Join Notre Dame to be the best university for this year's #LeaveNoTrash University Challenge! From April 19 through 25, Notre Dame will compete against Colorado State University and North Carolina State to pick up and record the most trash. The school with the most trash picked up will win prizes from Leave No Trace and All Trails! To partake in the project, the process is simple: Join the CitSci project by creating an account on Citsci.org or download the Leave No Trace app. Join the University of Notre Dame project.Pick up some trash as you walk around the campus or your neighborhood. Any amount of trash, whether it is a couple of pieces or a trash bag full, makes a difference and counts toward the total challenge.Record your cleanup using CitSci. No matter how big or small, tell us the amount of trash and type to help us understand how we can better minimize waste on campus. Win prizes! 

Join us on April 25th to learn from sustainable agriculture experts from Lundberg Family Farms. Afterward, Lundberg will be visiting the South Dining Hall for dinner service, where the winners of Irish Chef will be presenting their dish featuring Lundberg brown rice. Don't miss this opportunity to engage with leaders in sustainable farming! Read about Lundberg's sustainable practices here.  Distinguished for their genuine flavors, Lundberg Family Farms Rice supports its labeling and sustainable assertions with concrete actions. In their quest for biodiversity, Lundberg Family Farms embraces the role of stewardship by flooding a large portion of their fields to mimic their region’s once abundant wetlands, 95% of which have disappeared due to development. Through this process, their fields become sanctuaries for an array of species including ducks, geese, swans, sandhill cranes, shorebirds, and other waterfowl who depend on California rice fields for 60% of their nutrition as well as a place to nest as they continue to travel through the Pacific Flyway. As these birds fly away, water is returned to the rivers and streams, where zooplankton (or fish food!) that propagated on the fields nourishes endangered salmon species. Lundberg’s fields of winter cover crops also provide nesting habitat for ducks. Therefore, before they prep the fields for rice planting in the spring, Lundberg checks to see if ducks have nested. If so, they partner with California Waterfowl Association to rescue the eggs by hand, saving them from the tractor’s path. These eggs are then taken to local hatcheries, where they are incubated, hatched, raised to about five weeks of age, and released into the wild. Since 1993, Lundberg has helped rescue more than 30,000 duck eggs, a testament to the company's unwavering commitment to caring for the land and the creatures that live on it. This holistic approach to agriculture is an embodiment of the symbiotic relationship between humanity and nature, painting a picture of responsible land stewardship. 

Join the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences for its Spring 2024 Challenges and Innovation Seminar Series, featuring Elizabeth Holzenthal '15, Research Civil Engineer, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Research and Development Center, Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory. Abstract More than 40% of the population of the United States lives in a coastal county, despite occupying only 10% of the nation’s land mass (coast.noaa.gov). Additionally, coastal recreation, fisheries, shipping, and other industries generate $9.5T annually. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is tasked with developing innovative and sustainable strategies to protect coastal communities, ecosystems, and their many services from climate change impacts.  This talk will provide an overview of active research conducted by the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Coastal and Hydraulic Laboratory (CHL) to support project-level decisions across the nation’s waterways. Two case studies will be presented demonstrating CHL research in navigation and flood risk management mission spaces. In the first, an estuarine scale numerical model is used to quantify how various channel dredging and deepening activities can impact water quality and sediment transport pathways. In the second focusing on coastal beach hazards, the tradeoffs in computational accuracy and speed of various numerical models are discussed.BiographyDr. Elizabeth Holzenthal is a research civil engineer at the USACE Engineer Research Center (ERDC) Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL) in Vicksburg, MS. At CHL, she works on the development of hydrodynamic models of coastal estuaries, inlets, and beaches, with a particular focus on processes that drive sediment transport. She earned her doctoral degree in civil engineering at Oregon State University in where she conducted research on eco-hydrodynamic feedback between waves, currents, and submerged aquatic vegetation in laboratory and numerical studies. Dr. Holzenthal is a graduate of the ND CEEES program (class of 2015) with a B.S. in civil engineering with an environmental concentration.   Originally published at energy.nd.edu.

Reducing food waste is currently rated as the #1 way to mitigate the climate crisis. In the U.S. alone, nearly 40% of food is wasted at the consumer level, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, wasted resources, and keeping food-insecure people hungry. Notre Dame International, Student Government, and Sustainability are encouraging the ND family from every corner of the world to participate in a service event in honor of Earth Week to help mitigate food waste. This service can be in whatever capacity is a viable option for you. Some sample actions include:Participating in the canned food drive in Dublin April 22-26 or donating unwanted food to your local food pantry Volunteering at Cultivate in South Bend on April 23 or volunteering at a local food rescue near you Starting an at-home composting program Participate in a Waste 'n Weigh event in the Dining Halls Make a plan and pledge to reduce your food waste at home The possibilities are endless for you to make an impact on our food systems. If you're planning a service event for Global Day of Action, be sure to let us know and gain participation! If you can't participate on April 27, feel free to provide an act of service in anticipation of the Global Day of Action. Whatever you decide to do, be sure to tag @NDInternational and @SustainableND on Instagram with #NDEarthWeek.

Join the Office of Sustainability for a walk around campus to experience the beauty of Notre Dame. Participants will learn about some of the sustainability initiatives and investments happening at the University that may otherwise go unseen! Only 20 spots are available, so don't wait to sign up! Register here for the tour.This event is open to the public and will be weather permitting. Please be prepared to wear comfortable shoes and clothes for walking. Unable to attend the tour in person? Experience it virtually.

Reducing food waste is currently rated as the #1 way to mitigate the climate crisis. In the U.S. alone, nearly 40% of food is wasted at the consumer level, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, wasted resources, and keeping food-insecure people hungry. Notre Dame International, Student Government, and Sustainability are encouraging the ND family from every corner of the world to participate in a service event in honor of Earth Week to help mitigate food waste. This service can be in whatever capacity is a viable option for you. Some sample actions include:Participating in the canned food drive in Dublin April 22-26 or donating unwanted food to your local food pantry Volunteering at Cultivate in South Bend on April 23 or volunteering at a local food rescue near you Starting an at-home composting program Participate in a Waste 'n Weigh event in the Dining Halls Make a plan and pledge to reduce your food waste at home The possibilities are endless for you to make an impact on our food systems. If you're planning a service event for Global Day of Action, be sure to let us know and gain participation! If you can't participate on April 27, feel free to provide an act of service in anticipation of the Global Day of Action. Whatever you decide to do, be sure to tag @NDInternational and @SustainableND on Instagram with #NDEarthWeek.