University of South Florida St. Petersburg
EN-3: Student Life

1.SEAS The Student Environmental Awareness Society (SEAS) is the longest running club at USF St. Petersburg. SEAS is open to anyone interested in promoting awareness of environmental issues, outdoor activities, and a greener world. SEAS strives to encourage the USF St. Petersburg Campus Community to be leaders and role models in sustainable practices, design and development. This includes USFSP students, faculty, staff, affiliates, and members of the surrounding community. SEAS holds monthly beach clean-ups on campus and organizes environmental awareness events like an Earth Day celebration and Food Day. 2.The Garden Club The Garden Club focuses on educating students about sustainable urban farming techniques, while fostering a connection with the local community and the land. The club helps manage the Bayboro Food Forest on campus. All students and professors are welcome to come experiment varios gardening techniques. The Garden club recognizes that home garden space is very limited, so having a garden on campus offers everyone cooped up in the dorms and apartments a chance to practice their green thumbs. The Garden Club also maintains the Native Plant Butterfly Garden. The Garden Club organizes events to increase awareness on topics such as urban farming, healthy foods, shopping local and more. 3.ESSC The Environmental Science and Sustainability Club (ESSC) aims to spread environmental education and scientific practices throughout our campus through projects and collaboration. 4. The Marine Adventures Club The Marine Adventures Club is an activity-based club that strives to give students the opportunity to learn about the environment and environmental safety through a laid-back, hands-on approach. The club’s main goal is to raise funds to take members on an adventure trip each semester. Most recently, the Marine Adventures Club was able to raise enough money to go on a snorkeling trip, and they are currently planning a camping trip for this semester. The Marine Adventures Club’s weekly meeting times may be used for kayaking and paddle boarding, exploring the outdoors, visiting aquariums, or holding fundraisers.

Bayboro Garden and Bayboro Food Forest As noted in the previous STARS report the Bayboro Food Forest has now been built and includes a pond, vertical gardening structures, food producing trees, and a variety of other food producing plants. The pond as well as lighting within the garden is supplied by solar pannels which shade the garden. The Butterfly Garden The Butterfly garden designed, paid for and maintained, by students features only native Florida plants and is certified as both a North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Garden, and a Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Foundation. The garden was designed to improve the campus entrance, promote the interaction and appreciation of nature in an urban setting, and to encourage the growth of struggling bee and butterfly populations. The garden provides a calming natural setting for everyone to enjoy. The Butterfly Garden was created in 2014. Water Goats In order to prevent the pollution of Tampa Bay and encourage a healthy fish population within the Bayboro Harbor that our school sits on, we have implemented watergoats, a net catchment system that allows fish and other marine life to easily swim in and out underneath the nets while a buoy floats the upper half of the net to catch liter and other debris coming out from the storm sewers and prevent it from flowing out into the bay.

Student Green Energy Fund (SGEF) At USF St. Petersburg, SGEF is financed through a nominal student fee of $1.00 per credit hour. Students at each campus within the University of South Florida (USF) System has the right to vote, via a student body referendum, to approve initiation of the fee and affirm any subsequent modifications to it on their respective campuses. Every three years, students will have the opportunity to reaffirm support of the fee via referendum. The fund is used to assist the university in reducing energy costs through conservation, promoting power generation using clean, renewable energy technologies, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Any student, faculty, or staff member at USFSP can propose a project, and the SGEF committee votes on which projects to fund. The SGEF committee is made up of at least 4 student voting members, and 4 faculty, or staff voting members. The committee is chaired by a student. SGEF catalyzes a growing experiential learning model that eviscerates student leadership and creative energy towards a noble and necessary goal. Green Revolving Fund A green revolving fund is in the process of being established and savings will be rolled over from projects monitored by a submetering energy management system.

Speakers and Film showings: Blue Revolution: A Water Ethic for Florida and America Join us in the ballroom of the University Student Center with Cynthia Barnett, journalist and author of the books Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.; Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis; and Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, to talk about her work and a key part of the solution to our water woes – a new water ethic in Florida and nationwide. This special program brings together lessons from all three of Ms. Barnett’s books. Students, faculty, and the general public are encouraged to read Blue Revolution prior to the event, and come together to talk about water, ethics, and the future of Florida This event wass put on by the Environmental Science and Sustainability Club in conjunction with UF/IFAS Extension Pinellas County and the Florida Studies Program. Screening of “The Forgotten Coast: Return to Wild Florida” Screening of the “The Forgotten Coast: Return to Wild Florida” Following in the footsteps of a wandering Florida black bear, three friends leave civilization and become immersed in a vast and unexplored wildlife corridor stretching from the Everglades to the Florida-Alabama border. The rugged thousand-mile journey by foot, paddle, and bike traverses Florida’s Forgotten Coast – a wilderness that has the potential to change the way we see the natural world. Collaboration between students and the university.

Reuse-a-bull Fashion Show The Department of Sustainable Initiatives hosts this fashion show every fall. Participants must make their outfits out of recycled or reused materials. Eco-fest A celebration organized by Student Environmental Awareness Society(SEAS) for the 45th anniversary of Earth day. "This event will feature - live music by local bands, artists, community vendors, environmental groups, and USFSP organizations." Gaia-Fest A multi-day celebration of the earth and the things that we can gain by caring for it. A live plant exchange, multiple documentary showings, as well as local vendors supplying locally and sustainably produced products.

Leadership in the Great Outdoors Class Students in this class practice sustainability and “leave no trace” principals as they travel for three days down the Suwannee River and staying in “green” campsites designed by the state Department of Environmental Protection that minimize impact on native environmental communities. No disposable products are used – the students cook in cast iron pots over an open fire, wood salvaged from downed trees, in a method reminiscent of time long gone. Students are tasked to have zero impact, leaving only footprints in the sand, taking only photographs.

USFSP began its Living Learning Communities as a first-year experience for the entire fall and spring terms. Living Green Living Learning Community A community living green for a better tomorrow In the classroom, the lab, on campus and beyond the Living Green Living-Learning Community provides a multidisciplinary introduction to environmental science, policy and sustainability. The linked courses focus on an overall theme of sustainability and environmental science. As a cohort, members of this community will learn and live together, taking courses that use different modalities (lecture, lab, online) and leveraging opportunities for civic and community engagement in St. Petersburg.

The Department of Sustainable Initiatives of the Student Government Association hosts Sustainability Workshop Series to teach sustainable life skills. Example Workshops: Earth and People Friendly Meals: Demonstrated how to prepare a delicious vegetarian meal and information on how conventional farming and agriculture harm the environment and contribute to climate change. DIY Health Products: Demonstrated how to make shampoo and toothpaste out of all natural products, and provided information on how many health products harm the environment.

Secretary of Sustainable Initiatives The Department of Sustainable Initiatives is led by the Secretary of Sustainable Initiatives which is part of the Executive Branch of the Student Government Association at USF St. Petersburg.

Students may purchase a Sustainability Ribbon that they are allowed to wear on their gown during their Graduation Commencement. The sustainability ribbon represents the student’s lifetime commitment to a healthy environment. The money from purchasing of the ribbons funds sustainability initiatives on campus.

Students are able to intern with the office of sustainability and work alongside the Sustainability Planner through projects with students and administration as well as integrate these projects into classroom experiences.