Alumni Sustainability Newsletter
April 2024
Welcome to the first alumni sustainability newsletter of 2024. In this edition we are delighted to introduce our new initiative; Alumni Action Days - a series of nature based activities that aim to benefit both the local environment and your wellbeing. Our first Alumni Action Day is the international 4-day bioblitz event, City Nature Challenge. Alongside this we’ll be talking to the winners of our inaugural York For Life Environmental Sustainability Champion Alumni Awards, and also sharing some highlights from this year’s Sustainability Week. We hope you enjoy reading it!
INTRODUCING ALUMNI ACTION DAYS
Good for you, good for the planet.
Human health and the health of our planet are inextricably linked. Just as degraded ecosystems can have negative impacts on our health and wellbeing, so too can healthy ecosystems deliver important benefits. Environment and Health is an area of research championed by the University of York, with researchers working on a variety of projects such as green social prescribing to support people living with mental illness.
Building on this theme, the Alumni Sustainability Network will be organising a series of nature based activities that aim to benefit the local environment as well as giving a wellbeing boost from being outside in nature and joining a community of like minded people.
Although our activities will largely be based in and around York, we want all alumni to be able to join us. From doing a litter pick on your street to joining a local tree planting event, there are many ways you can get involved. If you already work or volunteer for a local environment group, why don’t you invite local alumni to your activities? We would love to hear about your actions and share them to inspire our global alumni community.
Share your activities with us by tagging us on Instagram (@uoyalumni) or you can share your stories by emailing alumni@york.ac.uk.
City Nature Challenge 2024 🔍
Our next Alumni Action Day is the City Nature Challenge. It is a 4-day worldwide bioblitz-style competition where cities are in a friendly contest with each other to see who can make the most observations of nature, who can find the most species and who can engage the most people!
All you need is a smartphone and the iNaturalist app; a free app you can use anytime for your daily wildlife observation - take photos or record sounds of wildlife, including wild animals, insects, fungi and plants, and the app will assist you to identify and record the species you find. Once you upload your observation, other people who use the app can see it and offer identifications and comments on it.
Everyone can take part in the City Nature Challenge from anywhere in the world. The observations made during the City Nature Challenge will be used for research to understand biodiversity of the area. York is joining the City Nature Challenge for the first time this year and there will be a lot of group observation events, including on-campus events, available during the period.
Take part in City Nature Challenge and share your observations with fellow alumni via “University of York Alumni Sustainability Network” project!
How to join:
1. Download the iNaturalist app on your phone or tablet (Apple App Store, Google Play store)
2. Make your account
3. Search participating cities from here. If the city you're in is participating, just join "University of York Alumni Sustainability Network” in the 'projects' section. (All observations made within the boundaries of participating cities between 26 - 29 April will automatically be added to the city's challenge).
4. If the city you're in is not participating, join 1) "Global Project" and then 2) "University of York Alumni Sustainability Network project"
Observe - take photos or sounds of any wildlife, intensively from Friday 26 to Monday 29 April! 🐛
Why take part in the challenge?
"There's much less wildlife - animals, plants, fungi - in our countryside than there used to be. That's often said - but how do we know it to be true? The answer is that thousands of people all across Britain make records of the wildlife they see and report these, so building an accurate picture of the decline of nature. Without the unsung work of that army of citizen scientists, we wouldn't know what the problem was and so wouldn't know how to fix it. Your chance to join that force of nature is coming up on the weekend of 26-29 April, when York joins the City Nature Challenge, an annual event in which the citizens of cities all over the world join together to find out about the nature all around them and to report what they find."
Professor Alastair H Fitter, CBE, FRS, from Department of Biology
Alumni spotlight: Pengfei Jiang
Meet Pengfei Jiang (BA Education Studies, 2016), who works in sustainable education as Academic Principal at Zhuji Ronghuai Foreign Language School. He is the winner of the inaugural York for Life Alumni Awards: Environmental Sustainability Champion Award!
Can you tell us what you do?
I currently work as an Academic Principal at Zhuji Ronghuai Foreign Language School where I provide leadership and guidance to the school community. I'm responsible for creating and implementing a vision for the school, and setting academic and behavioural standards. Along with my school leadership role, I also oversee the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Curriculum Office which is focusing on developing and delivering SDGs-related curricula for secondary school students.
What made you interested in working in environment education?
My interest in working in the area of environment education links to my undergraduate study at The University of York. I first came across the word “Sustainability” when I took the module “Education and Development”, which introduced me to the Sustainable Development Goals. Thanks to the tutor’s briefing in SDGs from my undergraduate study, I further explored this topic in my master’s degree at University of Oxford. This education experience strongly encouraged me to devote myself to SDG education for secondary school students and teachers’ training in China.
Are there any challenges that you face at work?
One significant challenge we faced was engaging our students at the beginning, where the concept of sustainability within high school context was not widely understood or accepted. To address this challenge, we adapted our communication to better suit the broader local community. This effort included organizing regular informational sessions, such as local sustainability workshops. We patiently explained the importance of sustainability to students and the wider stakeholders, such as parents.
"One significant challenge we faced was engaging our students at the beginning, where the concept of sustainability within high school context was not widely understood"
What are the most rewarding aspects of your job?
The most rewarding aspect of my job is watching my students enjoy learning SDGs, and they can actually solve SDGs problems. One of our students said, “I feel empowered, as I have actual tools to solve problems for SDGs through the SDGs-related STEM curriculum provided by school.”
Any exciting news you’d like to share?
We have just been granted to host the 2024 Local Conference of Youth by YOUNGO, which serves as the official voice of young people from across the globe in the UN climate negotiations under the UNFCCC. We will reach our partner schools nation widely and engage with SDGs education.
Sustainability week 2024
From 4 to 8 March, the University of York hosted its tenth sustainability-themed week, formerly known as "One Planet Week". Over thirty activities were available for staff, students, and alumni to learn about environmental and social issues while engaging with the University's ambitious sustainability goals.
Nature Journaling ON Campus West
As part of the week's offerings, Environmental Sustainability at York (ESAY) organised a nature journaling session on Campus West. Led by Anna Morfitt, ESAY's Communications Officer, fifteen participants enjoyed a campus nature walk before diving into two immersive journaling activities focused on connecting with nature while boosting mental wellbeing.
The session aimed to encourage participants to use creativity, curiosity and personal reflection to connect with the natural environment around them. Using nature journals and drawing tools, attendees focused on their surroundings, including the beauty and intricacies of moss, leaves, trees, birds, fungi and more.
This activity aligned with the University's Sustainable Development Goal focus on "Good Health and Wellbeing" (UN SDG 3), offering a simple yet profound way for the community to engage with nature.
To find more about the events and activities that unfolded during Sustainability Week, visit here.
If you want to try nature journaling at home…
All you need is a pen and paper!
1. Go outside and find your little spot to observe
2. Sketch pictures and diagrams of your observation. You can write descriptions, poetry and any questions you have. Don't forget to add date, location and the weather too to make your journal historically relevant and scientifically useful.
Wellbeing Action Day
The York for Life Alumni Sustainability Network hosted its first wellbeing Action Day, with the aim of making a positive impact on both individual wellbeing and the local environment, bringing together a diverse cohort of 14 volunteers including alumni, staff, and students. Participants engaged in community tree maintenance with a concerted effort to remove plastic tree guards. The afternoon was particularly successful as attendees cleared nearly all the tree guards from two distinct woodland areas on the Heslington East campus.
In addition to hands-on conservation efforts, participants also had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of biodiversity across the campus. Gordon Eastham, the University's Grounds & Ecology Manager, enriched the experience with valuable knowledge about sustainable practices.
Reflecting on the event's impact, many attendees expressed that they felt significantly better than they did at the start of the afternoon. One York graduate, Janet Baird, travelled down from Harrogate for this event. She found the experience rewarding, likening it to the feeling that she had “liberated a tree from its prison”.
Sustainability Panel Discussion: Food Production and Consumption
As part of Sustainability Week, Professor Sarah Bridle, renowned for her work in Food, Climate, and Society at the University of York chaired an online Panel Discussion on Food Production and Consumption that drew over 70 attendees. The speakers of the panel kindly volunteered their time, and were a brilliant example of diverse expertise coming together from across the university, the alumni community, and the wider globe. Watch the discussion below or on our YouTube Channel.
Key Sustainability Dates
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Name |
Date |
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22 April |
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26 April |
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26 - 29 April |
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5 - 11 May |
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20 May |
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5 June |
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8 June |
Thank you!
We hope you've enjoyed reading the fourth edition of our sustainability newsletter. If you'd like to get involved in shaping the Sustainability Network, please get in touch at alumni@york.ac.uk.
You can also find more information by heading to our Sustainability Network webpage.
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