12/05/2024
The Green Reps and the Sustainability Office have been busy this semester. Here are a few highlights to look back on before we leap into the new year and new semester.
Green Reps Instagram
Oct. 9, 2024
Green Reps made their return to social media with the creation of their Instagram account, @cortland.greenreps – make sure to give us a follow to keep updated with all sustainability events and more!
Three Sisters Garden Harvest at SUNY Binghamton
Oct. 18, 2024
SUNY Binghamton hosted a Haudenosaunee Festival which featured a Three Sisters Garden Harvest. Ethan Tyo, Assistant Director for Native American and Indigenous Student Initiatives, helped create Binghamton’s garden in May 2021 and SUNY Cortland’s Three Sisters Garden in May of this year.
Beth Klein, SUNY distinguished service professor of science education and the university’s sustainability coordinator, and Megan Swing, energy and sustainability engagement coordinator attended the harvest to learn more about maintaining the garden and honoring the Haudenosaunee creation story.
After the harvest, lunch featured Haudenosaunee Hominy soup with hominy (food item produced from dried maize kernels) and Iroquois red cranberry beans and venison and corn mush with berries. While on campus, Klein and Swing were also able to admire the art exhibition, Homelands: Contemporary Haudenosaunee Art Across New York.
The “Scary” Facts of Halloween with Gorilla Corps
Oct. 20, 2024
Halloween can be scary, especially when you consider the waste generated and resources used by all the spooky festivities.
Green Rep Tiana Schelble ’28 created a trifold showcasing some of the “scary” environmental facts about Halloween, including the environmental impact of some popular candies and more sustainable alternative, Halloween food waste, and the impact of palm oil and its presence in Halloween candies. The trifold was featured at the Gorilla Corps’, formally known as Animal Rights Activism Club, showing of the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
GasLand & Bring Your Own Bowl (for Popcorn)
Nov. 6, 2024
For our first campus-wide event, the Green Rep Fiona Joss ‘28 hosted a showing of the film “GasLand” to explore the fracking petroleum industry and its environmental consequences.
Popcorn was provided by SUNY Cortland Auxiliary Services, thanks to funding by Pepsi. To keep this event low to no-waste, we asked people to bring their own bowl to limit the amount of waste generated by this event, and we were successful. The only waste was from the container used to transport the popcorn to the event (and no popcorn went to waste).
Cortaca and America Recycles Day
Nov. 15, 2024
What better way to celebrate Cortaca than by talking to the Red Dragons about one of the “3 R’s” – recycling! We were happy to table at Cortland Auxiliary Service’s “Cortaca through the Ages” event on Cortaca eve, which just happened to fall on America Recycles Day!
At the event we played Cortaca and recycling themed trivia and had a representative from Cortland County to talk about recycling as well.
In preparation for all the festivities, the Green Reps conducted trivia in some of the Residence Halls with the chance to win an Owala water bottle. Additionally, students could get in the “green” spirit by completing a Cortaca Sustainability challenge. Students were entered into a raffle to win a Cortaca sweatshirt by completing five sustainability challenges. The sustainability challenges ranged from eating a plant-based meal to walking instead of driving to class, refusing a single-use plastic item and using a reusable water bottle.
One thing the Sustainability Office did differently during Cortaca was collaborate with Ithaca College’s Energy Management and Sustainability Office. The two schools same together to discuss collaborative sustainability efforts and the collective impact SUNY Cortland and Ithaca College could have by working together. Cortland’s Matt Brubaker, campus energy manager, and Megan Swing, energy and sustainability engagement coordinator, plan to continue a collaboration in upcoming Cortaca events with Ithaca’s Scott Doyle, Director of Ithaca College’s Energy Management and Sustainability and Rosie Bostain, VISTA inclusive sustainability coordinator.
SCRA Eco-Swap and Green Rep Film Showing
Dec. 3, 2024
Swap instead of shop! As we head into the busy shopping time of the holiday season the Green Reps partnered with the SUNY Cortland Recreation Association to host an eco-swap to help lessen the impact our gift giving has on the planet.
Green Rep Nuala Seabrook ’26 led the collaboration with SCRA. Students were encouraged to bring in items they no longer needed nor wanted, ranging from clothing and shoes to books and room décor. The event was planned between Thanksgiving and the semester break, so students could bring anything from home and swap it for a new item to use or give during the holiday season.
To add some context to the importance of swapping over shopping, the film The Shit-throp-o-cene played as students practiced a more sustainable form of consumption. The Patagonia film featured, “a mock anthropological view of humanity’s consumption habits, turning a satirical (yet brutally honest) eye on how everything is tuning ‘bad’ and why the impulse towards more might destroy us all.”
A huge thank you to all the students who donated items to the swap. Any of the clothes that weren’t taken were donated to CAPCO and miscellaneous items such as shoes and books were donated to Thrifty Shopper, so no items went to waste!
For more facts on the intersection of the fashion industry and climate change, visit the Green Rep Instagram.
While technically this photo was taken before the Fall semester started, it was a notable moment from the year. Over the summer the squirrels enjoyed the corn planted in the Three Sisters Garden.
Students checking out the donated items at the SCRA Eco-Swap.
Students looking at the Items laid out for the SCRA Eco-Swap event.
Table of items donated for students to swap at the SCRA Eco-Swap event.
The art exhibition, Homelands: Contemporary Haudenosaunee Art Across New York at SUNY Binghamton.
Plate of food served at the SUNY Binghamton Three Sisters Garden Harvest, featuring corn mush with berries (top left) and Haudenosaunee Hominy soup (bottom left).
Bean pod in Three Sisters Garden at SUNY Binghamton.
Three Sisters Garden at SUNY Binghamton.
Students smiling at the Gorilla Corps, Planet of the Apes, movie showing.
Students watching The Planet of the Apes at the Gorilla Corps showing, featuring a trifold about the environmental impact of Halloween.
Bag of popcorn for students to enjoy from their own bowl while watching GasLand.
Marjorie Castilla, winner of the Owala raffle from the Residence Hall Trivia raffle.
Alexa Villeck, winner of the Cortaca Sustainability Bingo challenge, posing with the prize.