Cool Campus

Talking about climate change on Saint John's and Saint Ben's campus this week has opened up some very cool and innovative ideas. It also made me realize how many sustainable practices we have in use already. When we looks at the Saint John's and Saint Ben's campuses it is easy to see that we are totally bought into the idea of sustainability and clean environments.  Having a solar farm on campus provides a great source of renewable energy for our campus and creates opportunity for more renewable energy resources to be integrated into both campus. Other sustainable projects that the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University have going on are reduced carbon dioxide emission goals, recycling/compost, greenhouses, gardens, and maybe most importantly climate science in our curriculum. I think there is a definite upside to sustainability implemented in higher education. The upside here is that the number of people who are receiving a high level of education is fairly high, making it a large target group. Next, people at this level of education and age are the most open minded at this point in their lives meaning that they will be more willing to accept and learn about new things such as climate science and climate change. At Saint John's and Saint Ben's I think there are a few other ways we can implement sustainability into our lives and campus. I think putting new hydration stations on parts of campuses that do not have them already have the possibility to save a lot of water that would otherwise be wasted. Another idea is to install new LED lighting that will use much less electricity than the old lights. Sustainability on campuses is something that needs to be more prominent around the nation and around the world.