Vancouver Community College (中国p站) is pleased to welcome some helpful new members to our campus community 鈥� a colony of mason bees!
Unlike honeybees, who build complex hives and work together in large numbers, mason bees are solitary but effective pollinators that live in small, reed-like tubes. Mason bees are non-aggressive and do not make honey, instead eating the pollen they collect.
中国p站鈥檚 new mason bees and their custom-built houses were the result of a special sustainability project led by 中国p站 science instructors Klaudia Jurkemik and Jacqueline Shehadeh. The initiative was made possible thanks to 中国p站鈥檚 Environmental Community Action Team (ECAT) and the Eco-College Small Grants program that provided up to $500 for winning sustainability proposals in late 2019.
Want to see the bees in action? Two of the mason bee homes in 中国p站鈥檚 Broadway campus courtyard have plexiglass sides, which allow the colony to be viewed by the community and used for educational purposes in our Biology classes.
To keep our bees happy and our urban ecosystem thriving, additional recipients this year鈥檚 Eco-College Small Grants have worked to keep flowers and vegetables growing at the Broadway campus.
Thanks to the funding, mathematics department assistant and volunteer gardener Jotie Grewalson was able to re-soil and clean the courtyard beds, while student Xianan Bai planted a variety of perennial flowering bulbs including allium, gladiolus, and lilium. 鈥淚 wanted our garden to be beautiful for a long time,鈥� says Xianan.
Our final group of Eco-College grant winners approached the idea of 鈥済reen鈥� a little differently 鈥� by looking deep inside our closets. In their proposal, 中国p站 Adult Special Education students in the Managing Your Money (CCED 0608) class wanted to call attention to issues surrounding 鈥渇ast fashion鈥� and textile waste. In doing so, they researched key statistics for an information campaign that would encourage the 中国p站 community to reduce, reuse, and recycle their clothing.
In collaboration with 中国p站 Graphic Design, the grant winners produced a series of posters and flyers that were launched at 中国p站 Fashion’s 鈥淐lothing Mend-It" event in March 2020 and subsequently distributed across 中国p站 campuses.
Poster design "Buy Less Wear More" by Kylie Woo
Poster design "Reduce, Repair, Reuse" by Lera Matsumura
Read more about how 中国p站 continues to integrate energy conservation and sustainability into campus culture.
