Community

The Realities of Reaching Net Zero: An Ann Arbor Story

View of Ann Arbor looking down Liberty Street toward the Michigan and State theaters.

The Mission: Last year, I had only heard brief mentions of the 2030 District. I was working with Ann Arbor Public Schools on a project through the Graham Sustainability Scholars, where another student group was working with the 2030 District. When the program presented an opportunity to intern for them, I learned the 2030 District is a nonprofit striving to … Read More

Changing the World Starts with Changing My Life: Lessons from Salmon, Black Walnut, and Song Sparrow

CLC Fellows looking at the fish pass in Traverse City

This writing departs from my usual approach. Typically, I focus on the technical aspects of my professional experiences and the broader implications. I think about changing the world and transforming disadvantaged communities. I consider how impressive my resume looks and what it means for my career—all the potential BIG things. However, in doing so, I realized I was overlooking the … Read More

Student Org Swag: Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

It goes by many different terms, “Swag,” “Merch,” and “Promos” to name a few, but no matter what you might call it, promotional material given out by organizations across the world, or swag as I will call it in this blog post, has established itself into a global industry. Swag is one of the most popular methods of showing our … Read More

Rolling into Summer: A Week of Getting Back to Bike Riding

Although I love to bike, winter riding isn’t super easy for me with my bike’s tires, the streets I need to traverse, and having to store my bike in my third floor apartment over break. That’s why I get super excited when March rolls around! In Michigan, the month doesn’t translate to warm temperatures by any means, but with less … Read More

What is Climate Resilience?

Climate Resiliency in its simplest form is adapting to climate change. This is such a vague definition, though, that I think bringing this term closer to home helps me, at least, think about what climate resilience can look like. Michigan, a place that a lot of us Wolverines call home and know well, specializes in variable temperatures and weather conditions. … Read More

Charting Our Impact: Planet Blue Ambassadors by School and College

As the manger of the Planet Blue Ambassador program, I always get excited when I see growth in the number of Planet Blue Ambassadors across campus each year—across all three U-M campuses. Back when I started in this role in 2018, I remember the student interns who I was supervising at the time being really excited that we had just … Read More

An Interview with U-M Senior Vic Fong, Returnables Shelves Project Lead

I tend to think of myself as someone who’s in-the-know when it comes to sustainability efforts going on across U-M, but one project I had, up until recently, not known much about is the effort to pilot returnables shelves on landfill bins. I had seen the shelves popping up in a few different locations across Central Campus and wanted to … Read More

New to Planet Blue? Tips on finding the student org that’s right for you

Grace, Harrison, and Astrid smile for the camera.

Have you ever found yourself wanting to engage in the sustainability community on campus but struggling to navigate the different student organizations? Let’s face it, finding a sustainability organization is hard sometimes! It can be confusing and overwhelming, especially since we have more than 122 organizations tagged as “environmental” on Maize Pages. The three of us have reflected that when … Read More

How a campus Electrician creates UM-Dearborn’s very own Discovery Channel

Jeremie McCoy does more than being a Master Electrician at the University of Michigan-Dearborn–although that in itself is no small feat. In his spare time, he also records underwater footage from the Environmental Interpretive Center’s frog pond of the amphibians that live below the surface.  Jeremie explained, “growing up I’ve always liked watching National Geographic and Discovery Channel” so he … Read More

Sustainability Tips for Incoming Students

New school year, new tips! We’ve refreshed the information below for the 2024-2025 school year. Welcome Wolverines! Over the next month or two, thousands of new students, both undergraduate and graduate, will be preparing to start their first semester at the University of Michigan. Picking classes, completing required orientation materials, figuring out financial aid and housing, moving, meeting new classmates … Read More