RSO Sponsor

These projects were sponsored by a registered student organization

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...

Basins of Relations

Project Description

This project focuses on capturing roof rain water for the Convent house within the Berkeley
Student Cooperative (BSC). Each winter, 236,000 gallons of roof rainwater exits the property
entering the Berkeley Marina. This two-day workshop will redirect rainwater into rain gardens
and tanks to support 1) groundwater recharge 2) water tank storage during drought and 3) install
a perennial food gardens to mitigate local climate extremes by providing:
1. Microclimate: vegetative cover mitigating extreme heat,
2. Food Security: mediterranean perennial...

Apparatus for Continual Crop Supervision and Intervention in Hydroponic Vertical Farms

Project Description

Modern agriculture is highly inefficient, with traditional growing methods wasting resources as compared to methods like hydroponics. While hydroponics significantly improves efficiency with yield and water usage, it can still be highly laborious. In the case of strawberries for example, many new roles emerge such as pollination, pruning, and continual supervision. This project aims to solve these restricting issues by integrating computer models to offload a significant chunk of work to robots -- thereby improving the proposition hydroponics can offer. VFB has...

BioCleanse Waste Cooking Oil Purification and Pretreatment System

Project Description

The Biofuels Technology Club (BTC) is part of the College of Chemistry, and has a mission to help UC Berkeley achieve a zero-waste campus. By producing biodiesel from waste cooking oil generated by the campus dining halls, the club has a goal of eventually powering campus fleet vehicles with low-carbon, renewable fuel. While BTC is pursuing a high output production facility, initial treatment steps are required to purify the oil coming from the dining hall fryers so that the impurities do not interfere with the chemical conversion processes at our production...

Solar Motor Pumps

Project Description

The people of Bharog Baneri, a village in Himachal Pradesh, India, rely on several unreliable sources of freshwater. The nearest city to Bharog Baneri is located forty-five minutes away. Wells and handpumps in the village have dried out, while the government supplies limited amounts of water for the village. Unfortunately, these supplies of water can be very far from homes, some almost requiring some homes to walk over an hour up steep slopes to bring fresh water home. Due to climate change, Bharog Baneri has been experiencing more severe dry periods. It...

Healing Through Gardening

Project Description

Located at Lothlorien, one of the 17 Berkeley Student Cooperative houses, this project aims to foster healing connections between students and the land through a series of educational workshops and a habitat restoration project. This will be a collaborative project, involving the stakeholders (housemates) through every step of the process, emphasizing participatory design and knowledge sharing. The series of educational workshops will involve hands-on restoration, plant identification, medicinal plant uses, and creative archiving. Lothlorien houses 55 berkeley...

Incorporation of Waste Streams into Algal Bioethanol for Sustainable Energy on Campus

Project Description

For the past decade, the Biofuels Technology Club has been collecting waste cooking oil from campus dining halls to convert it into biodiesel. This process has significant pitfalls such as waste glycerol production and variable diesel quality. This project aims to solve these issues by using algal biomass as a secondary source for both biodiesel and bioethanol. The waste glycerol serves as nutrient-rich feedstock for the algae boosting intracellular lipid content that can be converted into diesel. The leftover algal biomass after lipid extraction can be further...

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...

BSC Garden Revitalization Plan

Project Description

The Berkeley Student Cooperatives (BSC) Garden Revitalization Plan seeks to materially support and educationally empower BSC’s student Garden Managers in stewarding over two acres of urban forest, vegetable gardens and backyard spaces enjoyed by 1,200+ BSC student residents. In order to cultivate native biodiversity, food sovereignty and build community, a "Garden Manager Hub'' including a greenhouse, seed library, and landscape materials center will be collectively constructed. Agency over plant procurement methods will remove major barriers to achieving Garden...

BERC Energy Symposium 2011

Project Description

Sponsor the 2011 UC Berkeley Energy Symposium, a clean energy conference.

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