Sustainability Fest Celebrates 6th Year
Over 300 guests attended the 2019 UH Sustainability Fest, held by the Office of Sustainability on Tuesday, April 16th, in Butler Plaza.
Celebrating its 6th year, guests engaged with over 30 vendors and partners on topics representing the full spectrum of sustainability from across the state of Texas. Attendees could watch live bees making honey in a glass hive, learn about Texas Central's quest for America's first bullet train, and hear the City of Houston's climate action plan, just to name a few of S. Fest's activities. Themed zones of the event included energy, wellness, inclusion, the natural environment, and transportation to represent the systemic nature of university sustainability practices.
"It was a really great turn out!" said representatives from the City of Houston's Sustainability Office. "Really great to see so much energy at the event."
"I take notes, and it just keeps getting better every year!" Said one of the presenter's from NASA.
Sustainability in the news
A Sustainable Entry: Five UH Students Created an Art Car to Promote Sustainability
None of the students had ever been to the Houston Art Car Parade, but as it turned out, that wasn’t a problem. “I thought, ‘this is my thing,’” said Tygene Fox, who will graduate next month with an art degree. “I haven’t designed a car, but I’d like to.”
And so he and four other students set to work, chosen to design and build an art car as part of a project sponsored by CenterPoint Energy and organized by UH Energy. The team included students from the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design, the Cullen College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and the Katherine G. McGovern College of the Arts.
Help Houston-Galveston Area Council Improve their Report Card
Have you heard of the Houston-Galveston Area Council report card? Do you think report cards are effective in general? Help H-GAC, and the UH School of Policy know your thoughts by participating in the linked survey above! YOu can win a $50 Amazon gift card!
Fulbright Scholar's experience will enrich smart buildings research
Soumaya El Barrak, a doctoral student from the University of Abdelmalek Essaadi, National School of Applied Sciences of Tangier (ENSA-Tanger) in Morocco, is visiting the University of Houston College of Technology as a Fulbright Scholar. Her major field of study is telecommunications and networking engineering. The 12-month Fulbright program will allow her to deepen her knowledge in cognitive radio sensor networks for smart buildings. Her research project in the College of Technology focuses software-defined radio (SDR) and the collection of heterogeneous sensor data that will be used to determine how to improve energy efficiency in buildings.
TSoumaya's mentor is Dr. Driss Benhaddou, associate professor, computer engineering technology, computational health informatics, and network communications. They met during the US/Morocco Workshop on Sensors and Wireless Networks for Smart Cities in January 2016 and again in Rabat-Morocco during the International Conference on Smart Digital Environment (ICSDE'17). Benhaddou served as the principal investigator and organizing committee chair for the conference workshops.
Why You Should Start a Pocket Prairie in Your Yard
Summer is just around the corner, and the fear of having your perfectly trimmed lawn turn as yellow as an abandoned wheat field under Texas's scorching heat is likely looming overhead. But with lawn maintenance contributing to groundwater pollution, adding to the infernal din of leaf blowers on our city streets, and perhaps offering its own perils-hundreds of thousands of Americans are injured by lawn mowers each year-isn't it time to start thinking about your lawn in a new way?
Gabriel Durham, a sustainability coordinator at the University of Houston, certainly thinks so. Durham believes that prairie grass is the key to maintaining a more cost-efficient yard while also contributing positively to our flood-prone environment. But before you picture all our high-end neighborhoods and suburbs looking like wild grasslands, consider the benefits.
