Plastics are easy to manufacture, durable, lightweight and corrosion-resistant, and for the past forty years have been the most used type of material in a wide range of sectors. However, the materials and energy used for their manufacture and both managed and mismanaged disposal have resulted in a variety of environmental impacts. Consequently, the past decade has seen well-publicised drives for a reduction in single-use plastics and an increase in plastic recycling.

Jen Heemstra, a chemical and engineering news columnist and associate professor of chemistry at Emory University, returns to Illinois for a lecture and innovative poster session at the Beckman Institute.
Her lecture (at 2 p.m. in the Beckman auditorium) will explain why success is more likely when you’re willing to fail.

Featuring Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, discussing the nation’s science and technology policy. His background is in extreme weather, numerical weather prediction, and data assimilation. He holds MS and PhD degrees in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Join us on Friday, September 20th for the Champaign-Urbana area’s very own branch of the global Climate Strike!

We will be meeting at the Undergraduate Library and Siebel Center. Marching will begin at 10:30am and end around 12:30pm at Alma Mater.

Since 2014, dozens of protests in the U.S. have deliberately blocked major highways in order to increase the visibility of these protests and to draw on long-standing political meanings of transportation infrastructure. In response, seventeen states in 2017 introduced twenty-one pieces of legislation aimed at stopping such protests. While only two of these bills passed into law, they are still of interest for what they demonstrate about state-level legislative responses to highway protests. Using quantitative and qualitative methods within a framework of mobility justice, this study considers the geographies of the legislators who sponsored these bills as well as the discourses they produced around mobility, space, and place.

Visit the Emiquon Preserve on the Illinois River across from Havana. This is successful model of large-floodplain river restoration and a stopover for many waterfowl. Meet at Anita Purves parking lot at 7:30am and return in the afternoon.

Farm Hack is a one-day student competition, centered around creating innovative solutions around the goal of improving farm operations.
Students will be introduced to principles of human-centered design, experience the Sustainable Student Farm process from top to bottom, then ideate and present solutions. There will be prizes!

Free lunch and dinner are included. Dress appropriately for a hands-on experience

Environmental justice, the theme of the 2019 iSEE Congress, began as a social movement two decades ago, and is now a keystone concept driving the broader sustainability project. Simultaneously representing a field of scholarship, political agenda, and framework for understanding our fast-changing world, the marriage of social justice and sustainability has moved beyond its initial focus on the inequitable distribution of environmental burdens to incorporate a range of pressing social and ecological issues — Black Lives Matter, indigenous rights, climate change, and biodiversity loss, to name just a few — within a unifying framework that strives to realize sustainable justice for all.

But as human rights advocates know, the concept of justice can be defined in multiple ways, and its implementation into policy, environmental law, ecological design and planning, not to mention global trade, faces great challenges. For example: which social dimension to prioritize — race, class, gender, or age? How to balance the costs of conservation and resilience with poverty alleviation? And what is the role of biophysical sciences, engineering, law, and other academic disciplines in advancing the goals of sustainability justice?

Over two days, “Sustainability Justice” will bring together a diverse group of researchers, educators, journalists, and activists to discuss these urgent questions. The goals of the Congress are to introduce the Illinois campus and community to cutting-edge issues surrounding sustainability and social justice, to build bridges across different approaches, disciplines and geographies, and to chart new directions toward a sustainable, and just, future.

Help us turn off the lights to reduce the energy consumption and environmental impact of our campus! By participating in iSEE’s Illini Lights Out, you will be demonstrating your commitment to fighting climate change and saving our planet. This symbolic event shows that climate change is an issue that the University of Illinois campus cares about.

Grab your friends and join us as we turn off thousands of light bulbs! Sign up today for one or more of our Illini Lights Out events and get involved in this impactful movement!

We will meet in the lobby of the Foreign Language Building (FLB) at 5:30pm for some brief instructions. Then, we will head out to turn off the lights of our assigned buildings. Return to FLB to drop off your clipboard with the data you collected and for FREE snacks!

Want to learn about the rich cultural history that surrounds the Kickapoo Rail Trail area? Join us for an engaging 6.7-mile bicycle tour of the trail as we stop along the way to discuss local history. The tour will begin at the access point near the northern end of the Urbana Walmart’s parking lot, and end near The Wheelhouse restaurant in St. Joseph. Bring your own bike; participants should make arrangements to return from St. Joseph. Light snacks provided. Bike tour may be cancelled due to inclement weather. Space is limited, so register early! Ages 13 and up. $3 per person. Register by Sept 27 at ccfpd.org

Conservation, as a profession, has developed over decades from traditional craft-based approaches to scientifically-informed treatment methodology in order to preserve our most precious books and manuscripts. Modern conservation approaches bring together a fascinating blend of historic bookbinding and papermaking expertise with a modern application of organic chemistry and instrumental analysis in order to inform how to slow deterioration and extend the useful lives of our priceless collections. Perhaps it is this blend of art and science that makes the field so fascinating.

While contemporary conservators strive to apply innovative modern conservation treatments for our objects, we see the good, the bad, and the ugly of past repairs through the ages in our collections every day. In this exhibition, we bring together examples–many drawn from our own Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s holdings–to show the dynamic practice of modern book and paper conservation.