Environmental Justice Projects

Island Justice Fellows Program II

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 program supports a team of graduate and undergraduate students to address multiple gaps on the UC Berkeley campus: (1) the lack of institutional support for scholarship on the PI region...

Amplifying Sanctuary Voices: Climate Migration and Environmental Justice

Project Description

Amplifying Sanctuary Voices (ASV) is a storytelling project centered around migrant communities in the Bay Area. We believe that informed public discourse on immigration and climate change that centers the people whose lives are most affected is essential to promoting empathy, connected communities, and civic participation. ASV uses arts-based, trauma-informed methods to promote resiliency and healing for narrators and shares stories of migration to promote action for more fair immigration policies.

Project Links

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Housing and Dining Sustainability Advocates (HADSA) Covid Relief

Project Description

For the last several years, HADSA was funded directly by the RSSP department through housing contracts and meal plans. With reduced occupancy in the resident halls this year caused by the COVID pandemic, HADSA was cut from 11 funded positions to 1 funded position. Although RSSP expects to make a full recovery as the pandemic subsides, TGIF funding for five positions in the 2021- 2022 fiscal year would help HADSA continue providing much-needed outreach and sustainability initiatives for the housing & dining department. These positions are especially critical at...

Latinxs in their Element

Project Description

Latinx in their Element will be a project funding eight (8) student fellows to conduct environmental research projects during the academic year. This project was created with the

intention of supporting students as they explore the field of environmental sciences and guiding them in doing research on a specific element they are interested in. We will be hosting a series of workshops in order for research fellows to gain an understanding of the elements prior to conducting their own research. L&E has the intention of offering students...

Heated and cooled chairs for comfort

Project Description

Demonstrate the comfort effects of heated/cooled chairs for UCB students, and also their energy benefit, in a total of three campus buildings. The goal is to encourage campus-wide adoption of PCS. The approach is: 1) design and fabricate 10 battery-powered heating/cooling cassettes that attach to chairs on UCB’s purchase list; 2) demonstrate comfort effects for students in a library and a common room in a dorm; 3) quantify the HVAC energy savings potential in one open-plan office space.

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Summer Agroecology and Sustainability

Project Description

This project seeks to maintain the functionality of Berkeley Student Farms during the upcoming summer, when we expect volunteer numbers to decrease and gardens to be left unattended; last summer we averaged 3 volunteers per workday compared to 62 in the fall. Through the support of TGIF, BSF aims to hire 5 summer Garden Managers who will continue the essential farm work needed to maintain critical garden operations: growing organic produce, leading student volunteers, coordinating food donations, and maintaining our compost systems, as well as renovating our...

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,...

UC Berkeley COP 27 Delegation

Project Description

We propose to bring a cohort of 10 students and 2 staff or faculty members to participate in the COP 27 as representatives of UC Berkeley. SERC would like to give an opportunity to those actively working at the intersections of race, identity, class, ability, and the environment, and will support students who may not have had opportunities to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime global conference for free (prioritization will be for low-income students, students of color, and other marginalized and underrepresented students).

Project Links...

Food Relatives Conference by the Food Institute Graduate Council

Project Description

By bridging academics, community leaders, consumers, and other vital actors within our food system, FIGC seeks to reinforce the goal of the Berkeley Food Institute (BFI): to understand and transform food systems in a cross-disciplinary manner in order to build a more resilient and equitable future within and beyond academic institutions. In 2022, FIGC ran a free-to the-public hybrid 2022 Conference, “Food Relatives: Decolonizing and Indigenizing the Global Food System” to connect scholars, community members, artists, and policy makers through varying...

Putting the "Campus" in Campus Grocery: The Food Collective as a Full-Service Grocery in the Student Union

Project Description

The Collective serves over ten thousand student patrons each year with affordable, healthy, sustainable and local foods from minority vendors and farmers — including over 150 weekly student member-volunteers each semester — out of a small space never intended for food service with a highly-limited but functional grocery selection. We're returning to the Green Initiative Fund — the single most significant funder in building the Collective's skill sets and capacity over the past 12 years — to support us in fulfilling the longtime student vision for a dedicated...