My oh my how time does fly! This was another great year for PCC during Earth Week. We had numerous events and projects going on across the district. Students, staff, and faculty took part in clean-ups, art-ivism, learning garden parties, upcycling challenges, and more. It’s hard to pick top highlights of all the great things that happened this year but we’ll do our best to showcase what we can in this recap!

We were honored to have Portland City Commissioner JoAnn Hardesty kick off Earth Week with an inspiring talk. Hardesty, is a seasoned environmental justice advocate and she spoke to the necessity of equity in all environmental programs while providing insight into her work on the Portland Clean Energy Fund and upcoming climate justice initiatives in Portland. She voiced her support for the student-led plastic ban initiative and her powerful talk was followed by a screening of A Plastic Ocean.

Earth Week each year lines up with PCC Rock Creek’s Semana de la Raza and Maria Hernandez Segoviano, the Policy Advocate for gave an opening talk called Real and False Solutions in Environmental Justice, focusing on the resiliency of communities of color, particularly Latinx communities in the face of environmental racism.

At Southeast Campus a highly engaging event took place called “Jade District Air Quality Community Art Workshop”. It was lead by local placemaking artist, Daniel Granias. This project is sponsored by and the Oregon Environmental Council (OEC). During the event those in attendance learned about the Jade District area of Portland where the Southeast Campus resides, this included learning about how Division Street is actually still legally defined as a highway and as such doesn’t have the same inner city exhaust regulations which negatively impact all those that live in the area.

Granias also offered those interested to be a part of an art installation he is creating, it will be a net made out of surgical face masks with drawings and expressions written on them about people’s feelings about nature and the environment they are a part of. The netting will be created out of plastic bag twine. Granias showed folks how to make this twine out of plastic bags which was incredible!

Another big event that took place during Earth Week this year was the official ribbon cutting at the Cascade Campus Learning Garden! This garden spent over a decade in the minds and hearts of students, staff, and faculty and has finally been brought to fruition. Student Body President of Cascade, Teri Fane and PCC’s Interim Dean of Student Development, Traci Simmons cut the ribbon as other past and present student leaders who helped make this dream a reality stood proudly by.

And this year marked the third annual #EcoSocialJusticeEvent which featured Our Children’s Trust and the Juliana v Gov “Climate Trial of the Century” we had the pleasure of hosting Jacob Lebel, who is one of the 21 youth plaintiff’s in that case along with Coreal Riday-White, who is the Community Engagement Manager for Our Children’s Trust. They both gave engaging talks and answered many questions that student leaders provided them with.

Jacob Lebe of Our Children’s Trust & Youth Plaintiff in the Juliana V US “Climate Trial of the Century”

The 3rd Annual #EcoSocialJusticeEvent was a great success and many students said it was the best event of the year. Another highlight from the afternoon was the panel with local artists, those being; Asa Wright, Thea Ghar, and Ines Paulina Ramirez, who shared how their work promotes community building around intersectional issues of social justice, sustainability and the climate crisis. They celebrate the power of art as a form of activism. Their talk was called: Art + Social Change: Collective, Collaborations, Cooperatives. It was awesome.

And then, after a great vegetarian lunch, these rad artists set up screen printing stations and a DJ booth and rocked the afternoon with their artivism in action. There was also a seed and start booth for folks to take veggies home and a sign making booth for the upcoming on June 4th which will be from 1:30-3:30 in Director Park, downtown Portland. This rally is taking place during the Juliana v US hearing in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. There is already over 100 rallies to be held across the country and world wide in solidarity and support of this trial!

This year we also once again had two great clean ups that took place, the Kelley Point Park Clean Up was the 4th Annual and the Cannon Beach Clean Up was the second year running for this great event. Both had great attendance and were ways for students, staff, faculty and beyond to dedicate some of their energy towards directly taking care of some of the mess we’ve made. SOLVE was a part of both clean ups.

, for the second year running, had four incredible portfolio displays to showcase, one for each campus.

Rock Creek Campus displayed: No al Cambio Climatico! Ante la destruction, organizate 

This portfolio was created by  Escuela de Cultura Popular Martires del 68 from Mexico City in resistance to climate change.

Southeast displayed: We Are the Storm

We Are the Storm is a collection of prints created in solidarity with frontline communities in resistance to climate change.

Cascade displayed: Wellspring

Wellspring is a portfolio of twelve original risograph prints celebrating water.

And Sylvania Campus displayed: Resourced

Resourced is a collaborative portfolio of prints addressing resource extraction and resulting social inequalities.

All four campuses had a Green Monday event, this event focused on fighting climate change with diet change! These events celebrated the numerous benefits of plant based diets and how to easily bring more of these meals into our lives. Other highlights from each campus: Rock Creek had their always well attended annual learning garden party and many wonderful events throughout the week.

Behold. The ASPCC Rock Creek Plastic Pollution Sculpture project! Made from disposable single use plastic items collected by the students of Rock Creek Campus

Cascade had a Native Plant Workshop with Judy Bluehorse Skelton, Student’s Forest Forum with , and so much more. Sylvania had a week packed full of Earth Week action as they have been known to do. There was the Build and take home your own compost bin! event, Plant Sale and Seed Swap, Education 2030: The Future Depends on Us! hosted by PCC’s Sociology instructor Kim Smith who highlighted the work of PCC, our regional Greater Portland Sustainability Education Network () which Smith is a co-founder of), and the United Nations, through efforts to advance the power of education to help create a sustainable future. Another special event was the Sylvania Habitat Restoration Team’s 23rd Earth Day Birthday Party. They played host to Ken Ward, who is featured in the great documentary, . And on top of this, there were a bunch of days o’ fun down at the learning garden, and well, you could hardly walk around campus without running in to some kind of Earth Week goodness going on.

As you can gather, we had a lot of great action going on at PCC during our Earth Week events! It was another rewarding, challenging, and productive year building on what we’ve been doing over the years here. If you’d like, you can learn more and take a look at the history of Earth Week at PCC. We are always pleased to dedicate this energy and focus each year at this time though we recognize that Earth Day really should be something we give attention to EVERY DAY.  Alas, we do what we can to remember that and do our best to be a part of the solution all year long.

PCC instructor and founding member of GPSEN, Kim Smith at the 2019 GPSEN Sustainability Symposium

On Friday, March 8th the Greater Portland Sustainability Education Network (GPSEN) hosted its signature event, The GPSEN Sustainability Symposium: “Building Bridges to Sustainability.” The event was held at ˿����Ƶ’s Cascade Campus. The day was filled with so many valuable moments. Over 160 people attended throughout the day from 8:30 in the morning until just after 6:00 at night. There were many incredible people present at the symposium and the day was filled with valuable wisdom and education. The Symposium coincided with International Women’s Day, and women were celebrated in so many ways over the course of the day. In fact, women made up a large majority of speakers and presenters for this year’s Symposium.

Neeraja Havaligi, Executive Director of GPSEN and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s)

The day began with a Student Summit that had 45 students from 6 local Universities. The Student Summit was facilitated by three presenters: Haley Morris, a student at PSU and GPSEN fellow who is the lead contact for the College Network of GPSEN, as well as Serena Dressel, a graduate of PSU who is secretary on the Board of GPSEN, and myself, a student at PCC and a part of the Sustainability Department as the Communications Coordinator. Among the attendees were returning College Network members, and after this Symposium and Summit, we are pleased to now have the largest group of College Network members in GPSEN’s history!

Our opening keynote for the Symposium was Judy Bluehorse Skelton who is an assistant professor at PSU in the Indigenous Studies Program. Judy was also the recipient of this year’s GPSEN Academic Sustainability Award. Skelton’s keynote was entitled: “Reclaiming the Urban Forest for Food, Medicine & Ceremony: An Overview of Indigenous Cultural Collaborative Projects in the Portland Metro Area.” Skelton’s speech was beautiful, heartfelt, honest and valuable as she was able to address so many important issues and dynamics that are integral to the environmental movement. Perhaps the most poignant moment in her speech was when she reminded us that what today is called “sustainability” was once simply called “7 generations,” which is essentially a cultural practice centered on being mindful of the consequences our actions have on the land for future generations. She also pointed out that in native culture, places were not named after people. Skelton showed a picture of a gorge, which we call the “Columbia River,” and explained that the idea of assigning human names to land negates the autonomy of the land itself. Skelton suggested that we shift our perception of land away from that which we can own or conquer, and instead view it as something we are a part of and must honor accordingly.

Portland Clean Energy Fund Plenary Panel 2019 GPSEN Sustainability Symposium

Judy Bluehorse Skelton’s keynote was followed by a panel talk with organizers from the Portland Clean Energy Initiative, which was facilitated by Jenny Lee of the Coalition of Communities of Color. Other individuals sitting on the panel were Reverand E.D. Mondaine, president of the NAACP Oregon chapter and Adriana Voss of 350PDX. This panel was inspiring as it provided insight on how to run a campaign in a coalition style that is non-hierarchical. Most importantly, the panel was conducted through the lense of racial justice. It was eye-opening to piece together a model for dynamic leadership that isn’t tainted by capitalism and white supremacy. Such a model, is of course, the only way to affect change, especially when it comes to environmental issues.

The next segment of the symposium was comprised of several presentations. The first of which was entitled “Promoting Equity, Economic Opportunity, and Social Justice for Marginalized Communities.” followed by a presentation called: “Eco-School Network: Shaping a Culture of Sustainability in Elementary Schools.” Both of these presentations provided great insight into how one must be mindful of all people as we develop strategies for sustainability.

The afternoon had two sets of breakout sessions, which covered over 15 topics ranging from Campus Beekeeping to the fight against single use plastics. The breakout sessions were a great way to focus on sustainability efforts tailored to student’s specific interests.

Suvari Chaturvedi closing keynote at the 2019 GPSEN Sustainability Symposium

When the breakout sessions drew to a close, Suvari Chaturvedi brought it all together with her closing keynote presentation: “Sustainability and Women’s Empowerment”. Suvari is a UN Adviser/Consultant in international development, gender equality, and women’s empowerment and her talk was focused on much of the great work she has been involved with across the world to further these issues.

The event closed with an awards ceremony. Which recognized “Sustainability Champions” in four categories: Academic, Youth, Business, and Non-profit. The winners were: Academic – Judy Bluehorse Skelton, Youth – Our Children’s Trust, Business – Nossa Familia, and Non-Profit – The Rebuild Center.

In all, the day was a great success and GPSEN’s signature event, the Sustainability Symposium was well attended and brought great information and direction to sustainability efforts in the greater Portland area.

This year, WOHESC incorporated 5 different “tracks” to differentiate the presentations and workshops. They were: Equity & Diversity, Engagement, Academics, Operations & Facilities, and Community. This was likely done in an effort to give attendees a way to focus in on what they are most interested in, and get the most out of their conference experience. Although, it quickly became clear that this method of organizing would present conflicts of its own.

For instance, the workshop I took part in presenting, entitled: “You’re Not Done Yet: Challenging and Empowering Institutions and Individuals to Stay Focused on Equitable Sustainability Practices” was part of the first full day of the conference; and while we were pleased to have a full room, there were over a dozen folks who were unable to attend our session because there was not enough room. The Equity & Diversity track was given the smallest room of all the five tracks at the conference, another session at the same time had nearly twice the sized room and was under half full. This proved to be the case at all of the Diversity & Equity track sessions, and it was difficult not to wonder whether this disparity reflected the values of the conference.While WOHESC organizers put forth effort to make their event more inclusive, diverse, and equitable, it is impossible to effectively accomplish these goals without dismantling the foundations of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy on which these ecological threats were built. It was clear that WOHESC had failed to stay consistent with these values when a representative from a primary sponsor (Swire Coca Cola, USA) gave a talk on why we should be proud of the effort Coke is making when it comes to sustainability. This speech was especially problematic in light of recent reports on an international protest of .

In the span of just an hour, the room was bubbling over with ideas for ways to confront the issues that had arose in the first day of the conference. Eventually, these ideas evolved into a general consensus that the conference should operate through a lenses of critical race theory, with students of color and other marginalized groups leading efforts to organize future conferences at a grassroots level. Participants demanded that the event examine the role capitalism plays in inhibiting holistic sustainability efforts; and that the conference be funded by community investment and sponsorship from small, locally owned businesses rather than from big corporate sponsors. This strategy, not unlike that used in Senator Bernie Sanders presidential campaign,would raise sizeable amounts of money for the conference, celebrate small business owners in the area, and align with the values of those who attend the conference.

As a result of this meetup, attendees were able to draft a living document of the demands listed above, along with a variety of other requests. This letter was placed in the hands of conference organizers, which prompted them to immediately address several points of contention; including allocating more space than was originally dedicated to the Equity and Diversity track sessions. The conference website of WOHESC now states: “WOHESC 2019 will continue its work advancing equity, diversity and inclusion through thematic elements, speakers and attendees. We aim to examine systemic change and generate dialogue that guides and inspires action.” Ideally, what has arisen from this years conference has achieved just that.

Of course, the initial intention of the conference had many redeeming qualities as well; in that it was able to provide resources, education, networking, and new friendships that will ultimately further individual efforts to advance sustainability in their communities. One of the highlights of the conference was a panel discussion by folks involved in the Our Children’s Trust Juliana V. Gov case, including a senior attorney for “”, and two of the plaintiffs in the case. Their plenary panel was called: Julian v. United States: Using Constitutional Rights to Force Climate Recovery. The panel  was so well appreciated by the entire audience of the conference that they were given a standing ovation at the end of their talk. There were many highlights to this panel’s talk,  though easily the most uplifting, was news of the upcoming injunction case set to be held in Portland on June 3rd-7th. This case has major implications for the fossil fuel industry, and it would place a moratorium on all present and future project permitting until their case is over.

˿����Ƶ had a strong presence of student, faculty, and staff in attendance at  WOHESC. Teri Fane, the student body president at Cascade Campus was part of the opening plenary panel, and assisted in two other sessions. I personally was able to get a lot out of the conference, and believe that WOHESC organizers will incorporate as many of the suggestions as they can while they plan next year’s conference. Of course, we can always take community organizing into our own hands; Pacific Northwest Eco-Social Justice Conference 2020 anyone?

(This article was originally published on The Bridge, PCC’s Student Newspaper)

We are excited to share that the Greater Portland Sustainability Education Network’s (GPSEN) Sustainability Symposium: Building Bridges to Sustainability will be co-hosted by PCC. The Sustainability Symposium is GPSEN’s signature event. It will be held on March 8th, 2019 from 10:00am to 6:00pm at Cascade Campus. Proposal submissions to present at the symposium are open until January 6th so if you have a great regional sustainability project or initiative to share, by all means submit a proposal!

GPSEN is known globally as Greater Portland RCE, RCE is short for Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development. There are currently 166 RCE’s worldwide that are acknowledged by United Nations University. RCE’s are designed to help connect local, regional, and global sustainability networks to create pathways towards Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) across the world.

GPSEN participated at this years 7th RCE Meeting of the Americas Regional conference in October,  held in Posadas, Argentina. The theme of that meeting was: ESD, Conservation and Climate Change in the 2030 Agenda.  GPSEN’s Executive Director Neeraja Havaligi shared a nice report of her experience there that is certainly worth checking out.

And just last week, three members of GPSEN, including myself, attended and presented at the 11th Global RCE Conference: Education for the Sustainable Development Goals in Cebu, Philippines as well. And it was an incredible surprise to have all three of us accept global RCE Awards for the regional work we are doing through GPSEN. Serena Dressel, recent graduate fo PSU and GPSEN College Network member, received an Acknowledged Flagship Project for PSU’s Intensive English Language Program which helps tremendously to increase awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).  And to my great astonishment, the PCC Sustain Me! podcast won an Acknowledged Flagship Project Award as well. Kim Smith, a sociology instructor at PCC and one of the founders of GPSEN accepted an Honorable Mention Project for our GPSEN Fellows Program. It truly was an honor to be a part of this Global RCE Conference and it is exciting to help bring more awareness to, and see how we are connected with, the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Now we have an opportunity to see how these 17 SDG’s can be addressed here in the Portland area.

The GPSEN Sustainability Symposium is our RCE’s local conference which provides opportunities to showcase and highlight the work being done right here in the greater Portland area. The theme is Building Bridges to Sustainability and as mentioned above, all the work being done is connected to the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals which are to be achieved by 2030. There’s no reason to sugar coat the climate crisis that we are now facing. It is baked in to this cake and now we must actively pursue ways to navigate the future we’ve helped create. The SDG’s are 17 individual tools or resources that are connected to one another and collectively are designed to help us mitigate the worst potential consequences of the climate disruption humans have participated in creating. Below is the mission of the RCE’s. It is a great way to get a better understanding of the role they play globally, regionally, and locally:

And so, the GPSEN Sustainability Symposium: Building Bridges to Sustainability is a way for us to ideally find more and better ways to help be a part of the solution moving forward. It is also an opportunity for us to help make the sustainability movement as inclusive and accessible as possible. We are all in this together though there have been systems in place that have not allowed us all to have an equitable seat at the decision making, and leadership, table. We hope to help address this and in every way we can, help to dismantle the systems of oppression that have been at play to make social justice and sustainability seem like two separate issues when indeed they are one. Diversity, equity and inclusion are paramount if we are to find success moving forward. If you are engaged in work that relates to environmental justice, sustainability, or social justice and would like to share you or your groups project or initiative, please do submit a proposal today!

It’s here! Today! The 2018 mid-term elections are happening and this is going to be a BIG day for this country called the United States of America. This may or may not be one of the more important election cycles in current times… Either way you slice or dice it, there are going to be some decisions made through our democratic process that will alter the course of our collective story in significant ways. Yes, that’s right. Vote. Vote like your life depends on it. Vote because you care. Vote because if nothing else, it gives you a legitimate reason to complain down the road if what you voted for doesn’t pass (not that I’m endorsing complaining, mind you…) Sincerely though, this is as important as anything I can think of right now if we are going to try and maintain a democracy and attempt to change our trajectory from the same platform we’ve been standing on.

Pending any massive near term shifts in our collective paradigm, while we still are under an agreement that our civilization operates through a government founded by a group of old white men (in a time most would like to forget), we must proceed with care for who we are voting in to office, and what measures, amendments, and actions we are going to take moving forward. These decisions will have consequences both negative and positive and we the people (who have the legal ability to vote that is…) are in a position to help choose the path we take.

One of the biggest and most exciting plans that is on the table in these United States of America is happening right here in Portland, Oregon. is a bold and yet relatively simple plan to get us on the right track. I was fortunate enough to talk with Jenny Lee, the Advocacy Director from the , Lee has helped lead this campaign as part of the core steering committee comprised of several amazing organizations in the Portland Area. We talked after her long night of hitting the streets canvassing and I was mighty grateful she was willing to take a bit of time this close to the end of the campaign to speak with me.

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The Portland Clean Energy Initiative means $30 million in new annual revenue for clean energy and clean energy jobs in Portland. Nonprofit organizations, alone or in partnership with for-profit companies, schools and/or other government agencies, can apply for grants from this revenue to weatherize homes, install solar and other renewable energy projects, provide job and contractor training, expand local food production and build green infrastructure in Portland. The revenue is raised by a new 1% business licensing surcharge on the Portland revenue generated by retail corporations with over $1 billion in annual revenue and at least $500,000 in Portland revenue.

The steering committee of the Portland Clean Energy Initiative campaign is comprised of , , , the , , 350PDX, , , , , and the .

Besides the core steering committee it is worth noting that there are literally hundreds of groups, organizations, businesses, neighborhood associations, labor unions, members of the faith community, and notable individuals like Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Van Jones, and our very own U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley to name but a few that . What I see that is perhaps most exciting about this coalition is that it truly branches into nearly every walk of life that humanity has to offer here in the Pacific Northwest. People from a vast array of backgrounds all support this and the driving force behind a lot of it is communities who have been traditionally marginalized and oppressed, the campaign structure, which Lee shares in the episode is also a non-hierarchical structure which is another step in the right direction, too! Please do have a listen and then if you haven’t yet, get out and vote!!!

Okay, beyond this, I’ll just quietly mention this again, GET OUT AND VOTE!!! If you have already, that’s wonderful. Thank you for doing your civic duty. And as always, thanks for tuning in, folks.

Dr. Heather Hackman at AASHE 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

I first experienced Dr. Heather Hackman and her incredibly accessible presentation style at AASHE 2017 in San Antonio. Her ability to help people see how intrinsically connected social justice and environmental sustainability work is and how important it is to approach sustainability using an equity lens was amazing. She talked about privilege, dominant culture, and the dynamics that are negatively impacting much of the current sustainability movement. I was entranced. Her conference session was easily the highlight for me last year and her closing keynote of the conference was a thing of beauty. It’s not every day that there is one particular person who is a catalyst for a shift in ones own trajectory though I say with certainty that Heather happened to be one of those for me. It could be strongly argued that had I not attended that conference and her sessions, this podcast would not exist and I would be eyeballs deep in mathematics and chemistry right now trying to make my way into the renewable energy engineering world. My what a difference a year can make.

Our paths crossed a second time in June of last year when I attended the 2018 NCORE conference in New Orleans. is the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education. There, while attending Heathers session I saw a similar display of awesome wisdom being presented this time from a framework of tying social justice work into environmental sustainability and justice work and I was in awe. And so, seeing Heather once again at was really special and it was even more special when she agreed to an interview with me.

It is not uncommon to see wonderfully animated and passionate displays erupt from Heather during one of her sessions

Heather Hackman is part of and if you are reading this or after you get done listening and are thinking, “We need this consulting at my work, school, fill in the blank, then please do reach and set something up. The work they are doing at HCG is perhaps some of the most valuable consulting work that can be done at this point in our collective climate and journey. Racial Justice and using an equity lens in the sustainability movement is crucial right now. Heather Hackman knows this and is doing the important work that needs to be done right now. I am grateful.

As always, thanks for tuning in, folks.

A bonus in my humble opinion to this episode is Nathaniel Talbot’s track “” off his new album . You may just want to consider getting your hands on that at your earliest convenience, too! Oh, and I’ve mentioned this before when I featured Nathaniel’s music on an earlier episode though I really think if you haven’t already, you also might like to have a look at Nathaniel and his wife Annie’s amazing organic farm, . You can also purchase some top quality seeds from them if you’d like, they’ve sold out presently though they should be available again right around the holidays so be on the lookout!

Aquaculture project

This fall the Geodesic Dome is getting an upgrade!   The STEM Center is installing aquaculture tanks to grow aquatic plants in an enclosed system.

End of Summer clean up

The learning garden might be looking a little sad and empty, but it is just getting cleared out for winter. The Garden will still be open during fall, but with less staff. See STEM Center for more information.

The STEM Spaces team was awarded funding through the “President’s Fund for Excellence” program to further develop the Southeast Learning Garden as a “living makerspace” that helps to address student food insecurity. Several exciting projects are underway including an indoor aquaculture system and collaborative efforts with the Panther Pantry to support free access to healthy produce grown by the Food Justice club. Contact: Learning Garden Coordinator – Emma Sanders

Rock Creek

Article by the RC student team of: Kira Taylor, Shayla Rao, Angel Gonzalez, and Scott Sauerwein

Community, linguistics, and agriculture; what do all of these have in common? They are all part of the Learning Garden! From beehives to composting to farmstand, the education opportunities in the Learning Garden are plentiful. They operate largely on a volunteer basis. Students are one type of volunteer utilized, as the integration of curricular participation is a vital part of the mission of the garden and of the college. Courses that allow students to collaborate with the garden provide a pragmatic, hands-on educational experience. Customized lessons incorporate garden activities with any subject a creative instructor can draw a correlation with to reinforce learning in a fun and active way for students.

Mike Bené, a creative instructor with the English for Speakers of Other Languages Program, (ESOL) brought one of his reading classes to the Garden to emphasize community engagement. ESOL offers 8 levels of classes, level 1 for students who know little to no English, through level 8, which prepares students for English usage beyond college. These classes help students communicate with others casually and professionally, and contribute to their community.

Bené thought outside the box with his reading class and took the study of English outside, literally. His level 5 students were assigned to read a novel called Seedfolks, by Paul Fleischman, a story that takes place in a rural community. After reading the book, students collaborated with the Learning Garden to reinforce vocabulary and reflect on the themes of the novel. They read about the Gibb Street community in Seedfolks, who planted a “Three Sisters” garden of beans, squash, and corn. They then went out into the Learning Garden and planted their own Three Sisters plot. This dynamic was exciting for students to learn and practice the language and to work on a project that  helped them build relationships and feel like a part of the community at PCC, paralleling the Gibb Street community. One student, Yoonjeong Seo, from Korea, reflected, “Our class gathered from various nationalities and races… We also enjoyed communication with other people who we met while gardening. Gardening is now part of our regular lives.”

Practical application of the concepts they read about in the Seedfolks novel expanded the students’ ability to communicate by giving them common ground between the novel and their own lives. This emphasized their “reading to learn” experience, which is an important aspect of the higher level classes in the program

ESOL students are not the only ones taking advantage of the Learning Garden. A class that focuses on harvesting and using the food from the garden is the Health, Food Systems, and Environment class (HE 264), taught by Alissa Leavitt in the Fall. Students will explore what purpose the garden’s produce can serve once it has been harvested. They will discover how the produce affects our world and how different practices can impact the end product. They will also have the opportunity to visit the garden, prepare food in the campus Food & Nutrition Lab, listen to guest speakers, participate in a honey tasting activity, and help plan campus events. The ESOL students who began this project will meet with the HE 264 students, who will harvest the beans, squash and corn and prepare a meal with them. There will be a harvest celebration and dinner for all of these students, made from their own produce. This celebration will be a great opportunity for the ESOL students to further reinforce their language skills by discussing the project with other students.

The ESOL and HE classes are two of the many communities that benefit from the Learning Garden. To inquire about how you can get involved in a collaboration with the Garden, contact Miriam Latzer at miriam.latzer@pcc.edu.

ESOL students having a conversation in English while weeding

ESOL students working in greenhouse with corn seedlings

Smelling the soil  and enjoying gardening

ESOL Group work party

Sylvania

Environmental Center Coordinator – Peter Ritson

Here is the link to sign up for the SY news letter,   to learn more about what is happening on SY campus and our community  We aren’t using social media currently.

Here is SY Learning Garden newsletter article

New Terraced Garden

We have made tremendous progress to our new terraced garden on the west slope of the SY Learning Garden. The project goals are around food security, habitat enhancement and CO2 reductions. The construction phase is nearly complete and planting with food and habitat friendly plants will begin fall term.

Wall material used waste concrete from the old floor of the South Classroom Building. That meant over a half a metric ton of CO2 was saved from entering the atmosphere by reusing 6,300 lbs of concrete. That is the equivalent of riding a bike 1,261 miles instead of driving in an average passenger vehicle. It has the same impact as sequestering carbon through planting 133,313 tree seedlings and letting them grow for ten years!

If want to read the submitted to West Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District who funded our work, follow the link. The end of the report has details on native plant lists and construction.

If you are interested in helping with this innovative project or the many other projects we have in the Sylvania Learning Garden, contact Peter or text (929) 464-4443

Newberg

The Newberg Center Learning Garden has been hard at work finishing the cob natural building structure that will serve as a tool shed and volunteer space once it’s finished. This summer alone over 20 workshops have been held and the walls have risen from around five feet to eight feet tall. It is almost ready for the roof!

The milkweed that was planted for monarchs is flourishing and the garden is hoping to contribute to the monarch migration habitats along the west coast with the two patches of flowering milkweed.

The garden’s new Mason Bee Hotel is being utilized and the lovely little native bees were observed in Spring busy in the garden with all of the early flowering plants installed especially for them and other early emerging pollinators as part of the Pollinator Habitat installations at PCC campuses.

Community Education classes taught by Learning Garden Coordinator, Moonrose Doherty, have utilized the garden to demonstrate native plant landscaping and organic vegetable gardening techniques and examples.

Corrie Larson, the new Learning Garden Assistant, has been busy continuing the sheet mulching work, which is a natural pesticide-free method of weed suppression where cardboard is laid over the weeds or grass and then wood chips or another mulch is heaped on top of it.

During the new student Welcome Day at Newberg Center on August 1, interested students and parents were given a tour of the garden by NC Director, Lynn M Quinn.  Interest in gardening, sustainability, and pollinators were the themes of the day.

Cascade

We our pleased as pumpkin pie to share that just as the final days of summer were winding down we were able to do a mega sod removal to prep the new space for the Urban Learning Garden at PCC Cascade! A great bunch of volunteers made relatively short work of transforming this landscape and in one day got that sod out of dodge! The volunteers came from the ASPCC student leadership, faculty at Cascade and other campuses, the district sustainability team, the entire team at the Cascade QRC, and several of the Learning Garden Coordinators and staff and faculty from the other gardens as well.

The garden design is complete and there will be some gravel paths put down soon and ideally we’ll have a couple of garden beds ready to plant before the autumn equinox turns to the winter solstice! We are so grateful for all the people who came out to help with the sod removal and we really want to thank all the students, staff, faculty and every and anyone who has been a champion of getting a learning garden on this campus for the past ten years now.

Stay tuned for more updates soon!

Well hello! There’s a couple reason’s I’m pretty stoked right now. One is that this is the 10th episode of the podcast and the other is that I had the pleasure of talking with the president of our college Mark Mitsui to help mark this milestone in the program.

There were a number of questions I was curious to ask and I appreciated how gracious Mark was with sharing some stories and in general having a great conversation with me. We explored how he got to where he is today, the valuable experiences he had working in the Obama administration for the U.S Department of Education, his journey to Bonn, Germany for the C.O.P 23 climate conference last year. We also talked about how sustainability can be incorporated into the YESS to Equitable Student Success, Affordable Housing, a bit on food insecurity, and perhaps most encouraging is the work he’s helping with in regard to the Pathways to Opportunity, which is an initiative that is working towards making Community College more accessible to everyone.

We covered a lot of ground in this conversation and I really appreciated that the president of this college, Mark Mitsui, was willing to sit down and share some of his story and perspectives. It was also nice to here him share his respect and gratitude for all the work that has taken place at PCC by students, staff and faculty who have helped to make this such a notable higher education institution in the field of sustainability. We touched on some systemic issues and I think that is really important as we begin to take harder looks at what is in store for this planet if we continue anywhere close to the “business as usual” business we’ve been doing. It’s challenging trying to change the systems while we’re in the systems and Mark, and PCC have a big job ahead making the tough decisions for PCC that don’t always benefit the often toxic systems that are at play within capitalism. Ultimately, what I hope you’ll get from this interview is a chance to hear from a person who is at the top of a hierarchy within a major institution here in Oregon and to have also heard in him, words coming from just another human being on this wild journey we call life.

A lot has to change if we are going to avoid climate catastrophe and it is abundantly clear that humans are the main force behind what consequences lay ahead for the ecology of our planet. The ecosystem and planet as a whole will work things out eventually though it is now beyond a doubt, without question, clear that we are impacting the world in profound ways and a great deal of them are not good or beneficial. May we change that and change it soon!

So much thanks to Mark Mitsui for joining the program and bringing in the 10th episode of the program. And thank you for tuning in, too!

This episode is in response to a few current issues that are circulating in our local and global public spheres. The most recent one being the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their report which says we basically have 12 years to right this spaceship before we bring ourselves to the brink of collapse. Then, there is the general conversations and issues that have been both hot topic issues (like the Brett Kavanaugh situation and it’s relation to the #metoo movement). This leads to the subjects that have not gotten a lot of attention in the main stream media. Specifically power and privilege and the systematic oppression that they serve and perpetuate. These are subjects that those who are a part of our current dominant culture we live in don’t really wish to address. And these are precisely the issues and subjects that need to be addressed if we are going to achieve any sort of socially just and environmentally sustainable future.

I feel compelled to say that what I share in this episode is a personal reflection. Yes, I am a student and part time faculty here at ˿����Ƶ, and this program is based here at this school (and institution) though I share these words from a vulnerable place and share them honestly and transparently so that they can be heard by listeners everywhere, but also by all those in our school who help perpetuate many of these systems that absolutely need to change. We need to reckon with where we are. Especially white men. I am one of those people who identify as a white male and I recognize the extreme privilege I have that is entirely unearned. What I share in this episode is my own lived experience and perspectives. They may involve aspects or ideas that others share here at PCC (especially the students) though I take personal responsibility for these words. I will be adding links to this post to provide as many resources and educational tools for those of you out there who also want to have this dominant culture eradicated. I will also share links to the IPCC report and some of the reflections others have had on it which I value and appreciate.

For now as always, thank you for tuning in. We’ve got a lot of work to do moving forward. May we remember we’re all in this together and the time is upon us to try and put our momentum behind being a part of the solution and not a part of the problem moving forward…

So, the just wrapped up, The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education had this years annual conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and I must say, that is a beautiful part of this planet. The conference was themed around the or SDG’s for short which have been crafted by the United Nations. These goals are to be met by 2030 in hopes to curb our carbon emissions and ideally not have us collectively head quite so quickly off of the cliff. One things for certain, we cannot go forth practicing the detrimental ‘business as usual’ if we are going to realistically move away from the cliffs edge and get on any sort of realistic sustainable track or perhaps solar road…

Over the course of the conference I had a good handful of takeaways and moments to remember though one that stands out was the conference session I attended called: . The presenter was , a senior at in Bellingham, Washington. This session was filled with so many important elements and ideas that I resonated with that it’s going to be challenging to succinctly pick a few to describe to you. Thankfully, after Kate’s session I asked if she’d be willing to sit down with me and share some of her thoughts and reflections on her session and about the ethics of care. Also, if you follow the link to her presentation, Kate was kind enough to share her presentation slides and notes as well.

I finished editing and producing this episode yesterday, on what is now called Indigenous People’s Day in many parts of America. This is a good step in the right direction for telling better stories moving forward. And I would also like to add that Kate started off her presentation with these words which was very thoughtful and showed a sense of honor and respect for the lands we were on in what we now call Pittsburgh.

“Before we begin we need to take a few moments to acknowledge the history of the land we are on and the people who have lived and continue to live here since time immemorial. Here in Pittsburg we are currently occupying Haudenosauneega/Haudenosaunee Confederacy (pronounce: Hoe-den-ah-show-knee) land and Osage (oh-sage) land, and we did not ask permission to be here. The Haudenosauneega Confederacy (pronounce: Hoe-den-ah-show-knee) is a group of Indigenous nations which includes the Mohawk, Oneida (Own-eye-da), Onondaga (On-on- da-ga), Cayuga, and Seneca people. Both the Haudenosauneega (pronounce: Hoe-den-ah- show-knee) and are nations that cross borders imposed by settler colonialism.”

It was encouraging to see and hear the land acknowledgments being incorporated into many of the presentations at AASHE including right before the opening keynote of the conference. The sustainability movement has been a very privileged and white persons movement for a long time and it has a ways to go to be genuinely inclusive and equitable in many regards. These land acknowledgements are a good step in the right direction for sure…

Okay, one last thing before I wrap this up and kindly encourage you to have a listen to this episode, I loved that Kate has a self declared major called ”Environmental Consciousness: Society, Culture, and Education,” That is awesome. Alright, let’s hear what Kate had to say on the Ethics of Care and some views on social justice and the sustainability movement…

Thanks for tuning in, folks!