Sarah D'Alexander

Elevating Mason’s Green Studio with the Patriot Green Fund

Lauren Reuscher — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 13:48:34 +0000

Elevating Mason’s Green Studio with the Patriot Green Fund Lauren Reuscher Wed, 09/13/2023 - 09:48

The Green Studio, located on ��ӽ紫ý’s Fairfax Campus, is a permaculture garden, outdoor studio, and lab space dedicated to hosting ecological art and design projects by students from across the arts and sciences. Founded in 2010 by Mark Cooley, associate professor in Mason’s School of Art, the Green Studio has been home to numerous projects over the years.

Jennifer Ashworth, manager of the Green Studio, wanted to elevate the space in preparation for more student projects in the future. She applied for funding through University Sustainability’s Patriot Green Fund and was granted financial support to revamp the garden in preparation for the new academic year.

Photo by Audrey Kwayke/Mason Facilities

In May 2023, the Patriot Green Fund Committee, which includes students, faculty, and staff, approved Ashworth’s application and awarded $1,200 toward the acquisition of new soil and plants for the garden.

An overarching goal of the project was to support the garden as a thriving ecosystem and sanctuary for native wildlife. Ashworth, who joined Mason in 2022, selected native species that would combat overgrowth and facilitate maintenance of the space, while also crafting a visually appealing garden.

Photo by Audrey Kwayke/Mason Facilities

Beyond the immediate benefits, Ashworth has a long-term plan for the garden. She envisions it as a living, learning laboratory for educational workshops and projects. By collaborating with campus classes in the arts, environmental studies, and civil engineering, she wants to create opportunities for students to engage in hands-on learning experiences and develop a deeper understanding of the ecosystem and sustainable practices.

^{I’m excited for the next generation of students to explore the Green Studio," Ashworth said. "It’s their space—an open studio space for research, experimentation, expression, or just a space to absorb. It’s wild and beautiful and worth discovering.”}

Photo by Audrey Kwayke/Mason Facilities

To get involved and volunteer in the Green Studio, visit University Sustainability’s volunteer portal or reach out to Jenn Ashworth.

Individuals with innovative ideas to further enhance sustainability at Mason are encouraged to apply for funding through the Patriot Green Fund.

Sustainability at Mason

Explore the Patriot Green Fund

In This Story

Mark Cooley

Topics

Mason as a Living Lab

Sustainability

Office of Sustainability

School of Art

Facilities

Campus News

Revamping Recycling at the Center for the Arts

Lauren Reuscher — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 13:40:36 +0000

Revamping Recycling at the Center for the Arts Lauren Reuscher Wed, 09/13/2023 - 09:40

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The Center for the Arts on ��ӽ紫ý’s Fairfax Campus has revamped its zero-waste infrastructure, thanks to the support of University Sustainability's Patriot Green Fund.

Sleek new waste and recycling stations at the performing arts venue will improve Mason’s waste diversion rate, helping to reach Mason's goal of diverting at least 90% of waste from the trash.

Digital event programs are readily available for patrons at the Center for the Arts (CFA), but the need for paper programs and their subsequent recycling still exists. Maura Glascock, CFA production coordinator, recognized the potential for increased waste diversion and spearheaded the effort to enhance the zero-waste infrastructure.

Photo by Mason Facilities

Glascock applied for funding through the Patriot Green Fund and awarded $17,500 in May 2023 toward the acquisition of new waste stations.

The Patriot Green Fund is a $100,000-per-year sustainability fund provided by Mason Facilities to make Mason’s campuses more sustainable through infrastructure improvements and student research projects. Funding decisions are made by the Patriot Green Fund Committee, which includes students, faculty, and staff.

The Center for the Arts team collaborated with staff from University Sustainability—Colleen Regan, zero waste specialist, and Amber Saxton, program manager for campus efficiency—to ensure the project was a success. They also sought the expertise of Kevin Brim, supervisor for recycling and waste management with Facilities Management.

The group identified the most effective layout for recycling and trash stations, ensuring proper lid openings and other design standards were included to discourage contamination. The team also prioritized the aesthetics of the design and selected stainless steel bins, ensuring their recyclability at the end of their long lifespan, which is estimated to be 20+ years.

“CFA’s installation aligns with current efforts to improve zero-waste design standards and guidelines across the university,” Regan said. “Co-locating waste streams and standardizing the appearance of bins through consistent labeling and color coding are all key design improvements for increasing access to recycling.”

Learn how to dispose of waste appropriately to make Mason even more sustainable.

Individuals with innovative ideas to further enhance sustainability at Mason are encouraged to apply for funding through the Patriot Green Fund.

Topics

Patriot Green Fund

Center for the Arts

Sustainability

Office of Sustainability

Campus News

Budding scientist monitors Mason’s iconic cherry blossoms

Colleen Rich — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 17:39:03 +0000

Budding scientist monitors Mason’s iconic cherry blossoms Colleen Rich Mon, 03/27/2023 - 13:39

In This Story

David Kepplinger

Jonathan L. Auerbach

Over the last year, ��ӽ紫ý graduate student Jamie Roth has been leading an interdisciplinary research project alongside faculty members in biology and statistics.

Mason's cherry blossom monitoring team (from left) includes Jonathan Auerbach, Jamie Roth, David Kepplinger, and Daniel Hanley. Photo by Genamarie McCant/Mason Facilities

Roth designed this project as a long-term opportunity to teach Mason students to collect, process, analyze, and communicate about data using resources available on campus. The long-term data will reflect how Mason’s local ecosystem responds to the effects of climate change and create a visible marker for an otherwise invisible impact.

By having Mason statistics students collect and analyze data on the bloom date of the cherry blossom trees at Mason Pond, as a part of their coursework in STAT 490 Capstone in Statistics and STAT 634 Case Studies in Data Analysis, and integrating it with Mason’s local meteorological data, variations can be tracked over time to build a more accurate model for the bloom date of the cherry blossom trees at Mason.

To implement this project, Roth received funding from Office of University Sustainability’s Patriot Green Fund, a grant from Mason Facilities that allows the campus community to develop infrastructure solutions that reduce Mason’s environmental impact as well as support student research projects that explore sustainability topics in the region.

Trail cameras and a weather station monitor the campus cherry blossoms over time. Photo by Genamarie McCant/Mason Facilities

With this support, the project team, which includes faculty members Jonathan Auerbach and David Kepplinger in the Department of Statistics and Daniel Hanley in the Biology Department, worked collaboratively with Mason Facilities Project Manager Nick Valadez to determine the best locations to mount trail cameras and a weather station in order to monitor the cherry blossoms over time. This was key to the project because even a minor variation in the microclimate can affect phenological events, like bloom times. Once that information was determined, Abu Monjer, a project manager in Facilities Management, supported the installations in time for the project to launch for this year’s blooms.

“This project has been a great opportunity for me to tie together local climate data to the flora on the Mason [Fairfax] Campus and hopefully lay groundwork for future environmental projects,” said Roth, who is majoring in biostatistics.

This research builds on the international Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition, which Auerbach and Kepplinger help organize. This competition assembles data on the peak bloom date of cherry trees all over the world, from Kyoto, Japan, to Vancouver, British Columbia, and this project will bring Mason into this global arena, ensuring our ecosystem is represented.

This initiative is a pilot project for the Institute for a Sustainable Earth’s Mason Living Labs Initiative, which is designed to encourage and support students, faculty, and staff to pose questions, experiment, gather data, monitor changes, and propose novel solutions to a range of sustainability challenges associated with the university’s campus environments and its socio-environmental systems. Learn more about the Living Labs initiative and the Cherry Blossom Monitoring project during the virtual event launch on April 12, 2023, at 2 p.m.

Topics

cherry blossoms

Research

Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE)

Facilities

Sustainability

Mason Living Labs Initiative

CEC faculty research

Art studio introduces environmentally friendly printing

Colleen Rich — Fri, 06 May 2022 16:11:27 +0000

Art studio introduces environmentally friendly printing Colleen Rich Fri, 05/06/2022 - 12:11

The new Risograph printer uses 95% less energy than a photocopier. Photo provided

��ӽ紫ý’s Print and Book Arts Studio is repositioning its practices and curriculum toward an environmentally friendly and sustainable future.

Christopher Kardambikis, assistant professor and director of printmaking and book arts in Mason’s School of Art, was determined to pivot and focus his operations and curriculum on printmaking processes that are nontoxic, energy efficient, and supportive of the repurposing of paper scraps into new usable sheets.

In Fall 2022, Kardambikis was awarded $20,000 from the Office of Sustainability’s Patriot Green Fund—a grant program in Mason Facilities that allows the campus community to contribute to solutions that reduce Mason’s environmental impact—to purchase of a new Risograph printer to help fulfill his sustainability mission. This machine uses a stencil-based and single-color printing process, which prepares students for commercial printing applications. It is ENERGY STAR certified and uses 95% less energy than photocopiers. It also does not produce greenhouse gases or any air pollutants.

New papermaking tools are helping students recycle all paper used in the class. Photo provided

"The Sustainable Print Studio has been working to bring student publications to the center of our work and our curriculum,” said Kardambikis. “It's exciting to provide the Risograph machine as a tool for our students to print and distribute their own comics, zines, books, and prints. It's even better to know that they are using a process that is environmentally clean and responsible.”

In addition, the Patriot Green Fund also purchased new moulds and deckles for the studio, which are used for papermaking. This allows students to learn about the processes of creating new sheets of paper from a blended pulp of leftover paper scraps in a hands-on environment. The Print Studio holds weekly papermaking sessions to recycle old prints and previously used paper into fresh new sheets to be used during class.

“Our studio is building a full life cycle of materials—with students participating in every step of production to transform refuse materials into finely crafted books and comics,” said Kardambikis.

By making their own paper, the studio can recycle all paper used in the class to keep a constant supply of new hand-formed paper available for fine art printing. The class-made paper also reduces the cost of printmaking for students, which can be a large expense in screen printing and wood block printing.

Flyer cartoon by Mason student Sylvia Rossi

Kardambikis also said that enabling the students to be directly involved in the production of materials that can be used by the entire class helps build a sense of community.

These tools have been promptly used this semester in a new course, AVT 496 Dynamic Publishing: Comics Production. This class provides opportunities for students to learn from D.C.-based cartoonist Adam Griffiths.

The Risograph will support the production of Griffiths’ new graphic novel, which will be designed, printed, and distributed by the students in the course. In addition, students have the chance to get feedback from Griffiths on their own comics.

Topics

New trees will support campus pollinators

Colleen Rich — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 13:06:08 +0000

New trees will support campus pollinators Colleen Rich Mon, 04/25/2022 - 09:06

Student volunteers plant American Persimmon trees near the Roberts House pollinator garden. Photo provided

This spring a small team of ��ӽ紫ý students used the Patriot Green Fund to enhance the diversity of the university’s Honey Bee Pollinator Garden. This garden, which sits outside of Roberts House on the Mason’s Fairfax Campus, serves as a biodiverse pollinator haven for the bees currently residing nearby in one of the Honey Bee Initiative’s apiaries.

On April 8, the student volunteers assisted in planting three American Persimmon trees. The trees are the new additions to the Mason Arboretum, a nationally accredited collection of trees and woody plants. Once the trees reach maturity, they will have vibrant blossoms in the spring and, with the help of the pollinators, will produce edible fruit in the fall.

The garden is supported by the Office of Sustainability’s Greenhouse and Gardens Program and Facilities Management’s Grounds Department. The trees, supplies, and coordination for this planting event were donated by Facilities Management.

From left, student volunteers Adam Radwick, Aiden Wells, Erich Miller, Derrick Wallis, Ethan Mercado, and Matthew McConnell. Bottom row from left, Mason professor Andrea Weeks, Marin Hull, Allanah Brathwaite, and Subihi Setiwaldi. Photo provided

“Student and community planting events such as this are crucial to our programming here at Mason, as they ensure our responsibility to provide continued education, awareness, and stewardship of our natural environment,” said Erich Miller, certified arborist and Facilities Management grounds program manager. “We hope that the skills and information passed on to the students will resonate, not only here on our campus grounds, but wherever their paths may lead.”

“Attending the planting allowed me to experience what it must have been like to plant the rest of the trees on campus that are registered within the Arboretum," said environmental science major Aiden Wells. "It was an enjoyable perspective to have, and granted me an even greater appreciation for the variety of plants we have on our campus."

Trees highlighted in the Mason Arboretum are labeled with signs that include scannable barcodes to its online catalogue.

Interested community members can support future tree planting events at Mason by donating or volunteering to help. Learn more by contacting arbor@gmu.edu.