Meet 3rd floor Scott EcoREPS: Ricardo Jaimes

My name is Ricardo Jaimes.
I am a freshman at Ripon College.
I a member of the EGOR club, Sierra Club, and Hola club.
I plan to pursuit a major in Environmental Studies.
My goal: To help Ripon College become a more Eco-friendly campus. 

At SES (Semester in Environmental Studies)

While most Ripon College students are at home for Fall Break, a few students are off-campus getting no break, but having an exceptional educational experience. Among them is Tyler Messerschmidt '14 who is currently a student at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.

He writes,
The Semester in Environmental Studies at Woods Hole has been a magnificent experience so far.  Even though this is probably the hardest I have worked in any college semester, it is also the least stressful semester I have had at college.  The people here are amazing and it is very refreshing to be able to work along side people with the same drive and interest in the environment that I have.  This makes it very easy to put in the hard work in the classroom, lab and the field needed to succeed in this course. 


Here are some of his pictures of the experiences he's enjoying.

Check back for results from his proposed research project: " I have a tentative plan.  I would like to look at how primary production and species composition have changed in a hardwood forest.  For many years this forest had a consistent supply of nitrogen from a waste water treatment plant.  This plant has recently upgraded to remove a large amount of the incoming nitrogen from the water, and no longer distributes this over the forest."



Collecting fish with a seine net



Filling in a soil pit



Measuring photosynthesis



Meet 4th floor Johnson Eco-Rep: Mariah Everts

Bettering the lives of Ripon College students in every way is part of being a student here at Ripon College. We are all well rounded individuals looking to make a difference in the world. Becoming an Eco-Rep I truly hope to make many others aware of what a beautiful world we live in and how easy it is to do our small part to continue to make Ripon College a fantastic place to be. Educating students on recycling, waste produced, and using as little and gaining much more because of it. Once we are educated in the ways to help out our campus, when we graduate I hope we can use our knowledge to better the future communities we live in.

Eco-Reps hold their first meeting

Hello!

We finally got our ‘eco rep program’ (name as yet to be determined) started! We have ten great Ripon students working with me: Robert Enright, Aspen Geheber, Samantha Klein, Mariah Everts, Mikayla Huesman, Mamadou Toure, Ricardo Jaimes, Shannon Marchiando and Sophia Rodgers. Six out of the ten were able to attend our first meeting and they seem as enthusiastic as I am! They already had questions and suggestions.

 

We are working on coming up with a name and logo to identify ourselves with. I also gave them our first assignment. We will be checking all the campus buildings for placement of garbage and recycling bins and the labeling around them. In these same places we will be monitoring the water fountain stations for how many water bottles are saved each day by using reusable containers. We will be working heavily with data because, as Professor Hamze likes to quote, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”!

 

 I am also very excited because I found out I can attend a Midwest regional conference on Sustainability in Decorah, IA on November 7-9^th! I hopefully get to stay on campus and hear from students across the Midwest working on programs similar to this one!

 

I also had a talk with Professor Diane Beres about the Costa Rica maymester dealing with sustainability and development. It is a wonderful opportunity for any students and especially for environmental studies majors. I told her I would help promote the project and maybe be able to go myself! Anyone who is interested can feel free to contact her or professor Hauge for more information. Also, look for posters about an information meeting coming up! That’s all the news I have for now!

Your friendly neighborhood sustainability intern,

Kristen

Enjoy our beautiful prairie and wonderful fall colors: Sat & Sun

There will be two seed collecting activities this weekend for those who would like to help restore prairies in Wisconsin.

TIMES:  Saturday, October 12 at 1:00 PM and Sunday, October 13 at 2:00 PM

PLACE: Ceresco Prairie Conservancy – meet at the Kegel Outdoor Classroom

No need to bring collecting materials – I will have them.  Be sure to wear appropriate clothes for walking out in a tall-grass prairie.

We will not collect seeds in the rain.

For more information, please contact Prof. Skip Wittler, wittlers@ripon.edu

Sodexo intern update #4: compost, milk carton recycling

I have not written any blog posts in a while since there have not been any major updates lately; so here are a few that have accumulated over the past two weeks.

Firstly, composting within the city limits of Ripon can only occur on residential properties, according to the current city ordinance. This is an obstacle to allowing us to compost here on the college campus, but the situation is being addressed. Hopefully there can be some modification to the current ordinance or we can get an exception to begin composting here in the near future. Stay tuned for future updates on this issue!

Secondly, in researching what can be recycled (because of a question I was asked by a cook in the Commons kitchen,) I found out that soymilk containers and regular milk cartons can be recycled in the single-stream recycling we have on campus. Signs will be going up in the Terrace, and most likely the Pub, to reflect this and to encourage students to recycle more.

Lastly, in the month of September, there were 29 buckets of compost brought to Fraser Farm for composting. Since each of the buckets holds 5 gallons, 145 gallons of organic materials were diverted to composting rather than going to a landfill this past month. While I have no data in terms of pounds per bucket, I guess that the average weight would be around 25 pounds per bucket (since I carry most of the buckets) that amounts to somewhere around 725 pounds of fruits and vegetable scraps that did not go to a landfill. That's something we can feel good about.

That’s it for now. Questions and comments appreciated! 

Apply to be an Eco-Rep

Apply to be an Eco-Rep today!  Here's the link:  http://riponcollegesustainability.blogspot.com/p/apply.html

We're starting a new peer-to-peer sustainability awareness campaign on campus. 
The Eco-Rep program we are starting at Ripon College is looking for creative, dedicated, and passionate leaders. We are hoping to recruit one Eco-Rep for each floor in the residence halls, with a focus on Johnson, Scott and Tri in Fall 2013. These campus leaders will attend bi-weekly meetings and work with residents on their floor, similar to an R.A.. The Eco-Reps will be working on highlighting sustainability in the dorms by increasing environment awareness of energy, waste, and water! It is work that promises to be fun, rewarding and innovative. 

Ideal Eco-Reps Candidates Should Be:

• Enthusiastic about community involvement
• Able to work with others in a team environment
• Able to dedicate time outside of meetings
• Motivated to make a difference among peers
• Friendly, flexible, and willing to hear ideas
• Organized and creativeand, of course, interested in environmental issues and green living