The University of Connecticut Environmental Studies program hosted their third annual Earth Cafe on Wednesday, April 23, in room 304 in the Student Union. The event ran from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and featured student posters, short films and a keynote speaker.
Many students got the chance to present research at this event. Some students got this opportunity through GEOG 3410E, Human Modifications to the Natural Environment, according to Manasa Puvvala, a second-semester physiology and neurobiology student.
“We had a project where each group got to pick an environmental issue they feel wasn’t talked about much, and my group chose biodiversity policy,” said Puvvala. “Over the past month or two, we’ve been researching and collaborating on the various facets of biodiversity law.”
Puvvala worked on this project alongside students April Bitetti, Caroline Rancourt, Gustavo Sotomayor and Yehoda Abraku. They presented their research and findings at the Earth Cafe in a poster alongside seven other groups from that same class.
Besides this class, other students also got the opportunity to present their environmental studies related research at this event.
“We also have a set of posters from a research grant program, using geospatial data to understand different environmental issues,” said Andrew Jolly-Ballantine, the professor of GEOG 3140E. “There are also a group of posters from an environmental philosophy class, along as some thesis projects related to today’s event.”
While the poster presentations were happening, the cafe also featured trivia games where you could win prizes and enter a raffle. The sponsors for this section were the UConn Office of Sustainability, UConn College of Engineering, UConn School of Social Work, Vergnano Institute for Inclusion, UConn Innovation Zone, Action Packed, M&T Bank, Dog Lane Cafe and the Connecticut Transportation Institute.
After this section, the cafe featured some short films.
“These are videos that students produced around all sorts of topics, such as the Sustainable Cities project, and the Experimental Global Learning Project,” said Jolly-Ballantine. “For EGL, they spent three weeks in Zurich, Switzerland and did video projects on transportation, bicycling and various sustainability measures in Europe.”
Other video projects were about a project that went to North Carolina as a rapid response to Hurricane Helene, according to Jolly-Ballantine. The students went to understand the situation and provided service work for the victims.
Finally, the program ended with a speech by the keynote speaker, former Connecticut representative Christine Palm. Palm spoke about social advocacy and her new work as a director for a non-profit that engages young people in social activism around environmental issues.