Last week 10^th – 14^th February saw the SAUWS Environment Team take Go Green Week across three campuses of UWS. The event proved a great success with the highest levels of student engagement to date. The combination of stalls with ethical and environmentally minded freebies, fun workshops and film screenings made for a great week.

Go Green Week is a national week of action on climate change in schools, colleges and universities. Students run a week of activities to raise awareness and demand stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.

The week kicked off at the Hamilton Campus on Tuesday with our small Go Green Week fair. Wednesday took the team back to Paisley, and Thursday to Ayr Campus. The fair attracted a lot of attention, largely thanks to the newest freebie, the Sporks.  Sporks are a combination of a spoon, knife and fork, which is a great replacement for disposable cutlery for packed lunches. The stall was also home to Mel’s gardening advice service where she introduced students to the creation of the biodegradable plant pots made from newspaper which were then used to plant pepper and cucumber seeds. These can then be transferred to any garden leaving no trace of the pot in which they were planted. A great introduction for any student keen to join Mel’s gardening group. Home Energy Scotland joined us each morning in the same location providing information on how students and staff can bring down energy bills and keep themselves out of fuel poverty.

While the team were inside the Glasgow Bike team were doing their thing at the Dr Bike Maintenance stall outside. Dr Bike offers the chance for staff and students to bring their bike along for a free service. This free servicehelps cycling to be practical method of transport by providing a maintenance service for cyclists.  The team will be back later in the year so watch this space!

The afternoon on each campus saw a plethora of activities.  There were two free workshops on offer and a film screening to close out the evening. Community organisation Rags to Riches came along to hold three upcycling workshops to show the participants their specialized techniques of turning old to new. This combats waste and gives participants new skills to go home with..Transitions UWS also hosted cookery lessons in the afternoon. These lessons give students a chance to learn how to make their diet healthier, cheaper and more planet friendly.

Transitions own master chef Chris took the participants through their paces creating culinary delights while sharing tricks and tips. At the end of each session the students got the chance to celebrate their success by tasting the fruits of their labour.

Each day finished with the Food For Thought Film screening. A chance for students to come along to enjoy free snacks and refreshments and watch an environmentally themed movie.. We showed Food Inc. A documentary focusing on how our food system affects our people and planet, and Chasing Ice an award winning documentary about capturing glacier change through time lapse photography These film nights are a regular occurrence on Paisley campus throughout the year giving students the chance to get together enjoy and movie and share a chat afterwards.

With what was our most successful event to date done and dusted the SAUWS Environment Team would like to take this chance to thank all the people and organisations who help make this possible and all the students who got involved making it what it was. We hope we can keep growing our circle at future events. Just watch this space.

www.Facebook.com/environment.sauws

www.facebook.com/UWS.transition

www.sustainability.sauws.org

https://www.facebook.com/UpRags2Riches

https://www.facebook.com/glasgowbikestation