Try out citizen science in your own backyard! Melody Arnold, President of the Macon Co. chapter of the Audubon Society, will describe the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, happening February 12-15 this year.  She will talk about a few of the birds that we are most likely to see in this area and how we can participate. This program is brought to you by East Central Illinois Master Naturalists. 

February 1, 12 PM

Amanda Christenson • Cooperative Extension Service

Join us on Feb.1 at 6pm for an exciting workshop highlighting the collaborative relationship between Illinois and Kyushu University faculty on the development of global CO2 recycling technology towards “beyond-zero” emission. This effort is within the framework of the Moonshot Program in I2CNER at Kyushu funded by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) of Japan. 

Global Relations • Global Relations

 This opportunity is available online

Saskia Sassen, "When Corona Virus Meets the City"

Climate migrations are often characterized as moving people from low to higher income countries, or from rural to urban areas (particularly into slums or low-income neighborhoods).  However, climate change will endanger cities across the globe.  Is this a realistic concern and what impact could it have on migratory flows? What role will cities play in climate migrations (for good or for bad)? 

February 9, 12 PM • Zoom Registration Link

Maria Dorofeeva • Center for Global Studies

All, Things were uncharacteristically busy at the tail end of last week, highlighted by two prospective student employees coming in. They were both really excited by what we do here at the Bike Center. Always good to see enthusiasm and it was a nice glimpse of hopefully where we’ll be post-pandemic: fostering enjoyment, excitement and knowledge about bikes!

Got a student staff meeting, interview, and bikes to build this week.

The numbers:

Visitors: 14
Sales: $371.50

Memberships: 1 for $30
Bike (refurb): 1 for $200
Misc: $18

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the January 2021 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 1889.0 Megawatt hours. See attached file.

The dollars spent from TEM for faculty/staff air travel from FY20 is attached.

Congratulations to International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS) for achieving Gold certification in December 2020! 

Green Office Portal

Congratulations to Zeta Beta Tau for achieving gold certification (November 2020) and Triangle Fraternity for achieving silver certification (November 2020)! 

Green Chapter Portal

SSC received semester report for Fall 2021 for Let It Flow (Control the Flow) project on 1/20/2022. Please see attached.

Hello Education and Resilience teams,

It was great to see many of you at the “Sustainability team open house”. We will plan another event next month so we can continue to connect and get to know each other! I am reaching out to revisit a recommendation submitted last spring by the Education team: Edu002 Internship Coordinator. When the iWG deliberated the next steps of this recommendation, it was discussed that there could be value in collaboratively discussing this idea to hear the perspectives from both the Education and Resilience teams.  

I am writing to ask if you are interested in joining this discussion, please complete this Doodle Poll by 2/2. A summary of the recommendation is below and the full recommendation template is linked on the iCAP Portal:

The Education team recommends developing a sustainable communities paid internship program in partnership with local businesses, non-profits, local government agencies, community-based agencies and cultural institutions in Central Illinois. 

The internship program will be designed to build organizational capacity in the Champaign-Urbana / Central Illinois with regard to sustainability and resilience efforts to advance sustainable development and/or climate action goals. This program aims to allow students the flexibility to devise an internship experience that aligns with their specific interests within sustainability. Collaborations between the University and Champaign-Urbana community can be taken advantage of as projects where internships can be generated.

The student interns will be involved in sustainability and community resilience efforts with directed emphasis toward sustainable development goals. Interns will gain real-world, project-based, and pre-professional experience in a workplace setting anywhere from 3 months (summer intern) to 1 year. 

The intern program will also be tasked to provide leadership training as a foundation for real-world, project-based, and pre-professional experiences. Existing campus resources such as leadership development training modules available through Student Union programming should be utilized.

I hope many of you are interested and willing to join the discussion! Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions.

Meredith

Good afternoon and Happy New Year!

We will be having a virtual open house for all Sustainability Working Advisory Team members on Thursday, January 28 from 3-4pm. This is a great chance to kick off the new semester, say hello and meet the other sustainability team members, hear about what each team is working on, ask questions, provide feedback or words of wisdom, etc.! We hope you can attend.

Have a great week and talk to you soon!
Meredith, Morgan, and Ximing

The Resilience Team met on Wednesday, Jan. 27th for their first meeting of the Spring semester. Our clerk, Kimmy, proposed changes to our iCAP portal theme page and received comments from all team members. The Biodiversity Plan recommendation is in the final steps of gathering approval from every team member and will likely be submitted to the iWG this month. Lastly, the team had a brainstorming session for how to identify existing green jobs infrastructure and how to coordinate our environmental justice efforts with the community -- specifically the Sustainability Advisory Commission for the City of Urbana. 

Agenda, meeting minutes, and chat log are attached.

Mohamed Attalla, the Executive Director of Facilities and Services, has officially signed the charge letter outlining goals for the 2021 Tree Campus Advisory Committee. These goals, along with the expectations of the committee can be found in the attached pdf.

Congratulations to the following two events for achieving green certification in December 2020!

ISTC'S Sustainability Seminar Series 
ECEC21 (Emerging Contaminants in the Environment Conference) 

Green Event Portal

iSEE hosted our first “Certified Greener Campus Program Workshop” to guide U of I organizations in certifying as “green,” even while unusual conditions add complexity to campus’s daily operations. The online workshop included a program overview, steps to certification, FAQs, and an open discussion about overcoming common barriers to sustainability.

If you were unable to attend Thursday’s workshop, you can still take steps to advocate for sustainable practices in your unit! I invite you to:

• View and download the PowerPoint slides presented during the workshop.
• Watch the workshop recording on YouTube.
• Visit the Greener Campus Portal for more information about Certified Green Events, Offices, RSOs, and Greek chapters.
• Contact a Greener Campus team member at iseegreenoffice@gmail.com.