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Grace’s Sustainability Story Accordion Closed
Grace Carr is a junior at Northern Arizona University studying ecology and evolutionary biology with minors in statistics and sociology. Grace found a home in sustainability when they came to NAU. However, they didn’t always feel that way. They weren’t particularly interested in sustainability before college– they were concerned about climate change, but felt more bogged down and pessimistic about it than anything else because of their identity and lack of power.
“I think there is this overwhelming sense of incapacitation and inability to change the way things work, especially when you’re a young student with a lack of power, and existing in different identities. I think all those things came together to make me feel powerless. Like my opinion and my voice didn’t matter when it comes to this huge crisis. It’s like, how does one person take down this entire empire?”
Grace was picking their major when they entered college and originally started out in biology, taking a few introductory biology courses, including Unity of Life, which looks at ecosystems, populations and nature, rather than microbiology. Grace says this class lit up the light bulb in their head that made them realize they were interested in how ecosystems function and how animal behavior influences ecosystems, and they changed their major to ecology. They realized that none of the things they were learning about, across various classes, ever existed in isolation from sustainability.
“Climate change and human evolvement has the ability to completely shape ecosystems, and exert an overpowering influence. That influence can be positive… but it can absolutely, and is often, overwhelmingly negative.”
They gained the perspective that in order to make a difference with what they were learning about environments and ecosystems, it would have to become a priority to learn more about climate change. That lead them to combine their interest in statistics and sociology to blend together into a focus on understanding the way the natural world works through a data driven lens. Through learning about sustainability, they gained a more optimistic perspective on it, and decided to try to spread this knowledge and perspective to everyone.
Currently, on the Green Fund committee, one of Grace’s top goals as the Impact Analyst is to promote sustainability and data by making it more accessible. Grace says that the way they came to understand and love sustainability was through accessibility and learning about the topic, and believes that others can learn to share that joy and love for it if it is more accessible.
“It’s very intersectional and very interdisciplinary.”
Grace says the feeling of ennui and powerlessness is possible to overcome. Learning and gaining access to more information was instrumental for Grace in being able to feel empowered. They spent a lot of time in their community learning in class, but also learning from others through clubs and organizations on campus. Seeing that others around them were motivated gave them a better understanding of the climate crisis and helped empower them.
“I think I’ve become a lot more optimistic. I think that information and knowing the reality of things, but also knowing the ways you can help personally and on a large scale, and knowing what other people are doing in the world to help… that can offset those feelings of dread and powerlessness.”
Those who don’t go to college can empower themselves too. By involving themselves in their community and surrounding themself with nature, Grace believes that everyone can be involved in some small way to help make a change.
“There is power in any form of learning. Everyone learns differently, everyone follows a path that teaches them things, and that is a really powerful tool to learn about sustainability… personal experience and community is really where the power lies.”
NAU Green Fund Now Sponsoring Events Accordion Closed
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (March 20, 2024)
Primary Contact: Lindsay Mauss, Public Relations Specialist, LAM767@nau.edu
NAU Green Fund Now Sponsoring Events
The NAU Green Fund has a new event sponsorship form for all NAU organizations and clubs as well as hosts in the Flagstaff area. Those that want to request funds for sustainability based events that benefit students at NAU can fill out the form on the Green Fund website, and the Green Fund committee will review it and provide feedback.
Previously, the Green Fund only had forms for projects and research grants. This meant that people who wanted event funding had to fill out the much more extensive project funding form, which often had questions that weren’t applicable to an event. Now, the event sponsorship form allows for a smoother and faster process.
This change will allow for the Green Fund to help NAU reach its climate action goals– one of which being carbon neutrality by 2030. Clubs and organizations at NAU can request funding as long as their event fits into one of seven sustainability categories– waste minimization, multicultural, environmental justice, sustainable landscaping/gardening, communication, education or forestry. This means that even if an event doesn’t necessarily focus on sustainability, it can receive funding if it uses more sustainable materials, like replacing single use plastics with reusable containers.
“We felt it was important to make this change and distinction between our funding forms,” Grace Carr, Impact Analyst for the Green Fund, said, “Allowing for people to receive sustainable funding makes NAU a greener place.”
This change also adds the Green Fund to one of several places where student clubs and organizations can receive funding for events. Along with Student Activities Council, SUN Entertainment, and Associated Students of NAU.
The NAU Green Fund was founded in 2010 and is comprised of eight students in addition to faculty and staff members who vote to fund projects and research using the $15 per student per semester Green Fee. All of the Green Fund’s meetings are open to the public and any student, staff or faculty member can submit a proposal.
Olive’s Sustainability Story Accordion Closed
Olive Dunn is a senior at Northern Arizona University studying environmental and sustainability studies. She currently serves as the Green Fund Co-Chair, and will graduate this spring. She also helped found Fossil Free NAU, a club dedicated to divestment efforts for NAU. Divestment is the act of an entity removing their investments from fossil fuel industries. The club also focuses on engaging students in sustainable lifestyles.
However, before she was in college, Olive says her mom helped her connect with nature a lot. They would go out into the woods as a family and make nature journals where they drew or wrote what they saw. She even says they would sometimes press a plant in their books, take it home, and try to identify it. Through this, she learned how ecosystems work and how to identify organisms.
“My whole life I’ve loved nature and had a really big connection with it.” Olive said.
When Olive was a senior in high school, Covid put her life on pause. She felt like there wasn’t a lot to do, so she started to explore the woods of Prescott where she lived. She went out to the woods every day in the spring, which she says is one of the most beautiful times of the year in the Hassayampa River. She would park near a stream and walk up and down the stream for miles every day, by herself, without her phone where she could be completely alone.
“I think by spending so much time out in nature, I got to know it so well it became like my friend and my therapy and my safe place.” Olive said.
Olive says she observed various pieces of nature out in the woods, like patches of moss, lichen or even frogs. She enjoyed watching them and noticing the similarities between herself, her body, and nature.
One day, when she was treading through the woods, she came across some Mexican axolotls. She was amazed at what a cool discovery she had stumbled upon, and would often return to the area to see them again.
However, Olive also found out through some climate activists she knew that the stretch of the river she often returned to and felt to be a safe place was about to be mined for its natural resources. She immediately felt how unfair it would be to the endangered species and beautiful ecosystems to mine that river.
So, she talked to people who worked with the state council to express her concerns about mining the area. After a council meeting, she found out that the mining had been brought to a halt, at least temporarily.
“It’s probably because I was able to build that relationship with nature and advocate for it.” Olive said.
Olive says this experience, in part, contributed to her deciding to major in environmental and sustainability studies at NAU. Olive feels that anyone can connect with nature, no matter how or when.
“It’s not too late to build a relationship with nature… it can be whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t have to follow any sort of code.”
Hope’s Sustainability Story 1/31/24 Accordion Closed
Hope Saxton is a recent graduate at NAU with a Bachelor of Science in environmental and sustainability studies. She served as the Impact Analyst for the University’s Green Fund for a semester, which was an entirely new role that she trail blazed for.
Hope discovered that she wanted to work in sustainability in middle school. She read a book called Cradle to Cradle about sustainable practices in city design, which planted the idea in her mind that sustainability was possible on a large scale. That same year, she took an engineering class where she was assigned a final project to create a futuristic city, which also had a competition at the end of it where everyone’s cities would compete to go on to a state competition. She knew this was her opportunity to put what she had read in Cradle to Cradle to use.
She poured hours into this project, making a blueprint for a city that would last for years. When Hope arrived at her school’s competition, she noticed that everyone around her had made their cities look stereotypically futuristic– flying cars, silver and chrome buildings, and not much nature. Her city was green and lush. Hope won third place at this competition and advanced to state. In her memory, she marks this as the moment she realized she wanted to work in sustainability.
“I got super excited about this project… I was like, we should make our future city completely sustainable. In my head, this was kind of an obvious thing to do.”
Hope is currently working for AmeriCorp until she leaves for Peace Corps in August, where she will get to work to fight climate change in central Mexico.
Hope specifically wanted to recognize Rachel Cox, a journalism professor, and Taylor Joyal, a sustainability professor, who she says she loved working with in her time at NAU.
All of these things have lead Hope to the career path she chose, and she says she wouldn’t want any other career.
Press Release 12/9/23– Hybrid Flatbed Printer Accordion Closed
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (December 8, 2023)
Primary Contact: Lindsay Mauss, Public Relations Specialist
Hybrid Flatbed Printer Funded by NAU’s Green Fund
The Northern Arizona University Green Fund recently passed a project to fund a flatbed printer for NAU’s Printing Services. Over the previous spring semester, the committee voted to fund $65,000 for this project. The flatbed printer, among other environmental savings, eliminates 1,800 square feet of wasted vinyl per year by allowing users to print directly onto a board instead of printing onto vinyl that is then mounted onto a board.
The printer will allow for Printing Services to offer paper based, biodegradable signs as opposed to plastic or polystyrene foam based ones for the university. This could potentially divert up to 5,300 square feet of plastic from landfills every year. Additionally, the printer itself is efficient– it saves 50-80% more ink than competitors. The LED bulbs on the printer automatically turn off when not in use, and last approximately 10,000 hours, which is double to triple the run time of competitors.
The Green Fund has an annual budget totaling near $600,000. With this budget, the Green Fund is working towards NAU’s Climate Action Plan of achieving resource efficiency and creating a culture of sustainability, which includes reducing waste. By using a printer that has efficient bulbs and reduces waste, the Green Fund and the rest of NAU can continue to commit themselves to these goals.
“NAU Printing Services has a huge opportunity and responsibility to ensure environmentally sustainable technologies and printing options are available to the NAU Community. This project wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Green Fund and we are forever grateful for their support and continued partnership in a more sustainable future,” Dylan Turner, Assistant Director of Printing Services, said.
In addition to its environmental savings, the printer also has a return on investment. The printer will pay itself off in two years because of its ability to reduce labor and material costs– it cuts labor in half. Printing Services also uses a software system to track and report on the annual total square footage that were diverted to sustainable options. These reports will be available on demand for any time range.
Additionally, Printing Services recently won an award from Communitas in the category of excellence in corporate social responsibility, which the printer helped them receive. Communitas Awards are an international effort to recognize businesses, organizations and individuals who give their time and resources to help better sustainability within communities.
The NAU Green Fund was founded in 2010 and is comprised of eight students in addition to faculty and staff members who vote to fund projects and research using the $15 per student per semester Green Fee. All of the Green Fund’s meetings are open to the public and any student, staff or faculty member can submit a proposal.
Additional Contact:
Dylan Turner, Assistant Director of Printing Services
Dylan.Turner@nau.edu