http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgnHRo_2r74

WATCH THE ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER'S VIDEO ON ALL THE COOL NEW STUFF ON WESTMINSTER CAMPUS!
BIKES, GARDEN, STARS, etc!

Farms in the City

This past weekend, when the weather was beautiful, the Environmental Center Fellows took a trip to a local Utah Farm in West Valley. The Farm is owned by the Bell family, and a lovely farm at that. They have chickens, a dog, rows and rows of gardens, neighbors that have llamas, etc. The Fellows got to take a tour of the farm and the surrounding comunity then got work helping the Bells with some farm work. Leslie, Shannon, and Kerry took on the task of helping to build a chicken coop fence. Kyle, Morgan, and Casey helped to harvest potatoes that were in the ground. Kyle likes to claim he found the golden potato (even though he stabbed through a good many before finding it). All in all, it was a very educational and fun trip!

Not-so recent happening

So I finally uploaded the pictures from the Environmental Center camera and I now have tons of news, musings and photos to share! I'm gonna start with a run-through of what we did this Fall that hasn't been covered in other blog posts.

The Bike Collective ran a weekly bike repair shop on campus and sold U-Locks!

The Garden Produced a ton of veggies and ran a weekly Farmstand






We held an Environmental Center Open House and a Environmental Studies Open House:













and... We hired four awesome Sustianability Fellows: Morgan, Casey, Kyle and Leslie


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This spring we are working on bike parking, cooking and cheesemaking workshops, the Energy Challenge, S*T*A*R*S (a sustainability tracking system for the school) and the employees of the Environmental Center continue to hold rocking "Martys" (a meeting and party).

The Whole World in My Hand

"An EcoSphere is a completly enclosed glass sphere or pod, that houses a complete Eco system. Each sphere is filled with micro-organisms, bright red shrimp and algae and filtered sea water. All these things live harmonisly together in a clear glass ball of beauty. It's like having you own little world. Self contained and self sufficient."

Kind of like our world, except more harmonious and sustainable.

The Month of October!

The Envrionmental Center has had a lot of stuff going on this month! The second weekend of October, the student employees along with advisors got to go to Denver, CO for the National Sustainability Conference! There were sessions on everything from Organic Gardens to the STARS (Sustainability Tracking and Rating System. Everyone had a lovely time and it was a great experience.
Once back everyone continued on projects: Bioneers Conference (this weekend!), implementing STARS here at Westminster, the bike shop, zero-waste events, etc..oh yeah and the Halloween Marty was a great success.







The month of October flew by. Hopefully, November is just as productive.

Environmental Studies Gathering - 9/3/10

1st zero waste event of the semester!!!

Quite the success! Fun, food and recycling was had by all!

Canning

On Monday September 28th, we held a canning workshop taught by the fantastic Rebecca Brenner. We canned pickles and raspberry jam, yummm! It was a lot of fun to be able to use the new science building's Food-Science Lab.
I was surprised at how simple the whole process was, it took a few hours but the recipes weren't hard of labor intensive. This was the perfect example to how simple it is to eat "closer to the earth." I was inspired to go home and bake my super-easy-overnight bread and I've started to look at cheese making kits online. It was also great to talk with other students, faculty and staff who are interested in sustainable food. It’s such a fun community to share eating with!
Several of the Environmental Center employees came to the canning workshop with me. Kyle enjoyed the satisfaction of creating something yummy, which is good for him and the environment. He also loved learning new skills. Sarah's favorite part was seeing how simple it was to preserve the year’s harvest.

Here is the recipe for the pickles we made:

Dill Pickles:

Ingredients in the jar
8lbs of 4-6 inch cucumbers
Cut lengthwise to jar line
Green or dried dill
Garlic cloves
Notes:Place three cloves of garlic and two stems of dill in the bottom of each Jar. Cut cucumbers however. Pack jar tight. Make sure to leave about an inch or room in each jar. Remember to pack jar really tight.
Brine recipe:
¾ cup sugar
½ cup canning salt
1 quart vinegar
1 quart water
3 tbls mixed pickling spices (optional)
Notes: bring to boil let go for ten minutes. In Salt Lake City boil jars for 25 minutes… enjoy!