Acorns to Oaks
Liv Macior
Spending time in the outdoors is integral to both physical and mental well-being. However, children growing up in low-income, urban communities are commonly denied access to nature. My program, Acorns to Oaks, aimed to combat this systemic issue while also inspiring the next generation of environmental stewards. Acorns to Oaks is an after-school nature exploration program for elementary school-aged children in low-income urban communities. The foundation of my program was a partnership between the UCSB Adventure Programs student staff, my volunteers, and the Boys and Girls Club of Goleta. Every other week, my volunteers and I would take Boys and Girls Club students to an open natural space (such as Elwood Mesa or the San Marcos Foothills) and facilitate a nature experience with interactive games and open exploration.
AnthropoScene
Elianne Gutierrez Sanchez
My ELI project was inspired by my childhood in the Diesel Death Zone of Los Angeles where marginalized communities face the brunt of pollution and the climate crisis. From there I created AnthropoScene - a podcast where I interviewed people about their environment and what it means to them. My podcast explores the power of folklore and science in order to build a bridge between marginalized communities and the larger environmental movement.
Clean Consulting
Lauren Sullivan and Mariah Hudnut
Through the Environmental Leadership Incubator, we created Clean Consulting, an organization aimed at conducting sustainability audits for companies around Santa Barbara/Goleta and providing recommendations and resources for them to make sustainable changes. We collaborated with our mentor at the Green Business Network. This year, we worked with two companies: Riviera Towel Co. and Mesa Bookstore. Both were given a final deliverable, including recommendations regarding lighting changes, waste reduction and management (packaging reduction and recycling methods), and pollution prevention (sustainable shopping lists of cleaning product replacements). They were then able to pick and choose which recommendations were the right fit and contact us with any questions or concerns.
Climate Change for People in a Hurry
Kellan Gilroy
Climate Change for People in a Hurry was a series of after-school talks aimed at high school students, presented and explained from a geoscientific perspective. The purpose of these talks was to make climate science more accessible and to remove some of the barriers to climate education that young people face. A pilot class was trialed to a small group of UCSB students. Currently, the project remains in the scheduling stage, with plans to be implemented at local high schools in the Santa Barbara area.
Eco-Friendly Surfboard Ding Repair Resin
Justin Memenas, Lillie Marcos, and Natalie Nguyen
Our project sought to address the toxicity of the surfboard industry, particularly in surfboard ding repair resins such as Solarez, and aimed to create a product that lessens the toxicity and improves the sustainability of UV-cure ding repair resins, without diminishing the ease of use. Throughout the year-long ELI program, we conducted extensive research to identify possible materials and UV-cure chemistry to create this resin. We applied and received grant money through URCA, which we used to order several different materials. Once we received these materials, we ran multiple rounds of qualitative experiments on a surfboard to find the best mixtures and develop the functionality of our eco-friendly surf resin. We are continuing to work to create an eco-friendly surfboard repair product.
Educating the Campus Community: How to Access Sustainable Seafood
Mariam Ziauddin
For my project, I aimed to educate the student body on how seafood choices can impact ocean ecosystems, and how and where they can access their favorite sustainable seafood locally. Within this project, I provided guidance on how to choose sustainable seafood by developing a science-based brochure about sustainable certification labels, community-based fisheries, and local grocery stores selling sustainable options. I hosted three outreach events where I handed out the brochure, shared facts about how seafood is caught, and directed students and families to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch guidance. This interaction benefited each person I met by teaching them about eco-friendly options and created a sense of appreciation for where their food comes from.
Hemp House
Oliver Wallace and Sam Fuller
Through passion for green building and sustainable housing, we sought to identify and prove the feasibility of lumber-free housing. Through research and expert advice, we identified a material called Hemp-crete, a biobased building material made by mixing hemp chips, lime, biochar and water. It has numerous environmental benefits including carbon sequestration, fire resistance, and high insulative properties. We used our green building and design skills to create a prototype residential wall using Hemp-crete, while collaborating with our mentor and his business, Pass It Forward (pif) California. Through weekly trips to Santa Paula to our mentor's research and development facility, we were able to construct a fire-resistant prototype wall for residential use.
MealPass: Increasing Food Recovery in Isla Vista
Shelly Chen
My environmental leadership project focuses on food waste because ~ 40% of food produced in the United States is never eaten. I have partnered with the food recovery app, MealPass, to conduct outreach to local restaurants and businesses in Isla Vista. MealPass works with restaurants and non-profits to provide food for families and individuals experiencing food insecurity. Restaurants that sign up for MealPass are eligible for tax deductions, which adds an additional economic incentive to the environmental and social benefits of donating excess food. By convincing local businesses to sign up with MealPass, I hope to increase the amount of food recovered in Isla Vista! I plan on continuing this project over the summer and into my 4th year at UCSB!
Of Course i Voted
Jian Hong Shi
Of Course i Voted is an organization created by Jian Hong Shi, an Environmental Studies major at UC Santa Barbara. Our mission is to increase accessibility and communication about the environment and politics, with a focus on reaching Gen-Z students and college-aged Americans from an incredibly diverse, powerful sector of the electorate whose voices can be projected through voting. We highlight the importance of voting to emphasize the nexus between environmental protection and civic engagement. We want to be a bridge between politics and the people to ensure widespread participation in the democratic process; our goal is a world in which everyone who is eligible to vote goes to the polls for every federal, state, and local election.
Plant-Based UCSB
Carissa Garcia and Charlotte Drop
For our ELI project, we wanted to address how meat consumption negatively impacts the environment and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Since eating a plant-based diet can be a great way to lower our carbon footprint, we wanted to focus on adding more vegetarian and vegan meal options to the dining halls at UCSB. While this original goal ended up being unfeasible for us to achieve, we still wanted to be able to spread awareness about the benefits of eating plant-based by targeting UCSB students. Therefore, we created an Instagram, @plantbased.ucsb, to be an educational resource for plant-based options on UCSB’s campus as well as the surrounding Isla Vista and Santa Barbara area. The Instagram page helps UCSB students navigate the UCSB dining halls by identifying vegetarian and vegan options. We also provide other tips for exploring or transitioning to a plant-based diet, including suggestions for local options.
Plastic Opt Out: Reduce Plastic Use in IV Restaurants
Qin Huang
My project aimed to reduce plastic use at restaurants in Isla Vista. I worked with 3 restaurants to switch from single-use plastic straws to more ecofriendly plastic-free alternatives. To ensure project longevity, I connected restaurants with sustainable long-term paper straw suppliers. My goal was to help customers adopt sustainable practices such as skipping unnecessary foodware and bringing reusables to restaurants. I hope to increase community awareness of plastic pollution while empowering more people to take action to reduce plastic impacts and protect our oceans.
Sprout Up at UCSB
Chloe Kerr-Stein and Quinn Costello
We restarted the UCSB chapter of Sprout Up by partnering with the national program. Sprout Up provides free, college student-led environmental education programs to public school 1st and 2nd-grade students. This organization was originally founded at UCSB in 2009 but had since become inactive. We both value environmental education and wanted to make sure local public schools were getting access to this type of education. We recruited a leadership team and chapter members to go into elementary schools around the Santa Barbara area, teaching them lessons from an 8-week program for one hour a week. Since January 2022, we have taught over 170 elementary students with the help of our 40 student volunteers. We taught both first and second-grade students a variety of lessons including ones about recycling, the water cycle, and much more. We plan to continue Sprout Up through our final year at UCSB before passing it off to other students so it can continue to impact children and provide them with some environmental education for many years to come.
Stop, Drop, Roll: Advocacy for State-level Climate Leadership
Kat Lane
This project involved organizing a rally for students and Santa Barbara community members downtown. We signed postcards, wrote chalk messages, and heard speakers, all calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to stop all new fossil fuel permits, drop/phase out existing permits, and rollout 3,200 ft setbacks for sensitive areas. The second component to the project was successfully passing a resolution in the UCSB Associated Students’ Senate that calls on Newsom to stop, drop, and roll for the climate!
The Human Crusade
Lukas Kraak and Noah Weiss
Environmental Leadership Incubator students Lukas Kraak and Noah Weiss have the opportunity of a lifetime dreaming their art into reality. Working alongside the UCSB Library and receiving a significant grant from UCSB Sustainability’s The Green Initiative Fund, they will chart the messy story of humanity and its relationship to the environment. The exhibit is set to open in the most trafficked area of the library, across from the first floor elevators, in January 2023, in the hopes of inspiring students with the progress we can make.
UCSB Hydroponics
Kelyn McGuire, Luna Herschenfeld-Catalan, Sydney Arrillaga
During our time as Environmental Studies majors, we were confronted with the realities of the climate crisis and unsustainable farming practices. We were interested in the realm of sustainable food and agriculture, and how that can be attained using the least amount of natural resources as possible. We established three hydroponic grow towers at the student farm near the Orfalea Family Children’s Center that are able to house 84 plants of a variety of species of vegetables. Another mission was to make more hydroponics implemented in the everyday household so we compiled a pamphlet that includes how to clean, how to germinate, what to grow, how to add nutrients, and how to properly care for and manage hydroponic systems.