The University of Connecticut’s environmental sciences and environmental studies programs will host an event on Wednesday, April 23 from 3 to 6 p.m. in room 304 of the Student Union to celebrate students in those majors.
The event is called Earth Cafe to match the Office of Sustainability’s Climate Change Cafe that took place last December, according to Tom Bontly, the director of the environmental studies program. Bontly is also a faculty member in the philosophy department.
Earth Cafe is in partnership with the UConn Institute of the Environment and the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, according to Bontly. It is open to any students and faculty associated with the environmental sciences and environmental studies programs.
This year marks the third annual Earth Cafe, and a speaker visits each year. This year’s event will feature former state representative Christine Palm, who founded the non-profit The Active Voice, according to the UConn Event Calendar.
The year the event first started, Elizabeth R. DeSombre, who wrote “Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things,” gave a speech. Last year, a panel of recent UConn graduates Monet Parades, Sena Wazer and Alana Ceppetelli, and undergraduate student Julian Lewis spoke, according to Bontly.
Earth Cafe will also include posters and films from undergraduate students in various environmental courses, according to Bontly.
“The poster session is similar to poster sessions at science conferences,” Bontly wrote in an email to The Daily Campus. “The contributed posters all come from undergraduates in environmental courses: e.g., EVST 4000 (our capstone course).[…]The films likewise are from undergraduates: a couple from the summer Sustainable Zurich program, and a couple from Prof Phoebe Godfrey’s Sustainable Societies course.”
Additionally, some faculty members will give presentations about programs that they are involved in.
UConn Professor Emmanouil “Manos” Anagnostou, who is also the director of the Eversource Energy Center, gave a presentation last year regarding the Clean Energy and Sustainability Innovation Program, which funded several student teams working on innovative projects, according to Bontly. Anagnostou is expected to give another presentation about CESIP this year.
Bontly added that the CESIP-funded projects were presented at the 2024 Sustainable Clean Energy Summit, with one group winning an award sponsored by Eversource.
UConn Professor Peter Chen of the Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community and Urban Studies will speak about his mentorship program at this year’s event as well, according to Bontly.
Bontly added that there will be scholarship awards for environmental sciences and environmental studies students, and past years have included some that were $1,000 in value.