UBC Recreation students explore and learn about sustainability at the Sustainability Education Resource Centre, CIRS.

On Friday, October 12th Common Energy, in partnership with the UBC Sustainability Ambassadors and the Sustainability in Rez programme ran a sustainability-themed station for UBC Rec’s The Chase. This one day “Amazing Race” style event pairs students to complete intellectual and physical challenges all across campus and around the city of Vancouver.

The sustainability point station was located inside and around the Sustainability Education Resource Centre (SERC) in CIRS (the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability). 

Besides sustain-opardy, a sustainability quiz in which participants needed to correctly answer six of 12 questions on four themes: Transport, Water, Waste, and Energy, the competition involved a four-stream waste sorting challenge in which students had to sort common items such as paper cups, apple cores, stir sticks, bottles, and plastics into four bins. Students also participated in completing the following statement: “To me, sustainability education is…”. This resulted in 72 responses. These responses form a word cloud pictured above.

This became a space for learning for students, from each other and through these activities, but it also gave UBC Sustainability some feedback on what students want and think about sustainability education. 

Story by Quinn Runkle

For information on other sustainability-oriented courses, programs, and events visit the Sustainability Education Resource Centre or Email us for an advising appointment.