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Kasteel Well 4: Second Excursion and Learning Limits
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Our second academic excursion seemed to arrive faster than a single blink. One second, I was tallying up all my assignments for the three weeks before midterms, and the next I’m a full week past our travel break and it feels like I never had a break in the…
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Kasteel Well 3: Independent Travel and Brussels
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Traveling alone is a daunting task, made even harder when in a completely different country that speaks a different primary language than you. Help from Castle staff and buddying up with peers makes it easier, but there are innumerable considerations to take into account, and adding sustainable methods of…
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Kasteel Well 2: Travel Tips and First Excursion
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Finally, onto the actual travel advice! Even if you aren’t staying at the castle, I’ll try and keep my tips applicable to general travel as well, even just for students that have to travel far to get to and from the main campus each semester. Amsterdam Excursion To give…
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Tech Series 6: Energy Storage
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Part 1: Renewable Energy Storage Introducing Power Plants Electricity acts like the air that we breathe, or the water we drink—it’s that important to our day-to-day lives. Even a short blackout can send entire communities into haywire. Power plants, by extension, are vital to the functioning of our lives.…
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Kasteel Well 1: Introducing Kasteel Well
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Kasteel Well is one of Emerson’s most popular study away programs, second only to the LA program. Most students go their sophomore year for a whirlwind semester of travel and academics in a 14th century castle. I’ve gotten the opportunity to be one such student this fall, and I’ll…
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Tech Series 5: An Interlude with COP28
By: Katie Koenig Global climate talks are coming to a head this week with the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference —also known as the Conference of the Parties 28, or COP28—in Dubai. With this past year of record heatwaves and droughts across the globe, the major issues at the conference are all the more…
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Tech Series 4: LED Lighting
By: Katie Koenig As Emerson students, one of the quintessential experiences of living on campus is complaining about the overhead lights in every dorm. They’re bright, can’t be dimmed, and are harsh on the eyes. When bringing or buying your own lamps for the dorms or for your off-campus apartment, the major consideration is the…
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Tech Series 3: Forest Restoration
By: Katie Koenig (Sustainability Research Fellow) In the last Tech Series post, I focused on technological innovations and strategies for carbon capture in the energy sector. This time, I’ll be looking into another method of carbon capture, this one more based in natural resources and ecosystems rather than high-tech solutions. Specifically, I will detail our…
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Tech Series 2: Carbon Capture
By: Sustainability Fellow Katie Koenig With atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rising, and the impacts of climate change already affecting populations around the world, there is a greater need not only to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions but also to actually remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. We have to go beyond reducing emissions in order…
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Tech Series 1: Eco Dining
By: Katie Koenig We all get takeout at some point in our lives, especially with the bustle of college life and late night deadlines. Whether it’s a muffin to-go covered in saran wrap, a cup of coffee in a waxed paper cup, or a meal boxed in plastic, takeout is a major generator of trash…
