Creating A Green Campus

Global warming has been a controversial issue for decades. Many researchers have created theories about its effects. But the issue is how to get everyday citizens to help in the efforts to prevent global warming from causing further damage to the earth, than it already has. In “An Inconvenient Truth” a documents series filmed by former Vice President Al Gore, has shed light to the issue of environmental sustainability. According to Abraham Parker the United nations has designated 2005-2014 as the “Decade of education for Sustainable Development” with an overall goal “to integrate the principles, laws and practices of sustainable development in all aspects of education and learning…[and to]…encourage changes in economic behavior that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic vitality, and a just society for the present and future generations.”

Institutions around the United States have decided to get on board with these issues. College campuses not only posses the brain power but also the resources to assist the government in combating environmental sustainability and global warming issues. Yale University established an Office of Sustainability in 2005 in order to understand ecology and it’s importance. The office focuses of how the university can exercise environmental sustainability through the use of on-campus transportation, energy use and waste management, while always keeping the campus up to date. Yale’s Office of Sustainability has joined forces with multiple organizations on campus in order to push the “green” initiatives being implemented on campus.

These efforts have made a big impact on Yale’s campus. This journal article is tied directly into what we are trying to do on Florida A and M Universities campus because, Yale has successfully launched a campaign that has student and faculty interested in learning about the impact that everyday life has on our environment. A commitment from faculty and students is what we need in order to make FAMU’s campus more “green” centered!



Bibliographic Information

Creating a “Green” Campus

ABRAHAM PARKER

BioScience

Vol. 57, No. 4 (April 2007) (p. 321)


Author Information

ABRAHAM PARKERAbraham Parker (e-mail: aparker@aibs.org) is AIBS’s education and outreach program associate.


© 2007 American Institute of Biological Sciences.

In Sight In Mind...

Integrating health and sustainability: the higher education sector as a timely catalyst


Lawmakers are continuing to push for a more sustainable environment. Ironically I haven't read many articles about the health hazards that could be prevented or about the health benefits if the environment were more sustainable. Higher education plays a very influential role in being a catalyst for pushing agendas. Integrating health and sustainability is what J.Orme and M.Dooris research in "Integrating heath and sustainability: the higher education sector as a timely catalyst". In the article they explore sustainability and it's role for promoting health. According to J.Orme and M.Dooris "higher education represents one large-scale sector with a unique combination of roles that can be harnessed to focus and mobilize its education, knowledge, exchange, research, corporate responsibility and future shaping agendas".
The Green Coalition really has a platform to push its initiatives if done accurately and effectively. The article also discusses how influential higher education can be. This is the highlight that I am trying to emphasize about this article. In order to make FAMU a more sustainable campus, we must figure out what makes our campus and it's surrounding community "tick". The foundation about sustainability has already been laid due to the media coverage it has gotten, so now campuses must build on that foundation. When a college student is asked whether he or she recycles or even cares about the environment 9 times out of 10 the answer will be "No". What we have to do as a class is figure out how to make people more knowledgeable about the detriment that pollution is having on our environment, but we have to relate it to our audience so that it becomes "real" to them. Since we can't see directly what pollution is doing to our community its "out of sight out of mind" and must reverse it to "in sight in mind"


J. Orme1* and M. Dooris2
1Institute for Sustainability, Health and Environment, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of the West of England, Glenside Campus, Bristol BS16 1DD, UK and 2Healthy Settings Development Unit, School of Public Health and Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Harrington Building, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK
*Correspondence to: J. Orme. E-mail: judy.orme@uwe.ac.uk
Received on November 9, 2009; accepted on January 28, 2010