Nancy Niefield’s ceramics class will create vessels to hold water.
Tomas Dvorak’s class will discuss water as an economic common resource.
Barbara Pytel’s biology class will discuss the heated debate over plastic water bottles.
These are just some of the events that are part of U-Sustain’s Water Week, which starts Monday. The campus will be overflowing with events to help bring awareness to political, environmental and economic water-related issues.
Events will run throughout the week, with professors integrating water issues into their classes.
"This series of events was initially motivated by U-Sustain's efforts to reduce the use of bottled water on campus, but it has moved far beyond such environmental issues to include all academic areas,” said Jeff Corbin, assistant professor of biology.
This week, he said, is about the importance of water in science, economics, public policy, society, arts, literature, engineering and many other disciplines. “It is a subject that truly integrates our curriculum,” Corbin said.
Water Week events include:
- Monday - noon -2 p.m.: Screening of “Story of Stuff” bottled water video outside Upper Class Dining Hall
- Tuesday – 12:50 p.m.: Tuesday Common Hour Forum discussion of campus alternatives to disposable bottles; poetry readings; update on an Engineers Without Borders water project in Ethiopia; and more in Olin Auditorium
- Wednesday – 12:50 p.m.: Pizza and Politics discussion on hydraulic fracturing with Cara Lee from The Nature Conservancy in Olin Auditorium
- 5 p.m.: Geology Department Colloquium featuring Miriam Katz of RPI on “Antarctic Circumpolar Current Evolution and its Impact on Climate and Global Ocean Circulation” in Olin Auditorium
- Thursday – 12:50 p.m.: Taste testing of tap water versus designer bottled water in Reamer Campus Center
- Friday – Ozone Café open; no sales of bottled water on campus
Also throughout the week, the campus community can sign a pledge to avoid the use of disposable water bottles, and special deals on reusable bottles will be offered in the Bookstore.