the Sustainability in Study Abroad Recommendation draft, which is ready to be submitted to iWG. Finally, the team chair, Jessica Nicholson, gave updates on the Sustainability Gen-Ed project. The meeting minutes are attached.
The Education iCAP Team submitted the Edu008 Sustainability in Study Abroad recommendation to the iWG on 12/6/22. The recommendation (attached) states:
The Illinois Abroad Council Steering Committee (IACSC) with the Environmental Sustainability and Study Abroad Working Group will charge the Directors of each college’s study abroad program with assigning a member to this study abroad sustainability working group. Further, each Director should be charged to meet with the Environmental Sustainability and Study Abroad Working Group once per semester, at minimum. Through involvement in this working group, these representatives will gain the background needed to develop a collaborative effort to address climate-related impacts associated with study abroad. This would elicit a set of best practices and policy for all college-based international programs office in the areas of program orientation, re-entry programming, program policies regarding travel, community engagement, short term faculty led programming, environmental awareness and education. Continued support from iSEE and ongoing consultation with iSEE will be appreciated. As the program evolves, public updates on the iCAP portal will be of benefit to all stakeholders.
The Education iCAP Team had its online November meeting on Monday, November 7th, from 5:00 - 6:00 PM. The team worked on drafting a new Sustainability in Study Abroad recommendation. The team will continue to revise the recommendation and have it ready for iWG to review at their December meeting. Meeting minutes are attached.
The 2022 Campus Sustainability Celebration was a huge success! Thank you to all who participated! The PowerPoint presentation is attached, and the agenda for the event was as follows:
Education iCAP Team had its online October meeting on Monday, October 10th, from 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM. The team worked on the Campus Sustainability Celebration slides, discussed a potential action idea on listing courses that focus on other aspects of sustainability than environment, and talked about inviting people from various departments to discuss Sustainability in Study Abroad Recommendation. Meeting minutes are attached.
Biodiversity Plan intern Gabriel Harper-Hagen is looking for students and student groups to help him develop two iNaturalist surveys for the project. Here is the detailed explanation from Gabe:
The survey will act as a pilot for future surveying around campus and the broader community. We will have two surveys: one focused on animals and one focused on plants. This is because of the different methods of surveying each. The surveys will benefit from as many students that would be interested in this for either one (Or both). The survey will attempt to efficiently gather data about the diversity of plant and animal species found on campus to create a baseline for what is present and to help identify gaps on the campus where diversity may be lacking. If successful, I hope to expand the model to other parts of the community including the park districts to have larger community based BioBlitz seasonally to keep track of the diversity in the area and measure success of the biodiversity plan.
As far as students can help, we need enough people to survey the area efficiently in a reasonable amount of time. The student groups and individual students would be helping in an initial survey that focuses only on the campus. My thought is that a date will be set for each of the two surveys where the participants can join to go over brief instructions on identifying plants with iNaturalist, adding them to the project, and explaining the purpose of surveying. iNaturalist allows for specific project data to be collected within a region which is then peer reviewed. Ideally, there will be some experts (students or professors if appropriate) that join for each survey to help with logistics and identification. I hope this will not only be a useful database for our campus to utilize, but also a fun learning experience.
All iCAP students and environmental student groups are encouraged to participate. If interested, please email Gabe (harperh2@illinois.edu) and Resilience iCAP Team clerk Asli Topuzlu (aslit2@illinois.edu).
Following the completion of the iWG assessment of Edu007 Big Ten Career Fair, the recommendation and assessment were transmitted to Jim Hintz, Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success, Inclusion, and Belonging.
The iWG assessment is attached.
See the submission and recommendation of Edu007 Big Ten Career Fair.
The Education iCAP team had a virtual meeting from 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM on Friday, September 23rd, to talk about two returned recommendations.
EDU_006 Sustainability in Study Abroad Recommendation: The Education team decided to move on with this recommendation by broadening it on implementing sustainability across all study abroad curriculum. The team will discuss this further at its upcoming October meeting on 10/03 and draft a new recommendation that will build off the original one.
EDU_005 Sustainable Scholars Program Recommendation: The Education team decided to postpone this recommendation and not consider it for now due to not having enough necessary information defined. The team also thinks that it is too early for this recommendation due to the lack of general sustainability education on campus. The team will get final thoughts about this recommendation from all team members at the October meeting.
Meeting minutes are attached.
The iCAP Working Group met on 9-9-22 and discussed the following agenda. The meeting minutes are attached.
Following discussion at the iCAP Working Group on 9/9/22, the Edu006 - Sustainability in Study Abroad recommendation was returned to the team for clarification. See the iWG assessment attached with the specific questions posed to the Education team by the iWG.
See the original submission of Edu006 recommendation here.
The following email was sent to the iCAP Teams:
Hello iCAP Teams,
Thank you again for serving on these important campus sustainability committees, and for your commitment to helping the university achieve the objectives in the Illinois Climate Action Plan. As promised in the charge letters you received, we are attaching the Key Priorities Document here. The attached document includes a section for each iCAP Team, with two parts in each section: Priority areas and in progress iCAP Portal projects.
In order to help our campus move from STARS Gold to STARS Platinum, we have identified priority areas where our university can potentially improve. iSEE’s summer intern Tyler evaluated the latest UIUC STARS report and identified example case studies from STARS Platinum schools. Tyler’s report is online at “Report on Improving UIUC STARS Score.” The priority areas also include topics for potential recommendations that have been brought up in previous discussions with the campus sustainability teams. One example of this is the current efforts to reduce plastic waste on campus.
Many prior iCAP team members have expressed a desire for guidance on appropriate topics for recommendations, so we are providing this guidance to assist your team with focus areas for development of recommendations. We encourage you to investigate these ideas with gusto; reach out to people at other schools to learn more about the ideas and contact people on our campus who would have a stake in the project (“stakeholders”) to understand how it could fit into our campus. You should also review the recommendation template to see the information that needs to be completed when you submit a recommendation to the iCAP Working Group.
The iCAP Portal has over 900 projects and contains information about our campus sustainability efforts, going back as far as 2003. The information is primarily entered by members of the iCAP Teams, the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), and a few volunteers. We are requesting your assistance to get updates on some of the projects that are listed as “In Progress.” For each of the projects listed in the attached file, please answer the following questions:
We are very excited about this coming year, and we want to support you in any way necessary. Please reach out to any of us at any time.
Thank you,
Morgan, Jen, and Meredith
iSEE Director, Madhu Khanna, sent out the seven iCAP Team charge letters for the 2022-2023 academic year (attached).
"Thank you once again for your service in helping to make the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a more sustainable campus. Attached is your charge letter for the 2022-2023 academic year with an outline of your campus sustainability duties as part of the iCAP Team. We look forward to your positive and impactful contributions."
Education iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Energy iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Engagement iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Land and Water iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Transportation iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Zero Waste iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Resilience iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdfThe Education iCAP team had a hybrid meeting from 5:00 P.M. - 6:00 PM on Monday, August 29th. The team reviewed the Education iCAP objectives, shared project updates, and brainstormed new action ideas for this semester. Meeting minutes are attached.
The iCAP Teams and iCAP Working Group gathered for the annual kickoff event on 8-24-22. Current members attended to learn about the iCAP 2020, the role of the teams and members, and meet sustainability staff and fellow team members. The presentation is attached and the recording can be found here.
The Education iCAP Team submitted a recommendation "Big10 Green Career Fair" on 5/31/22. The recommendation states in summary:
"The Education iCAP Team recommends that the Career Center establish a Big Ten Green Career Fair. This will be modeled after the All-Ivy Environmental and Sustainable Development Career Fair."
The recommendation is attached.
