In early 2023, EHSL hosted a student-led, SCIF-funded air quality project. Students set up air purifiers in the library. They collected and tracked data to support a publication about clean air spaces at institutions. Air quality differences between east and west Salt Lake City was also analyzed.
In February, EHSL tabled at a seed swap event at the Salt Lake City Public Library. Around 100 people visited our table.
In April, EHSL received Green Office recertification for the 3rd time.
During Earth Day Week, EHSL tabled our seed library at the Student Union in partnership with Edible Campus Gardens, College of Nursing, and other volunteers from the Bennion Center. We also hosted a student-organized exhibit at EHSL. There was great engagement at both events.
In May, Alison Mortensen-Hayes met with Anne Manly of the American Library Association’s Development Office to discuss the potential of ALA providing sustainability grants.
On June 23rd, EHSL hosted a Spring Climate Changes Health and Health Equity event. Piper Christian presented her paper “Air Quality and Environmental Justice in Salt Lake County: lessons learned from researching local pollution through NASA and the University of Utah”. You can view that presentation here.
At the end of August, Alison Mortensen-Hayes, Olivia Kavapalu, and Donna Baluchi met with students from ASUU to advise on campus-wide distribution of reusable menstrual products, such as menstrual discs, menstrual underwear, and reusable pads. The Sustainability Committee at EHSL completed a similar project in October 2022. After gaining approval of a SCIF grant of $10,000 in March 2021, the library was able to provide over 700 menstrual cups to the University of Utah campus community. With this grant, the library was able to pay over 75% of each cup, leaving only a $5 fee for students to cover. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the library was able to ship menstrual cups to students for $3 each. This project promoted menstrual equity by eliminating the financial barrier of making the transition from disposal to reusable.
On August 29th EHSL held our Fall Climate Changes Health and Health Equity event to highlight work done by the UHealth Green Team and the SOM Student Sustainability in Medicine Interest Group. This event had 27 attendees in person and 215 viewers online. The recording can be found here.
In September, EHSL started working on the set up of a little seed library near the Edible Campus Gardens and were part of a Saturday Service Project. Currently, the little seed library is getting decorated by an artist via grant, and we’ll be rolling out a grand opening during Earth Week of 2024.
Right now, Alison Mortensen-Hayes is serving on the University’s Earth Week 2024 Committee that has partners from all over campus. She is also a part of the UHealth Green Team, along with the rest of the EHSL’s Sustainability Committee.
