This year, as 300 University of Notre Dame students spend this week of fall break addressing some of the nations most pressing social concerns, some will make less of an impact.
The 36 students travelling to Washington, D.C., for the Center for Social ConcernsWashington Seminar, Gospel of Life and Energy Policy Seminar and Social Change Seminar will reduce their environmental impact by taking the train, reducing their carbon footprint by 43 percent.
This carbon footprint will be further reduced in April, when the center partners with the Mishawaka Department of Parks and Recreation to offset carbon dioxide emissions by planting trees. The trees will be registered with the United Nations Environment Program Billion Tree campaign, a program In which every tree registered is matched by the planting of another tree in the developing world.
The initiative comes as part of the centers response to the moral questions raised by the Notre Dame Forum on sustainable energy held last month on campus, and was made possible through close collaboration with the University’s new Office of Sustainability.Through continuing collaboration with the Office of Sustainability, the center plans to take further steps to increase efficiency and decrease its global environmental impact.
Founded in 1983, the Center for Social Concerns is one of the nation’s premier community-based learning, community-based research and service centers.In the past 25 years, nearly 19,000 students have given up their fall, winter, spring or summer break to learn and serve at more than 280 sites worldwide.
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