Environmental Justice Projects

Diasporic Foods Conference 2024

Project Description

Food Institute Graduate Council seeks funds to support a food systems conference that connects the community to various scholars, artists, policymakers to engage in discussions around diasporic food practices. This free-to-all conference hopes to highlight underrepresented narratives and share traditional growing practices that have migrated across the world.

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Building Student Capacity at the UC Gill Tract Community Farm

Project Description

“Building Student Capacity at the UC Gill Tract Community Farm'' is a partnership between the UC Gill Tract Community Farm and the Food Institute Graduate Council. The project will establish an undergraduate internship program facilitated by graduate students and Gill Tract Farmers to increase campus engagement with the Farm. The project will strengthen the UC Berkeley community's role in the local food system as both contributors to urban farming and consumers of local food by promoting volunteering at the Farm and utilizing the Farm's farm stand. Building...

Queer Indigenous Speaker Series

Project Description

Over the 2024-2025 academic year, the Queer Indigenous Speakers Series will explore the intersection of indigeneity and queerness to challenge and expand our concepts around activism, sustainability, identity, and sovereignty. Through a series of talks and workshops, indigenous activists and scholars from the Bay Area and beyond will work with students to explore the historical constructions of our current conceptions around selfhood and nature, and understand how these seemingly disparate categories might be more closely entwined than we think. Ultimately, this...

Cultivating Equity for a Just Future (CEJF): Empowering Latinx Students Through Sustainable Research

Project Description

The Latinxs and the Environment Initiative (LEI) is launching the CEJF Project, a year-long program intended to promote sustainability and environmental justice research to BIPOC students on campus through educational workshops and presentations and provide a paid summer research opportunity for undergraduate Latinx/BIPOC students at UC Berkeley to receive hands-on experience with faculty and graduate student researchers conducting research about sustainability and environmental justice. This project will relieve students of financial burdens for summer housing,...

SMART for Campus Construction

Project Description

The SMART (Sustainable Monitoring with Advanced Remote Techniques for Campus Construction) project is dedicated to addressing environmental challenges resulting from intensive construction on the Berkeley campus. Through the utilization of cutting-edge additive manufacturing and intelligent sensing techniques, the project aims to markedly mitigate issues like dust pollution and noise impact, empowering the construction team with effective management and mitigation strategies. This initiative will ultimately advance sustainability efforts on campus by developing a...

Building Diverse Coalitions for a Just Energy Transition: BERC 2025 Energy Summit and Case Competition

Project Description

The Energy Summit, held each spring, is the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative’s (BERC’s) flagship event, a conference that for nearly 20 years has fostered dialogue and collaboration among students and professionals advancing the clean energy transition. The 2025 Summit – entitled “Building Diverse Coalitions for a Just Energy Transition” – will feature panels with experts from government, private sector, and advocacy groups; an expo for graduate students’ climate research; a career fair with private, public, and non-profit organizations; and workshops...

SERC NEWT Peaks of the Bay

Project Description

The Peaks of the Bay program’s goal is to introduce and connect the UC Berkeley community to the beautiful mountains of the Bay Area. Within an academic year, SERC NEWT would provide a free and accessible experience to four iconic mountains in the Bay Area, including one overnight trip. Our trips focus on merging fun outdoor movement with environmental justice education and healing, and will be especially catered to those with limited outdoor experiences. Through skilled facilitation, we want to provide students with a safe, enjoyable, and memorable outdoor...

BIPOC Earth Day Festival: Celebrating 10 Years of SCEC

Project Description

In Spring 2025, it will have been 10 years since the founding of the Students of Color Environmental Collective (SCEC), a campus student organization that has helped pave the way for environmental justice conversations on UC Berkeley’s campus. In celebration of this anniversary and in an effort to honor BIPOC voices and labor in the environmental movement, we intend to host a BIPOC Earth Day Festival. It will take place in Spring 2025 just a few days before Earth Day (likely August 19th, 2025) and will be a half-day outdoor event featuring guest speakers, eco-...

Island Justice Fellows Program at the Critical Pacific Island Studies Collective

Project Description

The Island Justice Fellows Program at the Critical Pacific Island Studies Collective (CPISC) enables UC Berkeley students to contribute to environmental justice practice, research, and campus community engagement opportunities concerning issues facing Pacific Islander (PI) communities, both residing in the Pacific Island region and in the diaspora in California. This year-long fellowship programs supports a team of graduate and undergraduate students to address multiple gaps on the UC Berkeley campus: (1) the lack of institutional support for...

Circularity

Project Description

Circularity fills this void by providing environmental justice learning materials for free -- centering accessibility and actionable steps towards incorporating EJ fundamentals into everyone’s work. In this way, campus organizations have access to readily available tools that move past basic education and engage all students on campus with concrete environmental justice organizing and action, allowing for collaboration that leads to impactful projects. We will provide this access through a free social app, recurring guides available for purchase, and a website,...