Below is an update from Brent Lewis on Oct 17th about the Monarchs need Milkweed recommendation:

FYI, I’m close to getting a $2.5k bag of milkweed seeds delivered to me.  😊  We are getting this in the portal and ordered so Grounds can get this spread out this fall. 

I’m hoping we can still get pots in the ground this fall too.  I see plenty of plants available at Midwest Groundcovers nursery in St. Charles, IL.  Deb is working on that.

Additionally updates from the Land & Water Clerk which were provided at the Campus Sustainability Celebration:

Milkweed Seeds for Monarch Butterflies

•Received a grant for planting milkweed across campus to support monarch butterfly populations which are important pollinators

•Seeds and plants will be planted around campus in late fall in low and no mow areas

•Working to clarify no mow and low mow  zones on campus to support the growth of native plants, also making it easier for the planting of milkweed

This is likely due to the change in Google Analytics’ reporting system. They moved from “Universal Analytics” (UA) to “Google Analytics 4” (GA4) which included a significant change in the way they count things like pageviews. It’s not exactly that the numbers we had before were inaccurate, nor that the new numbers are inaccurate, it’s that they’re being counted in a different way. Here are 2 major differences:

1. UA tracked each device as a user; GA4 tries to track the same person across multiple devices (e.g. phone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer)
2. UA would count the same person visiting on different days as different users; GA4 will track the same person visiting multiple times as a single user in a given report. So if you ran a report for 2 days, the same person visiting twice would count as 2 users in UA, but only 1 user in GA4. Now expand this out to an annual report, and you can imagine how the numbers can become much lower if you have a fair number of repeat visitors.
3. GA4 may be doing a better job of honoring browsers’ Do Not Track requests, plus over time more people may be using extensions that block 3rd-party cookies and traffic, like Google Analytics.

To demonstrate how point #2 above can lower our numbers, here are some tables comparing longer-term reporting periods with sums of shorter-term reporting periods:

Monthly vs. Annual

Comparison:

• Total users in single report from Jul 1, 2023 to Jun 30, 2024: 24,548
• Difference between reporting methods: 1,190
• % more users when broken down by month: 5%

Daily vs. Monthly

Comparison:

• Total users in single report from Oct 1, 2023 to Oct 31, 2023: 2,579
• Difference between reporting methods: 580
• % more users in October 2023 when broken down by day: 22.5%

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a bit more information about the differences between UA and GA4:

• [GA4] Differences in user counts
• GA4 Users vs UA Users
• The trouble with Users in GA4

I hope that helps explain some of the difference. I am surprised the number dropped in half – that is a pretty substantial change. If you’d like, I can spend some time delving into that in more detail to see if there’s something going on, but my hunch is that it’s mostly attributable to the change in the way Google Analytics records and reports its data. I’m not an expert at Google Analytics; if you know anyone who’s good at analyzing Google Analytics reports, we could invite them to take a look and see what they notice.

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Michael McKelvey

Office for Mathematics, Science, & Technology Education

The Zero Waste Team had their first meeting on October 14, 2024. Daphne Hulse provided updates on the 2025 proposed changes as well as a summer recap of accomplishments. Here are the meeting minutes.

CTAC meeting was held on Thursday, October 24, 2024, focusing mainly on

1. 2024 Campus Bike Plan: Public Input - Accepting feedback until October 31, 2024. The public input form can be found here: go.fs.illinois.edu/BikePlanPublicInput
2. Long Range Transportation Plan 2050: https://ccrpc.gitlab.io/lrtp-2050/
3. Lincoln Avenue Corridor Study - Between Green St and Florida Ave - CCRPC
4. Lincoln Avenue Corridor Study - Between Florida Ave and Windsor Rd - F&S TDM

Please see attached the slides from meeting. To view the recording, please go to https://uofi.box.com/s/kvpjfs26kyqwofjkri0y8gwocbqye5jp

The Bike Center received a few more donations and started processing the abandoned bike pile which they'll continue to tackle throughout the week. There was a mention in E-Week for their Kids Bike Giveaway and already have donations lined up. 

Visitors: 66
Sales: $575.10
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $140
Memberships: 8 for $240
Tires/tubes: 9 for $69

Our campus has made enormous sustainability progress under the 2020 Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Now we need your help identifying goals and priorities for iCAP 2025!

iSEE is sponsoring a series of input sessions throughout the fall where U. of I. students can share their ideas and learn about the objectives that the iCAP teams are considering, as well as the progress they have made so far. Join us to share your suggestions for moving our campus closer to net-zero carbon emissions!

Attached is Veo bike share data from July 2024, August 2024, and September 2024. 

At Fridays Illinii Lights Out event, 2,223 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $338 in energy costs. This also prevented 3.1 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 349 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a great impact! 

The iCAP Transportation Team met today and discussed the upcoming sustainability celebration, the progress that has been made on 2020 iCAP goals, and student research assignments for the upcoming year. 

Please see attached the iWG meeting notes from the meeting held on Oct 22, 2024. The following items were discussed:

1. Energy data visualizations and their implications for Energy iCAP objectives

They finalized the date and times for our Kids Bike Giveaway event: 12/14/24 from 2 – 4p at Urbana IMC building, so they submit work orders for signage/posters/social media posts. Thus far, we’ve gotten zero donations of kids’ bikes, but between both shops we have ~15 to start working through. 

They'll also have their first instructional class on how to fix a flat tomorrow.

Visitors: 69

Sales: $1,153.50

Bikes (refurb): 2 for $395

Memberships: 20 for $600

Tires/tubes: 22 for $163

The iCAP Education team met on Teams from 4-5 PM on Monday October 21st. First we identified the next 5 steps to take towards implementing a sustainability Gen Ed requirement. Then we discussed the integration of sustainability in study abroad programs through different colleges and how to get further student input on the Green Career Forum. The meeting minutes are attached. 

Jack Dempsey discussed energy conservation history on campus, as well as the overall increasing maintence cost details.

Old news article about a "Bike Path" song from 1938.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used a total of 49,467,491 kWh of green power in FY24. Which is 14% of total electricity use!

The Bike Center hired 2 new staff members and got a new inventory of kids' bikes that are already in the works of getting fixed up. Posters are printed and hung at CBC for donations to the Kids’ Bike Giveaway. Posters and flyers were also given to Urbana staff for them to display in their space. 

Visitors: 110

Sales: $1,153.50

Bikes (refurb): 1 for $200

Memberships: 20 for $600

Tires/tubes: 22 for $163

I met with Sarthak Prasad, 1pm, Oct. 10th, to discuss the Transportation Team's presentation at the Sustainability Celebration on the 23rd. We are going to highlight the Campus Bike Plan and briefly go over our other current projects.

We also planned the agenda for our Oct. 22nd meeting and went over some protocol for the iCAP portal. A helpful meeting!