With the semester coming to a close, Students for Environmental Action (SEA) leaders said they have accomplished one of their major on-campus goals for the term and are working on two others. The Greening the Ivory Tower (AMST 191b) course is progressing on its own set of projects that often overlap with SEA.SEA is currently trying to help reduce the amount of waste produced by Usdan. Mara Cohen '04, SEA general coordinator, said it is an ongoing campaign, and that the biggest problem has to do with the practices of students who eat there.

"We're trying to find out why people always use (plastic) to-go containers," Cohen said. "One of the biggest reasons seems to be the shape of the plates, so we talked to (the director of Aramark) about getting plates with better shapes for pasta or salad, but their concern is that people are always stealing plates."

In addition, SEA is working on reducing the amount of time the buses to Boston and Cambridge spend idling. Since SEA has made a project out of comparing on-campus practices to Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Environmental Protection regulations, they decided to target the bus issue.

"Buses are not supposed to idle for more than five minutes," Cohen said, "and we found that most of the Crystal Transport buses will turn their buses off, so for the ones that we did, we made cards to thank them."

The offenders also received notification. "Anyone who was idling for more than five minutes received a card explaining why they should turn their engines off," Cohen added.

Professor Laura Goldin (AMST), who teaches the "Greening the Ivory Tower" course, said her class often interacts with SEA when it comes to on-campus activism.

"The work that the students do in the class can interact with what SEA is doing," she said, "and the students as part of their projects will sometimes ask SEA members for help. Often the projects require the involvement of cross-campus coalitions."

Recent projects have included attempts to reduce paper waste, an energy-saving awareness drive through the use of stickers on light switches, and an attempt to get Zipcars (a short-term car rental service) on the Brandeis campus to reduce air pollution and automobile use.

"One of the best projects is the wetlands restoration project behind the main library," Goldin said, mentioning Kristin Stelljes '03 was the project's founder. "Students have been planting native blueberry bushes to extend the buffer zone away from the wetlands and protect them," she said. "Over the year, the facilities have been mowing closer and closer to the wetlands and there have been invasive species."

Goldin said the practical nature of her course is important. "The course is designed to give students the ability to identify environmental issues when they see them, and develop the tools to analyze and then tackle them," she said.