By Nicole Lightfoot, Senior, Long Term Care Administration, and
Emily Dehner, Senior, Psychology
While visiting Swansea University, the staff educated our class on the useful sustainable resources they use on their campus. What we found to be most interesting is that the University offers a program for students who attend Swansea, allowing them to give back to the community and achieve a goal at the same time. The students can achieve a silver, bronze, gold and excellence award that is put on their transcript along with their resume. In order to achieve this award, the students must meet up to pick up trash around the campus and the bay, conserve energy around campus, and participate in many other sustainability efforts.
UNI students were able to participate in this activity with a few students from the sustainable program by helping with trash pick-up. We walked along the bay for a good 30 minutes, cleaning up the bay to prevent harm to our environment and wild life that lives within the sea.
Today was eye opening to our class as most of us did not know how important it is to recycle. We have been told by our teachers, parents, friends, etc. that recycling is good for our community and environment, but most of us never knew why it is important. We believe we need to take recycling seriously and make a change on our campus at UNI.
It is our responsibility to educate the rest of our students on campus and teach them what we were taught while visiting Swansea University. Sustainability, especially recycling, can only improve UNI by cutting costs, giving back to our community, and ensuring our environment is being taken care of for all of our future panthers.
