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Greenhawks


NEWS

Local Solutions to Your Recycling Woes

Recycling is an easy way to reduce individual environmental impact, but it also comes with its limitations. Although dorm and residence recycling programs take a variety of different items, there are some things that are not able to be recycled and need to be taken to specific locations. Some residents in Oxford also contend with the issue of not having an accessible recycling location at their house or apartment and must seek additional locations to drop off their recycling. Although these challenges may require extra time and effort, recycling as much as you can makes a huge positive environmental impact at an individual level. 


NEWS

Expanding the Oxford Area Trail System One Step at a Time

The Oxford Area Trail System, also known as OATS, is a successful city amenity that has made a positive and powerful impact on the Oxford community in recent years. For those who are not familiar with the trail, it is a paved path for bikes and pedestrians that spans from the Black Covered Bridge to Peffer Park with three additional entrance points along the route. This new system of multi-use paths should not to be confused with the Miami Natural Areas, which includes an additional 17 miles of smaller dirt trails that branch off of the paved OATS trail system. While the Oxford Area Trail System is managed, funded, and maintained by the City of Oxford, respectively, the Miami Natural Areas are owned and operated by Miami University. Although they are separate trail systems, the two entities work together to ensure a positive user experience. 


OPINION

H2Ohio and What it Means for Ohio’s Future

Algal blooms, most often cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, can produce toxins when abundant and have been causing problems for the public for quite some time. When they are in “bloom” they appear to look like a colored film covering the surface of the water, this can be in a wide range of colors, however most often they appear green. They are referred to as “harmful algal blooms” or HABs when they are in abundance due to the effect that they can have on us and the environment. Harmful algal blooms can contaminate the water causing various sicknesses if ingested or skin irritation if it comes in contact with the body, not to mention the negative impacts on the surrounding wildlife.


OPINION

5 Great Environmental E-Newsletters To Spice up Your Inbox

As busy college students, I’m sure our day to day email inboxes all look pretty similar- a slew of Canvas notifications, club meeting reminders, and campus updates. Naturally, sorting through all this mail to distinguish what’s important and what's not can be time consuming and frustrating. While email is a convenient and quick mode of communication, it has developed into a chore for many of us. 


FOOD

ASG asks students to “pick their portion”

  Miami University’s Associated Student Government (ASG) launched an initiative earlier this month to reduce food waste in campus dining halls by asking students to “pick their portion.” Dining halls across campus now display stickers on the glass in front of food stations prompting students to be specific about the amount of food they wish to receive. Options include double, full and half-portions, as well as “just a taste.”


OPINION

Good Habits Nourish the Mind & Soul

While habits aren’t technically food, good habits do indeed nourish the mind & soul. As a matter of fact,  Ibn Khaldun, universally recognized as the founder and father of Sociology and Sciences of History, stated that “Habits are qualities of the soul”. Not only do habits enable you to be on top of your responsibilities and obligations, but they also allow you to get mindful about your activities each day if you are intentional with them. I keep saying “good habits” and “being intentional with habits” because we all have habits regardless; in fact, a paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 revealed that over 40 percent of actions that people perform each day are habits, not actual decisions (Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit). Therefore, in order to have habits that improve our self-worth, mental health, emotional intelligence, and everything above, it is essential to develop good habits and eliminate the bad ones. What this entails is being mindful of how each of our habits makes us feel; for example, last semester it was a habit of mine to stay in Farmer for hours on end without interacting with another person or going home. I realized that this was a huge barrier for me to live a happy and healthy life, so this semester I have made a huge effort in coming home throughout the day or doing homework from home in order to ensure intermittent social interactions with my best friends.


NEWS

Miami to invest $20,000 in solar panel analysis for potential use on campus

  Miami University plans on funding a $20,000 research analysis with the possibility of adding a solar power field to the Oxford campus in the near future. “We wanted to perform a study analysis and better inform ourselves on solar field experiences,” said Cody Powell, vice president of facilities planning and operations. Miami currently uses a small 18-panel solar array at the Institute for Food farm, but Powell said Miami had a bigger picture in mind going forward.


OPINION

Making Your Yard Animal Friendly

As college students, backyards are usually the least of our worries, especially since many of us either live in apartments or dorms. I know that I for one have been careless about leaving empty cups and such out in my backyard every so often. I didn’t think about how hazardous everyday outdoor items can be to wildlife, though, until I saw a local buck with a bright red hammock wrapped around his head pass through my yard. This incident made me start thinking about how I could make my yard more animal friendly, so here are several tips to make your yard an inviting place for local wildlife:


NEWS

How to Eat Vegan in Oxford on a Budget

I have slowly been transitioning from a vegetarian diet to a vegan one throughout the past few months. At first I followed all of the how-to guides and starter diets, but that ultimately resulted in expensive purchases of vegan alternatives. Maintaining enough vitamins in a vegan diet and having to find the funds for store-bought alternatives has been hard, but giving up Caprese sandwiches at Fridge and Pantry or the mac bites at Mac n Joe’s has proven to be the biggest difficulty. However, I have been able to pick up tips on how to sustain a well-balanced, vitamin-filled vegan diet while staying within a budget. I have also found great vegan options for pick-up and delivery in Oxford.


NEWS

Hitting the Trails, Healing the Brain

As a lifelong runner and cross country enthusiast, I've always felt most at home on well-worn dirt trails, sidestepping roots and keeping an eye out for stray rocks. The feeling is one that I can trace back to my early childhood, running through the woods at home and feeling like I was part of a world that was entirely mine. I quit cold-turkey last summer, nervous about the stressful transition into college and preoccupied with classes and making friends during the pandemic. Although running has been a constant in my life for the last decade, I was too busy to miss it until this semester.


NEWS

Eating Locally on Campus

Eating locally is a hot topic in the food sustainability realm, but do you know why eating locally is actually beneficial? For one, locally grown foods don’t have to travel as far to arrive in your fridge or on your plate, meaning that it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. This also means that your food will be fresher, healthier, and of course, have a much better taste since it spends less time in transit. Eating locally also supports sustainability because it produces far less waste than corporately manufactured food, as less food and packaging is wasted in distribution, storage, and merchandising. Not only is local food good for the environment, but it also benefits the local economy by supporting local farmers and other producers. There are so many benefits, and luckily, eating locally here in Oxford is a breeze! 


NEWS

Crash Course on Carbon Sequestration by Trees

As everyone’s favorite orange environmental advocate once said, “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.” -Dr. Suess. It’s no secret that one of the actions most oftenassociated with environmental sustainability is the act of planting a tree. In fact, many businesses even hold tree-planting campaigns as a sign of their sustainability prowess. For example, the well-known clothing brand tentree plants ten trees for every purchase, and to date has planted over 50 million trees. Why exactly is planting trees such a valued action in the eco-community, and what implications could this have on future climate solutions? Today we will explore these questions with a crash course on carbon sequestration. 


OPINION

The Texas Power Grid May Be a Warning for the Future

Winter storm Uri has swept across the country affecting people and states from coast to coast. In Ohio, the biggest inconvenience was a delay with clearing the roads. But oddly enough, this storm also hit Texas, which typically experiences an arid climate with very mild winters. Texas normally averages 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter months; with the storm, Texans experienced snow for the first time in many years. Because of this unlikely circumstance, Texas was completely unprepared for what was to come. 


FOOD

Hellooooo 2021 & Hello Fresh

Hello everyone! I want to start off by briefly introducing myself to those of you who may not have read any of my GreenHawks Media content before. My name is Sammy Harris and I am a Junior at Miami University pursuing a co-major in finance and entrepreneurship. In fact, it was the creativity and leadership course I took last spring for entrepreneurship that brought me here. Through a lot of introspection activities and practice, I unraveled who I am at my core, learning to pursue involvement in things that I genuinely am passionate about; food and creative writing are VERY prevalent passions of mine, so it made a lot of sense for me to become a Food Beat Writer for GreenHawks Media, and I have not looked back since! In the last couple of years, I have also become really passionate about mental health, so I shifted my column last semester to ‘MIND FOOD’ and began writing about all things food and mental health, separate and yet extremely interrelated at the same time. 


NEWS

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Speaks on Climate Change

On Thursday, Feb. 11 and Friday, Feb. 12th, Miami University welcomed Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, the Dean of the University of Michigan school for the Environment and Sustainability, to speak virtually to students, staff and alumni. Overpeck was this year’s speaker for the annual Dr. Gene and Carol Willeke Frontiers in Environmental Science Distinguished Lecture put on by Miami’s Institute for the Environment and Sustainability. 


OPINION

5 Eco-Friendly YouTubers You Should Be Watching

Youtube has millions of videos on sustainability, so it can be hard to narrow down which ones are worth subscribing to. Here is a list of some popular eco-friendly YouTubers who make videos on everything from shopping tips to low-waste travel. Many of them have blogs and Instagram accounts in addition to YouTube channels, so if videos aren’t your thing, make sure to check those out instead!


OPINION

How to Brew a More Eco-Conscious Cup of Joe

If you’re like over 50 percent of Americans 18 and older, a cup of coffee is part of your daily ritual. Whether you turn to coffee for a delicious morning pick-me-up, or use it to power through late night study sessions, you may find yourself wondering about the little ways you can enjoy a more eco-conscious espresso. If so, you’ve come to the right place!


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