Theme: Environmental Justice

These projects emphasize the disproportionate impacts of environmental injustices on historically marginalized communities, the ways in which communities impacted by environmental injustices organize to protect their community's health and well-being, or otherwise education our campus community about environmental justice topics. 

Please note that not all Environmental Justice themed-projects may be funded as Environmental Justice projects. 

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...

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

...

Scholarships for Environmentalists of Color

Project Description

The Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) requests $36,000 to allocate 15 $2,000 scholarships for environmentalists of color over the course of 3 years that will serve to uplift students of color in the environmental field. We will ensure funding goes directly towards students and their specific requests to enable them to succeed while being a BIPOC student at UC Berkeley. Selected students will share reflections after receiving their scholarships, on how the additional funding supported them during the academic year....

SCEC Retention Events

Project Description

The SCEC Retention Events will provide direct resources related to self-care and professional development for our members through student-led workshops and guest presentations. Examples of potential projects include BIPOC Environmental Mixers where BIPOC students and faculty have space to form a community with people of shared interests, while also focusing on intersectionality and resource sharing. Other potential retention events include professional development workshops on graduate school applications, networking events, and professional...

THIMBY: Richmond Backyard Home

Project Description

Tiny House in My Backyard (THIMBY) is an interdisciplinary team of 27 UC Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students designing and constructing affordable, ecologically sustainable, tiny homes. THIMBY 3.0, the third home constructed by the THIMBY organization, will be piloting Richmond’s “Tiny House on Wheels Pilot Project” ordinance, which the team recently helped renew, by constructing and leasing an affordable, net-zero-energy 240 sq ft. house in the backyard of a predetermined single-family residence in Richmond. In collaboration with the City...

Community Climate Healing Circle

Project Description

The vision of Mobilize Berkeley is to lead an intergenerational citywide sustained mobilization towards stopping climate destruction and participating in a just transition toward sustainable, more equitable and healthier ways of living and working. SERC has been in partnership with Mobilize Berkeley for the last three years, and we hope to continue our partnership with them for many years to come. QTPOC students and community members organize and facilitate the circles. Within the Healing Circles QTPOC students' healing and voices are centered and...

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...

Community-engaged engineering: a partnership with the AB 617 community in Stockton

Project Description

We request $45,975 to hire student interns to sustain environmental justice work being done by Berkeley engineering students with the Stockton AB 617 community to improve local air quality and address climate change. The AB 617 community in Southwest Stockton, CA ranks in the top 5% of the most disadvantaged communities in California. It is ranked in the worst 1% for overall pollution burden, and in the worst 4% for asthma rates. In Spring 2021, I developed a new community engaged design class (CE 105 Design for Global Transformation) where we worked with...

ASUC Sustainable Campus Food System Designathon

Project Description

This designathon aims to empower students to share their voices on decisions about the campus food system, because it should be catered to their needs and values. The Pour Out Pepsi campaign pressures the UC Berkeley administration to end the exclusive pouring rights contract with PepsiCo due to its unsustainable and inequitable practices. There are currently discussions in the UCOP about establishing a UC system-wide exclusive pouring rights contract, likely with PepsiCo or Coca-Cola, demonstrating that they value profit over students. The food and beverage...

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...