Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Conference 2022
Approved: 8/27/2022
Funding Amount: $2,750
This proposal will provide funding for the University of Kentucky to become a host institution for the 2022 AASHE Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education. Being a host institution would allow members of the UK community to gain access to this informative event and participate in networking opportunities and workshops. This year’s GCSHE will be held entirely virtually, with 80 full days of access for all registrants (through December 31, 2022). Some events are also held on-demand, so they can be accessed at any time, making the conference accommodating for personal schedules.
Class Trip to Vaughn Warehouse
Approved: 8/27/2022
Funding Amount: $300
Funding awarded for this project will cover a minibus rental to transport students from ANT 225: Culture, Environment, and Global Issues to and from the Vaughn Warehouse. The warehouse is where all waste materials generated by UK facilities are sorted and processed. For example, a plastic coke bottle that’s been put into a recyclables container on the campus goes there to be processed. The trip is to help the students understand the waste management in and out of the campus. At the warehouse, there will be a guided tour by the UK Recycling for about 45 minutes, followed by a quick Q&A session.
Urban Restoration Ecology on Campus: Developing site preparation and planting guidelines to improve ecosystem health along University Drive
Approved: 8/27/2022
Funding Amount: $10,000
This project will address a severe erosion issue along University Drive between Huguelet and Hilltop. The project site is completely unvegetated; however, these areas used to be turf. Project coordinators believe this shift is primarily a result of shading from the buildings constructed along this corridor over the past decade. To address soil erosion at the project site, this project plans to test the effects of site preparation and planting treatments on infiltration and soil erosion by accomplishing the following:
- Decompact the project site using an Air Knife.
- Incorporate biochar to improve soil nutrient retention and infiltration.
- Design and implement a landscape planting design.
- Monitor treatment effects on plant growth, soil erosion, and infiltration outcomes.
- Analyze and report.
Campus Sustainability Month Programming
Approved: 09/15/2022
Funding Amount: $1,500
Funding awarded for this project will cover web hosting fees and awards for a month-long trivia competition hosted by the Office of Sustainability as well as awards for undergraduate and graduate student poster competitions at the annual Sustainability Showcase.
Growing Up: A vertical aquaponics demo system
Approved: 09/29/2022
Funding Amount: $1,153
Growing Up will be a vertical aquaponics demonstration system that will be located first in the Cornerstone until August of 2023, and then move to its permanent home in The 90 at The Food Connection. This project will build an innovative and visually stimulating vertical aquaponics system that will be a tool for students to learn about indoor aquaponics growing, as well as providing engineering problem-solving opportunities. After the initial project year in the Cornerstone, The Food Connection staff will be trained on how to continue maintenance and work with students on the system so that it will continue to be a teaching tool for students for years to come.
Collegiate Farm Bureau Trip to FoodChain
Approved: 10/13/2022
Funding Amount: $150
Each month, Collegiate Farm Bureau meets with members to share career options, engage in meaningful discussion, and facilitate the growth of agriculture at UK and in Kentucky. This outing to FoodChain will provide students an inside look at aspects of sustainable agriculture right here in Lexington. The trip will take place on November 2nd, 2022, with the tour of FoodChain from 6:00pm-7:00pm.
2023 Summer Sustainability Research Fellowships
Approved: 12/8/2022
Funding Amount: $25,000
Each month, Collegiate Farm Bureau meets with members to share career options, engage in meaningful discussion, and facilitate the growth of agriculture at UK and in Kentucky. This outing to FoodChain will provide students an inside look at aspects of sustainable agriculture right here in Lexington. The trip will take place on November 2nd, 2022, with the tour of FoodChain from 6:00pm-7:00pm.
Gato Del Sol VII
Approved: 12/8/2022
Funding Amount: $15,000
This proposal will fund the development of the UK Solar Car team's next solar car: Gato Del Sol VII. This car, which is completely student built, requires a vast array of components to run properly and safely from only solar power. Furthermore, the team's main goal with the car is to win in races against other colleges’ solar cars, events which promote the development of sustainability-minded engineers. While their current car is fully functioning, it is no longer within the regulations of the races UK annually competes in, requiring us to build a new car to carry forward our mission of sustainably promoting University of Kentucky engineering.
UK TreeCATs (Collegiate and Citizen Arboriculture Training): Empowering Tree Champions to Forward Climate Resilience & Social Equity on UK’s Campus and in Kentucky Communities
Approved: 12/8/2022
Funding Amount: $13,134
This proposal will fund the seventh iteration of the TreeCATs workshop, with a focus this year on climate resiliency and social equity. TreeCATs builds awareness, provides foundational knowledge, and develops skills on topics including urban and community forestry infrastructure and career paths, tree and soil health care, maintenance and design, tree pests and diseases, trees and wellness, and greenspace equity. TreeCATs introduces student participants to a broad network of community professionals in Central Kentucky, where related projects range from neighborhood reforestation to stormwater mitigation to urban tree canopy equity and climate resilience.
UK Student Interns for The Arboretum (2023 Cycle)
Approved: 1/23/2023
Funding Amount: $31,500
This proposal will fund six UK student internships in three discrete areas of The Arboretum: the Kentucky Children’s Garden (KCG), the Walk Across Kentucky (WAKY) Native Plant Collection, and one position that will work primarily with the Horticulture team. KCG interns will be responsible for developing and delivering daily programming about environmental topics. The Horticulture intern will be responsible for growing vegetables, grasses, and flowers from seed in the greenhouse, planting seeds and transplants in the various gardens, weeding, and mulching. Student interns working in the native plant collection will be directly involved in environmental stewardship through management of The Arboretum’s collection and natural areas and through ex-situ conservation of Kentucky’s natural heritage and biodiversity.
Environmental Anthropology: Community-engaging learning
Approved: 1/23/2023
Funding Amount: $1,560
Funding awarded for this project will cover trips and activities for ANT 225: Culture, Environment, and Global Issues. The funded trips and activities focus on three themes that are: (1) waste management (environmental stewardship); (2) food and environmental justice (economic equity); and (3) challenging negative the stereotypes of Appalachian people (social inclusion).
Landscape Architecture Capstone Studio Travel
Approved: 1/23/2023
Funding Amount: $5,000
Much of the town of Mayfield, Kentucky was destroyed by an EF-4 tornado on December 10, 2021. Mayfield is one of many communities in western Kentucky and neighboring states that were devastated by the storms. Throughout Kentucky, nearly 80 people died, hundreds of homes were lost, and thousands of structures were destroyed resulting in an estimated $305 million in damages in Kentucky. Ten senior undergraduate landscape architecture students in a capstone studio (LA 426 – LA Studio VI) will work with members of the Mayfield community, design professionals from the team that is working on the recovery effort, and landscape architects from the National Park Service’s Recreation, Trail and Conservation Assistance program to develop design concepts for a variety of spaces in Mayfield including parks, a memorial sanctuary, farmer’s market, arts district, pedestrian streetscape, and county and municipal government building sites. The funds allocated to this project will help cover travel expenses for two field trips embedded in the studio:
- TRIP 1 (1/31/23 – 2/4/23): Students will travel to St. Louis to see important examples of parks and urban design; tour Joplin, Missouri, a community that was devastated by a tornado in 2011 and has made a steady and remarkable recovery since; and visit Mayfield to see the town, document project sites, listen to community members and volunteer in a rebuilding effort.
- TRIP 2 (3/2/23 – 3/4/23): Students will travel back to Mayfield to present their work to community members and receive feedback.
Sustainability Challenge Grant Program, Year 9
Approved: 2/6/2023
Funding Amount: $33,333
This proposal will partially fund the 9th year of the Sustainability Challenge Grant program. The purpose of the program is to engage multidisciplinary teams from the University community in the creation and implementation of ideas that will promote sustainability by simultaneously advancing economic vitality, ecological integrity, and social equity. Each project funded to date has had a high degree of student participation though the nature of that participation is not prescribed and varies from project to project. Students are gaining valuable experience in project coordination, curriculum development, community outreach, public speaking, report preparation, and research. The first five years of the program (33 projects) have documented the following student impacts:
- 3300 UK Students have engaged with these projects (average: 100 student engagements per project)
- 27 Students have served as part of project teams (average: 1 student per team)
Addressing the Carbon Footprint of the Building Industry Through Quick Service Restaurants
Approved: 2/6/2023
Funding Amount: $1,000
Funding awarded for this project will cover accommodation expenses for a work-study with architect Jeremy Smith and his firm Irving Smith Architects in Nelson, New Zealand, who are on the cutting-edge of flexible architecture. This two-and-a-half-week work-study is a program run through the School of Architecture at UK called Practice Preview. The Practice Preview program pairs School of Architecture students with a firm closely related to their research and design strategies to allow them to explore a practice in a short-term setting. The research conducted by the graduate student involves examining sustainable ways of constructing fast food restaurants in a manner that reuses building
materials, commonly known as design for disassembly and reassembly.
2023-2024 Sustainability Internship Program
Approved: 2/6/2023
Funding Amount: $20,700
The Sustainability Internship Program (SIP) was founded in 2016 on the basis of increasing the perspective and reach of sustainability to undergraduate students at the University of Kentucky. The program is coordinated by the Office of Sustainability in partnership with operational units around campus that have a focus on sustainability. Funding for this project will cover pay for interns to dedicate 8-10 hours weekly to their operational unit to advance sustainability initiatives in exciting and meaningful ways.
Appalachian Research Symposium
Approved: 2/6/2023
Funding Amount: $619
Funding awarded for this project will cover food expenses for the annual Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase. This year's 12th annual Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase theme is Race, Space, Place - Racial Capitalism & Appalachia. The Symposium will interrogate the role of race in place-making and spatiality, with an emphasis on the intertwined impacts of race and class, while also recognizing intersectionality more broadly. Through interdisciplinary research and experiences, the Symposium will exhibit how different groups have created spaces and places within the region, resisting homogenizing, monolithic, and stagnant representations, and presenting complex, engaging, ever-evolving understandings of what it means to be Appalachian and living and working in this region. The 2023 12th Annual Appalachian Research Symposium will be held at the Jacobs Science Building on Saturday, February 25th.
Reusable Grocery/Tote Bag Decorating Event
Approved: 2/20/2023
Funding Amount: $643
This proposal will provide funding for the Sustainability Future Leaders Club to host an event that will provide 200 students with tote bags produced from recycled cotton and the ability to decorate those tote bags at the event. The goal of the event is for students to express themselves creatively while learning how to be more proactively sustainable in their daily lives.
Lake sediment as a tool to understand biodiversity and promote sustainability in the world's largest wetland
Approved: 3/20/2023
Funding Amount: $11,000
Climate change is altering the function and health of ecosystems across the world. In the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland, the impacts of climate change are still poorly understood. One way to learn more about how climate change affects this aquatic ecosystem is to study lake sediments. Lake sediments archive information on climate through their fossil records. Funding provided for this project will cover travel to and from the fieldwork site, as well as laboratory activities, for a research project taking place at Chacocoré Lake in the northern part of the Pantanal. The results will be compared with other studies from lakes in the central and southern regions of the Pantanal wetlands to understand how changes in rainfall and temperature have influenced tropical wetlands over the last thousands of years.
Involving Students at the Kentucky Climate Consortium Annual Meeting
Approved: 4/3/2023
Funding Amount: $746
The Kentucky Climate Consortium (KYCC) is a network of scholars and professionals across the state of Kentucky who do work related to sustainability or climate change issues. Each year, the KYCC holds a meeting for its members to reflect on the past year and plan for the following year. The meeting consists of a business meeting, networking opportunities, a keynote speaker, and a local field trip. Funding awarded to this project will cover the Gatton room reservation fee as well as food and drinks.
Reforesting the Bluegrass: Continued monitoring of forest health and structure in Reforest the Bluegrass sites
Approved: 4/24/2023
Funding Amount: $7,842
Funding awarded to this project will provide support for an undergraduate research assistant to work full time during summer 2023. This student will work as part of a team with another student (funded by the Friends of Wolf Run with focus on soil conditions in conservation easements along Wolf Run), with a focus on studying stream and riparian health outcomes. This research team will assess soil conditions (compaction, bulk density, carbon), vegetation structure and composition (height, diameter, and species of trees; vegetative groundcover; vegetation density), and stream-water quality (continue regular water quality sampling) in seven restored (plus three unrestored) urban stream sites in Lexington. Ultimately, these data will help characterize the effects of riparian conservation efforts on stream and riparian health in urban areas, with implications for future restoration efforts.
Tree Week 2023 (October 7th-15th)
Approved: 4/24/2023
Funding Amount: $4,500
In 2018, the UK Urban Forest Initiative (UFI) Working Group, made up of collaborators from educational institutions, municipal departments, non-profits, local businesses, and the greater public, leveraged its expertise and enthusiasm to plan and implement Lexington, Kentucky’s first annual Tree Week. These events provide a mechanism for people to connect across community boundaries and celebrate the many roles trees play in built and natural environments. Tree Week events are proposed and subsequently hosted by a cadre of nature-loving volunteers throughout a designated week in early October. This grassroots, organic, volunteer-driven event brings together more than 1,000 people each year to participate in tree plantings, tree giveaways, mulching events, educational walks and talks, Climate Conversations, arts and cultural events, tree climbing competitions, and academic seminars. Funding awarded to this project will support an UFI Outreach /Tree Week Coordinator.
Climate Conversations
Approved: 4/24/2023
Funding Amount: $4,978
Funding awarded to this project will cover the costs of a Climate Conversations Coordinator for the summer and fall of 2023, as well as marketing and tabling materials. Climate Conversations is a group that was formed in Lexington, Kentucky during Tree Week 2021 to encourage members of our shared community to imagine what a climate resilient community might look like. With the funding awarded from this proposal, Climate Conversations will bring meetups to campus and expand their offerings within the Lexington community.
