January

The month of January was a very productive month for Green Girls. We held
multiple planning meetings and decided that our next activity was going to be taking a
tour of the power plant. We are so excited to be able to go on a guided tour and learn
about the energy usage of Vanderbilt. From this, we are hoping to find ways to help the
whole Vanderbilt community become more green. Our event will be taking place on
February 23 and for the next few weeks our efforts will be focused on publicizing the
tour. We will do this by emailing and posting flyers (printed on recycled paper of course!
) We are hopeful that many of our peers and friends will be interested in attending this
event and are able to learn a lot from it.
In addition, water conservation has continued to be a main focus for our group.
We all have pledged to take shorter showers and have purchased reusable bottles, and
encouraged our friends to do the same.
Thus far, Green Girls has been a very successful project for all of us. We all have
continued to work well together and provide suggestions to keep improving Green Girls
as the year goes on.


Kiara and The Green Girls

Green Girls

This past November, the green girls completed their commercial for VIP.  Everyone had fun completing the video.  Each member tried to incorporate something about herself or something in the green girls project that was important to her.  We were excited that the commercial was not as time consuming as we thought; instead, it was entertaining and enjoyable.

Over Thanksgiving break, we decided to bring our new tendencies home with us.  While at home, our members tried to educate their families on going green.   We told our families the interesting activities that we had been doing over the past few months with VIP.  Each member got to share the new facts that she had found and the benefits of going green.  We tried to implement the policies that we use at school over break: we used reusable water bottles, we recycled, we took shorter showers; we unplugged appliances that were not in use and we turned off the lights when we left the room and house. 

We are all excited to continue our project over the next few months.  We are planning another dinner soon to discuss new topics and ideas for our project.  We want to start to plan for glass recycling at Vanderbilt.  We also want to start our plans for our trip to the power plant for our VIP event.  Additionally, we want to plan our activity of planting in the spring. 

Even though classes are about to end and finals are approaching, we are still going to keep up with our daily green activities. 

Be Green,

Liz

October 2010 by Dianna

             The month of October has been a very productive and educational month for us! Our project is definitely underway, and we are progressing at a steady pace.

This month turned out to have a theme: conserving water. It is amazing how many people are not aware of how much water and energy they are wasting every day.  All of us have decided to set examples for those on our hall and in our building by conserving water and turning out lights, especially in the bathroom.  Leaving the sink running while someone brushes his or her teeth wastes gallons of water! Also, we have made a few signs to put up in the bathroom, saying to limit showers and turn off the sink while brushing teeth. We have decided as a group to limit our showers to 10 minutes.  One day we will all take 5 minute showers then calculate how much water we saved. It is getting that time of year when people use more hot water and energy because of the weather, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be GREEN! 

Our biggest success of the month was the installment of a new water fountain on our hall! It hadn’t been working all semester, and after we wrote several notes and messages, a new water fountain appeared! We were really concerned when we saw it wasn’t working because people were going through several plastic water bottles a day instead of re-filling the same one.  We all know that is no way to save our environment or conserve water. Not only are we conserving water now, but we are also using less plastic, which is much better for the environment.

To see how much progress we’ve made, we have decided to approach the maintenance advisor of our building and ask him what else we can do to conserve water, energy, and heat. We noticed that our hall has been really cold lately, and while that is uncomfortable for us, it conserves heat for when it is actually 30 degrees outside. So to all our hall mates out there, pile on the blankets and sweaters! We are going to focus on heat and energy the next few weeks as winter approaches, but we are going to keep encouraging people to conserve water and set an example. If nine girls can do it, so can everyone else!

Be Green,

Dianna

Green Girls Month 1 (actually!) by Aimee

This month, Green Girls held our first event of the year. All of us went out for dinner to discuss our plan of action over sushi. It was a fun way for all of us to hang out and discuss our green ideas.

Essentially, this month we were still trying to get our bearings and evaluate our own habits. We took a look at our own recycling habits, water consumption, and energy consumption. While some of us are ahead of others in terms of implementing more green habits, we are now all ready to move forward and begin our plan of action.

We are all very pleased with our group dynamic and how well we work together. Everyone is open to constructive criticism from other members to help the success of our program. We intend to hold another dinner in the near future to figure out a local event we could host and to hear about everyone’s individual progress thus far. The Green Girls are very pleased with the new water fountain the fourth floor of Vanderbilt received because we now have a practical means of filling up our reusable water bottles instead of being forced to resort to plastic water bottles. However, this is just one of the many changes we hope to see on campus! The Green Girls are off to a great start and we have high expectations for ourselves this year!

xox,
Aimee and the Green Girls

Green Girls - Month 1

Hey everyone! so this week we didn’t have a lot of time to focus on our project since it was so hectic with move-in and classes but we did get to focus on a few personal things that we could do to be greener. So… when we all finally got to school we all made sure to buy re-usable water bottles and put our recycling bins in an easily accessible place in out room.  Aimee and Liz noticed that there was no recycling bin outside of our dorm so one of our goals for this year is to make Vandy-Barard recycling-friendly. A side note… us Green Girls have been avid customers at Nectar because we think that having an organic, eco-friendly market right downstairs is a great perk of living in here and its part of our project too! As for the rest of this month, we are going to continue to set goals and analyze our “greenness” so that we can improve throughout the year!

Be Green,

Leah