Rochester Roots: Excellence in Community Sustainability Education

Jan McDonald, executive director of Rochester ROOTS, Inc., located in Rochester, New York, presented a seminar on March 9, 2016 titled “Bringing Science to Life: A collaborative Approach to Sustainability Education in Grades PreK-6th grade where Students, Teachers, Citizens, College Students, PhDs, and Businesses Learn Together” as part of SUNY ESF’s Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Seminar Series. SUNY ESF Graduate Student Association, and the ESF Women’s Caucus jointly sponsored the seminar. Her inspiration for ROOTs now signature programs started with her childhood food allergies, and realization that when her diet improved, they bothered her less—while spending less at the farmer’s market

            ROOTS mission is “To empower citizens and communities, starting with youth, to create agency for their own sustainable wellbeing.” Ms. Donald presented the organization’s work which involves improving community health through and wellbeing through youth school programs and community gardens.  An example of this is local Montessori children working with RIT students to develop their imaginative ideas into tangible systems like classroom composters and robotic interfaces and gaming models.

            A central theme for ROOTS is creating diverse community gardens through learning environments, grassroots initiative, and the use of adaptable urban sustainable designs. Ms. McDonald discussed how to improve life enrichment and nutrition by developing gardens for low income communities by integrating sustainable agriculture, art, and healthy eating.

            By incorporating hands-on gardening experiences, students are able to learn the value of gardening and food preparation which empowers youth, family, and community. These community gardens - repurpose otherwise abandoned land which simultaneously approves aesthetics. In addition, the produce can be sold at market or used in product development, serving additional lessons in marketing and sales.

            For more information about this lecture and Rochester ROOTS visit www.rochesterroots.org. For more information about WiSE Professions Speaker Series, please visit www.esf.edu/womenscaucus. For upcoming lecture, please visit the College Calendar at www.esf.edu/calendar.
Students in FOR797 Env Career Strategies for Women share responsibilty for reporting on the WiSE Professions Speaker Series.  The preceding was prepared by Kelley Corbine, Nicolette Fruehan, Devin Hansen and Joel Ramtahal, all graduate students in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management.

Girls' Summit introduces ESF careers to community teens

CNY Girls Summit STEAM Career Conference for area middle and high schoolers returned to ESF on May 7.

Of the eight workshops offered during the program, half had very close ESF ties. Dr. Biljana Bujanovic’s team helped participants make paper, tested strength of commercial paper, and led facility tours.  Dr. Whitney Lash Marshall facilitated a systems thinking exercise, while Ms. Linda McGuigan guided participants through extracting DNA from strawberries and discussed the Chestnut project.  Alumna Ms. Kritika Thapa, now with EA Engineering, challenged groups through a water filtration exercise.  In addition, first year student Jet’aime “Jet” Lewis joined a College Preparation Panel with moderator Mel Menon,  of On Point for College, and students from Upstate Medical University, SU, OCC, and LeMoyne College.

Post-workshop surveys of the 90+ participants indicated that participants were indeed introduced to new careers and left with a greater interest in science and math than when they arrived.  Paper making and DNA extraction were clear favorites of the participants, with water filtration not far behind.

The 2016 program was a collaboration of the Girls' Inc/YWCA (Girls' Inc Specialist  Flavia Rey de Castro and interns Gina Ricci and Hannah Cash, both OCC students); ESF (Women's Caucus program coordinator, Heather Engelman: Interim Chief Diversity Officer Anne Lombard,  Maura Stefl of Outreach, and Eileen Baldesarre of C-STEP), and SU (Tanaya Thomas-Edwards, STEP).