Sustainability at CLU » Uncategorized

Yam Yad – CLU Service Day in the Garden

sthomas — Sun, 01 May 2011 15:24:58 +0000

Last year the Community Service Center resurrected the old CLU tradition of Yam Yad, a Spring service day on campus. This year’s Yam Yad volunteers took on several projects that included planting drought tolerant plants, making a meditation garden near the chapel, and working on the new CLU Food Garden. The day was a great success and was lots of fun!

Earth Week at CLU

sthomas — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 23:18:24 +0000

Free, locally grown, organic food?? Yep! You can have a chance to win!

Welcome to CLU’s Earth Week everyone! CLU is celebrating Earth Day (April 22) by having events all throughout the week (April 18-21), and this is your chance to be a part of it!

Monday: Need groceries?? From 1:00-3:00 JOIN THE FARM will be at CLU at the Flagpoles!! This is your chance to buy produce from them, without ever having to leave campus! So stop by and buy some produce, learn about their community supported agriculture (CSA) program, and meet one of the farmers. This is open to faculty, staff, and students. ASCLUG will also be at the Flagpoles from 10:00-2:00 with laptops to help you take the Sustainability Pledge.

Tuesday: SAGE will be at the Flagpoles from 10:00-2:00 with an awesome display about water conservation, so make sure to stop by!! This is a great reminder about how water is a precious and dwindling natural resource that we shouldn’t be wasting daily!
Tuesday night: At 8:00 in the Uyeno Amphitheater (the one behind Overton Hall) is our EARTH HOUR EVENT! BYOM (Bring Your Own Mug) for hot chocolate, tea, etc. Bring you blankets too, so you can stay and enjoy some of CLU’s finest acoustic music. Since we’ll be doing our event without any electricity from 8-9, we encourage everyone to do the same – wherever you are. So turn off those lights!!

Wednesday: WATER BOTTLE WEDNESDAY!! We will be giving away 175 free Nalgene bottles. Yes, you heard me – FREE! Just answer a quiz question, and the bottle is all yours! (Sorry, this one is for students only!) This will happen at the Flagpoles from 10:00-2:00, so come early, because these are going to go fast! Also, be on the lookout for our NEW SUSTAINABLE WATER FOUNTAINS that are already being installed on campus, purchased for you by ASCLUG! Not only will you be able to refill you new Nalgene bottles at these fountains, but you can also see the number of times people have used the fountain to refill their bottles, which equates to disposable bottles saved from the landfills.

We will also be promoting “refill not landfill” by showing just how many water bottles CLU uses. If you still have empty disposable water bottles that you would like to donate, please bring them to us, as we will be turning all the collected bottles in to get their CRV to donate the money to the group Invisible Children!

Thursday: Blessing of the Bikes, Skateboards, Scooters, and even Feet! Promote alternative transportation by having the pastors bless your mode of transportation at 12:00 at the flagpoles!

Friday: EARTH DAY! Celebrate it in everything that you do while enjoying your day off!

Hope to see all of you next week!!

Kayla Kilpatrick ’11

Sustainability Team Leader

New CLU Pre-School Integrates Nature and Education

sthomas — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:43:25 +0000

CLU has partnered with award-winning landscape designer Nature Explore to create the outdoor play area for the new Fredrickson Family Early Childhood Center on the campus of Cal Lutheran, which will be dedicated this Friday March 25th at 11am. The new facility will encourage children to explore the natural world as an important part of learning, and its installations include tree-like structures to climb, a garden, a slide carved into a small hill, and other sites for imaginative play. All the components are made of natural materials, and blend beautifully into the surroundings of the center. These are some lucky children and lucky parents – and lucky teachers!

CLU Now Hosts Battery Recycling

sthomas — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:52:18 +0000

Have a dead battery? Don’t throw it away, because you can now conveniently recycle it here on campus! CLU has just been added as the newest location of the Thousand Oaks Household Battery Recycling Program! We are the thirteenth public location within the greater Thousand Oaks Community where any resident can drop off their household batteries. This means that CLU students, faculty and staff will have extremely, easy access to the drop off bin, which is inside of the Student Union Building (SUB). The blue recycling bin is located on the wall across from the water fountains and next to the newspaper stand.

Batteries of all sizes, AAA, AA, C, D, button cell, 9 Volt, and all other batteries, both rechargeable and single use, can be recycled in this bin.

Why is battery recycling important?

-All of the batteries previously listed are considered hazardous waste in California when they are thrown away.

-Nearly 3 billion batteries are purchased each year; Americans throw out about 179,000 tons of batteries per year.

-Batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel. Recycling batteries keeps these heavy metals out of landfills, lakes, streams, and air, and inevitably, out of your body.

-Recycling batteries also saves resources because recovered plastic and metals can be used to make new batteries (EPA).

Want to find out more information? Here are some links:

http://www.toaks.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=16854

http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/batteries.php

With this new battery bin, our campus will be playing an active role to make a positive impact on the environment, just by simply throwing batteries in their own separate bin. Please start spreading the word to let others know that CLU is taking this great step towards sustainability. And start saving up those batteries and take them to the SUB!

Submitted by
Kayla Kilpatrick ’11
Sustainability Team Leader
clugrowinggreen@clunet.edu

ELCA Hosts New Sustainability Web Resource

sthomas — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:37:23 +0000

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has a new website devoted to “creation care” resources. The site includes valuable information about Lutheran ecotheology, initiatives of the ELCA, and resources for synods, pastors, faculty and staff of ELCA universities, and others. Check it out!

Sprouts!

sthomas — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 03:32:51 +0000

Last Friday garden coordinator Kayla Kilpatrick took a picture of the first sugar snap pea sprouts:

Hurray for peas!

First Seeds Planted in CLU Garden

sthomas — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:20:13 +0000

A few people gathered last week to plant the first seeds in the raised beds of the CLU garden – a cover crop of sugar snap peas to get some nitrogen in the soil and help us prepare for our early Spring planting.

There was a story about our planting – and the garden in general – in the Ventura County Star this weekend. Check it out!

New Student Sustainability Club – SAGE

sthomas — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 22:06:02 +0000

A new student sustainability club has formed at CLU: SAGE (Student Alliance for a Green Environment) became official this week. The focus of the club will be to coordinate student sustainability action on campus, and to get more students engaged in issues of sustainable living and learning.

If you are interested or have questions, contact Kayla Kilpatrick at clugrowinggreen@callutheran.edu or Madison Pardi at mpardi@callutheran.edu.

New Student Sustainability Club Forming at CLU

sthomas — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 03:43:36 +0000

CLU has had student environmental clubs for a long time and with varying degrees of participation. In recent years most of the organized sustainability action has taken place at the level of faculty, administration, and particular courses like the CLU Food Garden Seminar, Environmental Ethics, and Environmental Chemistry. It seems that this is about to change. As of last week a new and robust student group has formed under the leadership of CLU Junior Kayla Kilpatrick. Their agenda for this year includes coordinating the CLU food garden, promoting recycling in the residence halls, and setting up a compostable waste stream. Go Team!

CLU Service Day in the Garden

sthomas — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:59:21 +0000

On Saturday over 200 CLU students, faculty, and staff volunteered their time for campus and community beautification. About 25 students spent 3 hours toiling away in the new CLU Garden. We built raised beds, collected rocks, and moved a whole lot of dirt, and now we’re that much closer to getting some seeds in the ground! Perhaps more important, we all had the experience of working together to create something new and exciting. Food can bring people together even before it gets planted!

Click here to see the video!