Turn off the lights, don’t unnecessarily run the water and eat local. These are all tips on how one person can save energy, water and the planet.
But doing all these things on a large scale can take time, resources and someone to lead them. The University of Idaho allows students to be sustainable, leaving their own imprint on campus.
How do they do this? By applying for a grant from the Sustainability Center.
Every fall semester, the Sustainability Center on campus awards about 10,000 dollars in grants to UI students, bringing their sustainability projects to life.
The first set of grants were given in 2006 with projects ranging from handing out reusable travel mugs, to promoting the use of double-sided printing. Another project focused on locations of sustainable resources on campus.
The center encourages students from across the university to apply for a grant, and this year’s winners are as diverse as their projects.
This past year the grants continued, the winners’ projects ranged in topic. One centered around a competition between sororities to see who can conserve the most energy, while another focused on a hydroponics wall.
Lettuce grow local
Madigan Hawkins and Celine Knudsen, both seniors, in the plant science department, are members of the Hydroponics Club. The pair received a grant to build a green wall in the Integrated Research and Innovation Center (IRIC).
The wall, Hawkins said, was used to grow herbs and other vegetables which have a short shelf life.
“What we want to do is educate people that they can grow their own food hyper locally,” Hawkins said. “So, we’re not talking like ‘we’re going to grow watermelons,’ we’re going to grow things that have a short shelf life so lettuce, herbs, those are always really popular.”
The wall, once built, will be about 5 feet by 3 feet. It will be easy to put up and take down so, in the summer when students leave, it can be stored elsewhere, Hawkins said.
“Imagine a wall, we’re calling it a green wall, and there are these hanging towers. From these towers, there are plants growing up so their growing towards you instead of up like a normal plant would,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins and Knudsen, designed the wall to be freestanding. They said it should be ready and growing plants by the end of February.
The educational part of their proposal comes in every two weeks after the wall is installed, Hawkins said.
They plan on selling the plants, which are ready to harvest, and talk to anyone who wants to learn more about hydroponics.
After Hawkins and Knudsen graduate, Hawkins said the Hydroponics Club will oversee the wall.
“Once the project is completed with Celine and I, we’re handing it off to the club,” Hawkins said. “It’s simple enough that it can be taken down and stored really easily, looking at longevity that was something we really considered.”
What is hydroponics?
Hydroponics is a way of growing plants, Hawkins said. It involves using water and nutrients plants would usually obtain from soil — minus the soil.
“When you think about a plant, you usually think, it’s growing in the soil and it grows up towards the sunlight,” Hawkins said. “ Well plants don’t actually need the soil, they need what’s in the soil.”
Hawkins said hydroponics use the nutrients plants need, dissolving them in water. This is combined with aeration so the plants don’t drown.
“What we do with hydroponics is we take out the soil. Basically your tower is like a gutter,” Hawkins said. “So, we put water in at the top, and that water has nutrients mixed into it, and then it drips down this tower.”
Lighting the way
Menard Law Building’s library has been home to many UI law students, and Riley Newton is no different.
As a third-year law student, he’s spent many late nights in the law building studying for tests and classes. Newton said he noticed after leaving the building those late nights, he was never able to turn off the lights. This began to bother him, eventually turning into a need for action.
Newton said he had always grown up making sure lights were turned off in a room before he left, most likely a concern that stemmed from his dad and previous supervisors. It was this habit of saving energy which led him to explore ways to make this change happen.
It was during a field trip for a natural resource and environmental law class where a PhD student spoke about the grant, where Newton found a way to make this dream a reality.
After hearing about the grant, Newton got to work, researching previous grants that had been awarded by the Sustainability Center. After finding that the Wallace Resident Center had received a similar grant the previous year to put in occupancy sensors —Newton got his idea.
Newton didn’t just want regular occupancy sensors, he said he wanted sensors that would fit the needs of law students who study there.
“The biggest thing is just we didn’t want to lose students in the dark, so we need to get occupancy sensors that were receptive to the sound, like of the clicking of something,” Newton said.
Currently the sensors are installed in the library, and Newton said they are going through the process of working out how to set them up with the electrical system.
In late February, Newton said they plan to start collecting data about how much energy this could save, and will have the results in March.
One drop at a time
Sierra Brantz, an international studies and environmental science major at UI, wanted to help Moscow conserve water.
Brantz applied for the Sustainability Center grant to turn this passion for water conservation into a viable project. Specifically, Brantz developed a project to install facets containing water sensors in order to conserve water. This sensor faucet allows other faucets to turn off the water when an object, like hands, are not in the way.
“We have ordered the sensor faucets, began our research and will be installing them within the next month,” Brantz said.
Plans change, Brantz said, and the project she originally proposed has had to be altered to fit the needs of the project. She said being adaptable during projects like this is a must in order to be successful.
Brantz said when they are done collecting data in the Idaho Student Union Building (ISUB) she will give a presentation to the ISUB administrators about how much water they could save by switching to sensor-based faucets.
“Once this report is created, we plan to give it to the administration at the Commons to show them how much water and money they could conserve if they switched to using sensor faucets,” Brantz said. “We will also be giving a copy to the city of Moscow. Throughout this research project, I am hoping to learn more about how to improve our public health and how much water is actually being saved by having the sensor faucets installed.”
Story by Kali Nelson
Photos by Kali Nelson
Design by Hatim Eujayl