First Meeting of the Fall Semester!

FIRST MEETING OF THE SEMESTER!

Hey everyone, summer is coming to end and it's time to kick-start our projects and plans for the new semester. We are having our first meeting for Fall this Wednesday (8/28) at 5:30 PM in PSRC105 (polymer science research center). If this time does not work for you please let me know, we are going to try and accommodate everyone the best we can. 
There will be food and drinks and we will be collecting dues (5$ per person). Please come and spread the word, all are welcome!

Much Needed Updates!

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry it has been so long since I have updated the group's happenings, I was so exhausted after Earth Week this year I kind of fell behind.  But I am happy to say Earth Week was AMAZING! The Sustainability Advocates were in the media three times that week. Our Mock Oil Spill was featured in the Hattiesburg American, the Conscious Living Information Station was covered by Channel 7 news and the story was shown that same night, and we were even mentioned on Southern Miss radio and in the Student Printz....we are AWESOME!  The Town Hall meeting was a huge success and the team from Teens Turning Green said it was the best turn out they had seen at all 17 schools the visited and that Southern Miss truly blew them away.  I am so proud and grateful to everyone who helped that week and made all of our events happened, it may sounds cheesy, but I think we are definitely making a difference and helping people become more aware about what sustainability is and how they can change their lives! Check out these pics from Earth Week....

Thanks to the Tornado....

So the tornado that recently hit Hattiesburg was a terrible thing.  Many people lost their homes and we lost so many trees!  For the last two months I have been seeing nothing by chopped up pine trees at the curb of almost every house in my neighborhood.  As I was examining one such pile the other day, I noticed how some of the stumps were so perfectly round and a good height to be a nice table or stand.  So I decided to take one.  It was incredibly heavy so I had to roll it down the street to my house.  But once I got it there I got to work!  The first thing I had to do was carve off all of the bark to get down to the fresh wood.  This was surprisingly easy and it felt good to carve at something......no joke, carving off that bark made me feel really good ( maybe I don't like trees as much as I thought I did!):

 Next, I knew I needed to apply some type of protective coating to the wood, so I went over to Lowes and the nice guys in the paint section helped me find some cheap, non-toxic coating.  I also found a way to re-use my orange juice bottle....perfect container for painting!

 Once I coated the wood I decided to paint it!  I got this paint from the "oops paint" at Lowes (only $10!)

Anyways, now I have a nice little stand to put my herb plants on!  I think these would also make great gifts!  The house down the street from me has about 100 more of these so I have my work cut out for me.  But I invite all my local hattiesburgians to go grab one of the thousands of tree stumps lying around from the tornado and make it into something useful! Good Luck!

Media Converage: PGC College Road Tour

Getting some publicity!!!


For the full article visit:
http://www.usm.edu/news/article/project-green-challenge-tour-make-stop-southern-miss-april-26-27?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usmnews+%28Southern+Miss+Now%29

Meeting Tonight

Hey everyone,

We are having a meeting TONIGHT at 6:00 pm in 105 PSRC.  We will be planning Earth Week and The Big Event.  There will be pizza and drinks so please try and make it out :)

Yesterday we recruited in shoemaker square and we had some positive responses from several students, faculty, and staff.  All in all it was pretty successful despite the cold!  Here are some pics.

Back From Abroad and Ready to Move Forward!

Hello Hello Advocates!

I am back from India and ready to get back into action with the Sustainability Advocates!  I'd like to thank Phil and Maliha for waking over while I was gone, you guys did a great job.  Anyways, India was amazing and I am excited to share some of my experiences with you guys at our next meeting which will be NEXT THURSDAY, March 21st, at 6:00 pm in 105 PSRC.  If it's nice out we can even move the meeting outside since we get extra hours of daylight now :)  There will also be FREE PIZZA AND DRINKS as well as some cool prizes and give-aways to anyone who brings a new-comer with them.  There is going to be A LOT going on at this meeting.  We will be planning and assigning roles for the mock-oil spill (we need some actors!), discussing the agenda for the PGC Road Tour (They are coming April 26-27!), and we will be ORDERING OUR T-SHIRTS since we will need these for Earth Week.  So, if you are interested in getting a T-shirt bring your check book or cash, they will probably be about $15, but I need to check on this.

Anyways, we need more members so start recruiting and telling your friends!  Earth is going to be huge this year and we need volunteers and lots of people to help out.  I hope to see everyone there :)

Last Meeting of the Semester

ADVOCATES!!!!

I will be leaving tomorrow for a three month research trip in India.  While I'm gone Phil Pickett and Maliha will be leading the group.  We will be having our LAST MEETING of the semester NEXT TUESDAY (12/4) at 6:00 PM in 105 PSRC.  We will wrap up the semester and introduce plans for after the holidays.  I hope you all make it!

Jelly vs. Jam

Thank-you to everyone who came out for out meeting last night.  I think it went well for our first guest speaker and I hope to have more in the future.  I also think we all know more about jelly and jam now then we ever though we would, haha.

Exciting news! Renowned environmental scientist Dr. Margaret Lowman will be the featured speaker at The University of Southern Mississippi’s next Honors Forum Series, set for 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 13 at the Thad Cochran Center Ballroom on the Hattiesburg campus.  She has been called the "Real-Life Lorax" which is awesome!  I would really like everyone to attend her talk.  I will definitely be going.  For more information visit the following link: http://www.usm.edu/news/article/noted-scientist-author-lowman-speak-southern-miss-nov-13

Dr. Margaret Lowman

Meeting Tomorrow!

Next Meeting November 6th

Good morning advocates!

I wanted to let everyone know we will be having our next meeting on Tuesday November 6th at 5:30 PM in 105 PSRC (same as last time).  This meeting will be very exciting because we will be having our first GUEST SPEAKER!!!!

Dr. Deborah Booth from the chemistry department here at USM gardens her own fruits and vegetables, makes them into jams, and sells them at our local farmers market!  Dr. Booth will be giving a presentation at our meeting about her gardening, jam making, and how to properly can/jar/freeze food to be more sustainable.  Please try and make it out, the better turn out we have the more guest speakers we can get!!  You can learn more about Dr. Booth on the USM website.  We will also be discussing t-shirts, the recycling campaign, plans for november, and I would like for us to work on applying to be a bike friendly university and I need everyone's help!!  I hope to see you all there!

Dr. Deborah Booth

Going Green for Halloween...

Hello green people!

I wanted to give a huge thank-you to everyone who came out for the halloween carnival.  Our booth was a big success and we made so many candy holders and ghosts that we ran out of materials.  The recycling games were also tons of fun and I think we did a good job reaching out to the kids.  Also, a big thank-you for the POLY/PMSE ACS chapter for teaming up with up and donating the supplies, we couldn't have done it without you!

For those of you who didn't make it out here is what our booth did:  One section of our booth did arts and crafts with the kids where we made candy holders out of recycled toilet paper rolls and tissue paper that I have been saving from my "shopping sprees" over the last year (i.e. the tissue paper that stores love to wrap your purchases in before putting it in the bag).  We also made tootsie pop ghosts using paper that we all have been saving that was used on one side but not on the other.  The other section of our booth did recycling games and trivia to teach kids how to recycle!  The kids learned how to sort their recycling (were even timed!) and also tried to knock down some bottles (recycled vitamin water bottles) to win prizes!  Here is some pictures we got of the event.....

Halloween Carnival

Tomorrow the Sustainability Advocates are teaming up with POLY/PMSE at the Fall Halloween Carnival at USM on Weathersby Lawn.  We have two booths, one for making Halloween decorations out of recycled materials and another will have fun recycling games and prizes!  This is tomorrow from 4-6 PM.

A Psychopath is better than no path....

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since I've updated to bear with me for a little bit!  First things first, we will be having a meeting TOMORROW (Tuesday 10/23) at 5:30 PM in 105 PSRC.  We will be preparing our booth for the halloween carnival this friday.  We will be making halloween crafts with the kids out of recycled materials.  Please try and bring the following materials to the meeting:

1. Cardboard
2. Newspaper
3.  Plastic Bottles
4.  Toilet paper/Paper towel cardboard rolls

No glass please because we are working with kids :) 

Also, a big thanks to everyone who came out for our interview and for participating in the biking flash mob.  Here is the link to the article and the video should be up this week!

Article: http://www.wdam.com/story/19866464/pride-of-the-pine-belt-southern-miss-student-creates-sustainability-group