Welcome to a Sustainable Eckerd

Latest News:

Just ten minutes from campus, Lakewood Elementary School hosts one of Eckerd College's most unusual classrooms. The Edible Peace Patch Garden is a cooperative effort between Eckerd College Environmental Studies and Lakewood Elementary School to develop and implement a standards-based elementary science curriculum in an organic garden that was built by Eckerd College students in January 2009. More than 100 Eckerd College students have had an opportunity to work in the Lakewood schoolyard garden and teach Lakewood students about organic food and science concepts. In January of 2012, a second Edible Peace Patch Garden was constructed at Sanderlin Elementary School.

Meet our new Sustainability Fellow for the 2011-12 academic year, Evan Bollier. 

Evan graduated from Eckerd College, May of 2011 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies with minors in Economics and Chinese. As an undergraduate he conducted Eckerd's Greenhouse Gas Inventory for two fiscal years for his Ford Scholar research project. He also sat on several committees to advise and implement sustainable initiatives on campus. Check out the Office of Sustainability link for more information on the new position and proposed projects for the upcoming year.

Remember to sign up for the Eco-Clamshell at the Main Cafeteria during the first two weeks of Spring Semester 2012! Its simple, to buy an Eco-Clamshell just write your student I.D. number on the sign up sheet to charge your student account $5.00. Once you're done eating and want a clean clamshell, bring it back to the OZZI machine at the Main Cafeteria in exchange for an OZZI token. Either exchange the token for a clean clamshell at the main register, or hold onto it until the next time you would like to eat out. Didn't sign up within the first two weeks? No problem, just see Evan Bollier in the Gamma Office of Sustainability to purchase yours today!

As the principal focus of the 2011-2012 Presidential Events Series, Environmental Challenges, Sustainable Solutions will highlight Eckerd's ongoing commitment to both minimizing its operational footprint and maximizing environmental awareness and green practices through speaker programming and campus-wide endeavors. The College is pleased to provide these presentations by Eckerd faculty and guest lecturers as a service to the community. We look forward to seeing you on campus this fall and next spring!

From the very beginning, Eckerd College has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with its surrounding environment. The college's surroundings function as a kind of living, breathing classroom, which both provides a subject of study and in so doing promotes its own conservation and gives practical lessons for sustainable practices elsewhere. It is no surprise then that from its inception, the college has had a commitment to educate students about the environment and ecologically thoughtful practices. Our innovative Environmental Studies major was cited by Florida Leader as the state's "best new undergraduate major."

Our commitment to the environment has led us to develop positive environmental landscape practices such as using native plants where appropriate; using natural, permeable surfaces for parking and pedestrian paths; and drawing on ponds and wetlands as natural filters to clean water run-off. We even have a Yellow Bike program, which was designed to increase bicycle use on campus and decrease automobile traffic. In fact, the Yellow Bikes program has earned Eckerd College special Campus Ecology Recognition by the National Wildlife Federation®, the nation's leading conservation education and advocacy group.

These are just some of the features that combine to create a drive toward sustainability on campus. Many more aspects of this drive are featured on this site, so explore and learn more about Eckerd's commitment to both minimizing its operational footprint and maximizing environmental awareness and green practices.