Our work specifically focuses on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the associated co-pollutants that disproportionately impact communities of color and low-income communities in Colorado. Disproportionately Impacted (DI) communities historically have more pollution, and fewer resources, and face the disproportionate burden of environmental health risks. 

Prioritizing education about air quality and health impacts through trainings and skill-building workshops and then pushing to open and maximize opportunities for community advocacy. We offer pertinent information, resources, and support, and are committed to fighting alongside members of the disproportionately impacted communities. By creating and uplifting opportunities for education and advocacy, we can build on existing community power to create and maintain safe and healthy living conditions in all parts of Colorado. 

This project combines K-12 Education and Trash groups. The idea is to educate elementary schoolers about the importance of sustainable practices. Our goal is to inspire children with instant gratification and digestible information to seek out a passion for environmental protection.

We do this by attending schools and giving a brief presentation about the problems created by unsustainable practices. The presentation is factual and an easy-to-understand gateway to information to help understand climate change and/or the importance of sustainable practices. Then, as a way to practice this and make it something that is more ingrained in their memory, we created a game out of picking up trash. The students try to find as much real trash as they could, and we developed props that represent trash and put them around the school for the kids to pick up. Optimally, this creates some kind of positive association with Climate protection.

The purpose of this project is to transform landscaping practices in Greeley to enhance the community’s livability, resilience to climate change, and water efficiency. 

It aims to:

1. Promote Sustainable Landscapes: Encourage the use of native and climate-adapted plants to reduce water usage, combat urban heat islands, and maximize ecological benefits.

2. Adapt to Climate Change: Address anticipated temperature increases by fostering landscapes that thrive in Greeley’s evolving climate.

3. Enhance Environmental Health: Support biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem resilience by incorporating plant species suited to local growing conditions.

4. Educate and Engage the Community: Raise awareness and provide resources to inspire residents, businesses, and developers to adopt natural and water-wise landscaping practices.

5. Set a New Standard: Shift public expectations from traditional high-water-use landscapes to sustainable designs that reflect Greeley’s unique environment

This project aims to keep good usable items from going into the landfill and provide a space for proper creative reuse, resource conservation, creativity, inspiration and community engagement through art. 

Our goal is to open a storefront where we sell donated reusable art supplies and materials, as well as offering classes and workshops. This will provide the community with a space to donate usable items, volunteer, get educated and help artists and the art community.

For our project, we use a place-based educational model to create a series of activities designed to localize climate change impacts for university students enrolled in an upper division ecology course. These activities use the lens of the 2020 Cameron Peak fire to explore:

1. How fire patterns have changed with climate change

2. The impacts of fire on local ecosystems and society

3. How models can inform restoration to create more resilient ecosystems

Our project also seeks to promote hope in students regarding actions to mitigate climate change impacts. Students have an opportunity to visit restoration sites to participate in active restoration through tree planting and water quality measurement. Our activity allows students to interact with real data to explore how ecosystem managers in CO restore local natural areas impacted by fire to be resilient to future climate shifts. Allowing students to actively engage with climate change data and restoration of local areas promotes social resilience in our students.

Our goal is to inform members of UNC on campus about Earth Day by spreading around brochures made to highlight sustainable practices and what you can do yourself to help support our planet this Earth Day!

Information included in the brochure: 

• Survey

• Sustainable action items

• Organizations and Websites to Connect with

• Translated for more people to read! 

There is a lack of factual information around the SUPs Pollution Crisis and its role in Climate Changed. We are aware of the climate effects caused by greenhouse gas emissions created throughout the life cycle of single use plastics. We understand that under-resourced populations are the most affected by climate change, and often do not have information that is shared through typical channels about the impacts of climate and the health impact they may experience from plastic pollution. We want to educate folks about the problems related to SUP’s and how they can help. 

Recycling is part of the solution to the climate crisis. But many people do not know how and what to recycle. For recycling to work, it must be done right. Once people are educated about the poor health and environmental effects of SUPs and are given information about reuse and recycling, they can be leaders in their own homes, families, neighborhoods, churches, etc. regarding these issues.

The purpose of our project is to provide additional information and resources to citizens, and engage those who attend our presentations. We provide actions, both big and small, that we encourage people to do.

Human-caused climate change is inexorably and radically altering environments on which societies depend for their survival. As this is a global phenomenon impacting and being impacted by a myriad of interdependent political, economic, cultural, and ecological systems, there is no global “fix” or set of fixes; significant local-level cultural innovations and societal and individual adaptation and resilience must be fostered and promulgated. Therefore, facilitating student learning around how not only to survive, but also to thrive as integral and engaged members of local climate change-impacted communities should be one of our top priorities as educators and national and global citizens. 

Our project’s purpose is to incorporate a local community-based educational case study into our curriculum that emphasizes principles of climate resilience, cultural innovation, and adaptation.

Goals 

1. Develop a case study that incorporates, e.g., cultural storytelling, outdoor learning, and/or food/medicine sovereignty into resilience practices. 

2. Foster student engagement through experiential learning with BIPOC community partners and the Land.

3. Support students’ cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal development as they address “wicked problems” like climate change. 

4. Integrate principles of land stewardship, ecological balance, and cultural healing into the curriculum. 

There is a need for more data on how monocropping and transportation time have decreased the nutrient levels in fruits and vegetables. Additionally, more data are needed on the environmental impact of shipping fruits and vegetables (wear and tear on tires, vehicles, roads, as well as gas consumption, etc), plus the environmental impacts of using pesticides and animal food resources (feedlots compared to regenerative farming).
The purpose of this project is to share this information with the math 120 (Liberal Arts Math) course at UNC, which has a unit discussing how our food impacts our health and yet as a nation we are getting sicker.  We all have the right to good health, which means we need to look at true factual information about how whole foods are really impacting our health and environment and how that compares to processed foods.  Our plan is to look at resources found in the book “The Great Plant-Based Con” and find ways to bring the data/information into the classroom.

Research shows a lack of resources for teaching the chemistry of climate change. Despite being a highly valued topic among chemistry faculty, most respondents to a national survey taught climate change tangentially or not at all. Thus there is need to both collect resources for teaching the chemistry of climate change and to practice implementing it in courses. The purpose of this project is to collect resources for teaching the chemistry of climate change and better incorporate the chemistry of climate change in our courses. 

In this project: 

1. Outline where the chemistry of climate change is currently being taught in our courses.

2. Identify a resource that could help with the teaching the chemistry of climate change in our courses (main courses we teach are: general chemistry, environmental chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry)  

3. Implement something in our courses this semester about the chemistry of climate change.

4. Partner with related speakers by bringing them into our courses. 

Green Up Greeley is a new student organization dedicated to keeping the Greeley and UNC communities clean and trash-free. 

Green Up Greeley is dedicated to cleaning up our community and making Greeley a cleaner, healthier, and more welcoming place for everyone. Through organized trash cleanups and community beautification efforts, we aim to reduce litter, protect local environments, and foster a sense of pride in our city.

By working together, we can improve public spaces, create a safer and more enjoyable environment, and inspire others to take action. Every small effort adds up—let’s clean up Greeley, one piece of trash at a time!