Past Projects | College of Southern Idaho

The Sustainability Committee has been committed to bringing sustainable initatives to the CSI campus and community for over twenty years. Take a look at some of our highlighted projects from the past or take a look at our current projects.

Sustainability Fair 2023

Celebrate Earth Day at the CSI Sustainability Fair! This event showcases solar and wind energy, building-energy conservation, recycling, gardening, organic and locally produced foods, green business development, and electric and hybrid vehicles.

Find local organizations and volunteer opportunities right here in the Magic Valley!
Friday April 21, 2023
10AM - 1PM

Canyon Rim Cleanup 2023

Join us for our Canyon Rim Trail clean-up event on Earth Day, April 22nd at 9am. We'll provide bags, water, and snacks, but please bring your own work gloves and a refillable water bottle. Bring the whole family and meet us at the Outdoor Recreation trailer in the Best Buy parking lot.

Let's work together to make a positive impact on the environment!
Saturday April 22, 2023
9:00AM - Noon

Pollinator Garden Added North of Shields Building

Our new pollinator garden is starting to attract bumblebees and our plants are thriving after the hottest part of our summer, 2019. Still to come, an interpretive sign, more plants, ground cover, and decorative stones.

Join our Bird Friendly Coffee Club

Birds and Beans is the only US coffee brand selling solely shade-grown, organic, fair trade, Smithsonian "bird friendly" certified beans. Great for birds, family farmers and the earth we all share. Great tasting too! Find a link to the Order Form here.

Certified by sci-entists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, this coffee is organic and meets strict requirements for both the amount of shade and the type of forest in which the coffee is grown. Bird Friendly coffee farms are unique places where forest canopy and working farm merge into a single habitat. By paying a little extra and insisting on Bird Friendly coffee, you can help farmers hold out against economic pressures and continue preserving these valuable lands.

Breckenridge Farm Coulee Clean-up Crew

May 1st, 2017

Left to right: Sarah Harris, Andy Bumstead, J.D. Knowles (ClifBar), Don Campanella, Cyndie Woods, Jan Simpkin

Earth Day Fair-2016

CSI’s 7th Annual Sustainability Fair will take place Friday, April 22, 2016, from 10 AM-1 PM in the SUB. If you know an exhibitor that would like to highlight a component of Sustainability about their business or organization at the Fair, please have them contact Randy Smith rsmith@csi.edu or Jan Simpkin jsimpkin@csi.edu

Puncture Vines Eradication

On Saturday, August 31, 2013, the Sustainability Council sponsored a Puncture Vine (Goat Head) Eradication Event. Thanks to everyone who came out! Think of all the bike tires that will stay inflated thanks to your efforts.

Student Rec Center Gets Bike Repair Station

The CSI Sustainability Council received a Pioneering Grant and was able to purchase a DERO Fixit Bicycle Repair Station! It has been installed (thank you Marc James) at the northeast corner of the Student Recreation Center.

The new bike station allows the bike-riding community at CSI to make simple repairs without visiting a bike shop. Scanning a QR code on the station with a smartphone opens up a webpage that details everything from changing tires to installing and tightening nuts and bolts on the bike. The station also includes a bike pump for filling deflated tires with air.

The station is not just for repairing commuter’s bikes. We hope the station helps dorm students maintain their own bikes and puts an end to the bicycle graveyards that normally pop up on campus at the end of the year. Instead of leaving derelict, rusting bikes on racks around campus for security to pick up at the end of the year, students can actually go fix their bikes.

Pump up your tires, put on your helmet and get riding!!

CSI Extends Life of the Landfill

Over the last few years CSI has substantially reduced the amount of pounds it is sending to the landfill. This is reflected in the just released 2015 recycling numbers. The increased recycling has resulted in fewer trash dumpsters and less pickup service required at CSI. A big thank you goes out to the CSI community, Joe Lemoine, and the custodial staff for making CSI’s recycling program a HUGE success.

2015

Recycled/Shredded Paper - 46,070 lbs.
Plastic Film/Bags to NOVOLEX - 1, 010 lbs.
2014 = Plastic Film/Bags to NOVOLEX - 431 lbs (since April 2014)
2011 = 57,001 pounds
2010 = 28,091 pounds
2009 = 7,390 pounds

See what you can recycle

CSI Herb Garden

The CSI Herb Garden was planted in the circular bed and four corner beds behind the Fine Arts Building on Graduation Day, May 13, in a community effort by students, faculty, and staff from across campus. The garden is a joint project of the Sustainability Council and Horticulture Program supported by the Student Senate and Faculty Staff Committee. Plants were started from seed by Horticulture students and nurtured for months in the Horticulture Greenhouse.

CSI’s Herb Garden is a place for hands-on learning and for thinking about food - a basic human need, central to our health and happiness. Designed to grow attractive and edible kitchen herbs, this is a garden where we can gather together or have quiet moments alone, enjoying nature. (We hope to provide benches for sitting to reflect, chat, or study in the future.) The garden is meant to be both a tangible and symbolic step in encouraging sustainability: using our soil, water, and sun to grow plants that are beautiful to see and that feed us. We hope to promote people’s health through awareness of growing and eating nutritious local foods, a concept deeply connected to our local history and agricultural heritage in Magic Valley. We will need to see which plants survive and thrive before we can make announcements about sustainable harvest.

Peace Pole Dedication

It is estimated that there are more than 200,000 Peace Poles that have been dedicated in nearly every country on Earth. Thanks to the CSI Sustainability Council, there is now one more – on our very own campus. The pole was created by the Maintenance Department and erected in a circular garden plot that is south of the CSI Tower. It was dedicated by a small, but stalwart, group of students and employees, lead by student senator Sayid Abdullaev, at noon on the very blustery Thursday of Green Week along with a campus community herb garden.

Peace Poles are now recognized as the most prominent international symbol and
monument to peace. Peace Poles bear the message, “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in the languages of the world in the six official languages of the UN: English, French,
Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian.

Planting a Peace Pole is a way of bringing people together to inspire, awaken and uplift the human consciousness the world over.

Dr. Diana Van Der Ploeg, President of Butte College in Oroville, CA visited CSI on January 12, 2011. Butte College is a national leader in sustainability. Dr. Van Der Ploeg's visit included a question and answer session, as well as the keynote address for all CSI faculty, staff, and administration.