Have you ever spotted a leaky tap or toilet, a faulty sprinkler, or unnecessary lighting at UNSW? Have you seen airconditioning or fans turned up too high?

Multiply your experience by the 30,000 staff and students that visit UNSW on a typical day and you arrive at pretty significant amounts of energy and water waste.

Consider this. The leaking tap dripping away in the kitchen once every second will pour 8 kilolitres of water – or 32,000 cups of tea – down the drain in a year.

UNSW is Sydney Water’s 15th largest customer. The picture for energy use on campus is much the same. In a typical day, the University consumes the same amount of electricity as 20,000 homes.
Anyone can report incidences of energy and water waste at UNSW using the Spot it & stop it link on the UNSW website.

Reporting is easy. Visit www.energy.unsw.edu.au, select Spot it & stop it and take a few minutes to complete the form. Your report will be forwarded to the appropriate zones or grounds staff for attention. You will receive feedback on the action and savings arising from your report.

Staff from zone 2 (the library, Chancellery, Morven Brown, civil and environmental engineering, the Goodsell building and the Scientia precinct) who make a report via the web before Christmas will receive a complimentary beverage at the library lawn coffee cart and go in the draw for other prizes, including dinner for two at a restaurant of their choice.

Spot it & stop it is an initiative of the energy management unit and will complement the current option to report faults to zone offices by phone.

The campaign is designed to promote a change in culture among the University community, by providing staff with incentives to report incidents that they might otherwise dismiss as trivial or beyond their control.

With water restrictions in place we need all eyes on deck to spot it and stop it.

Mim Buchhorn is unswitch coordinator in the UNSW green office. To Spot it & stop it, go to www.energy.unsw.edu.au

Mim Buchhorn and UNSW energy manager, Rob Grimmett in front of a broken sprinkler near the Chancellery.

With the recent adoption by Academic Board of graduate attributes that UNSW is committed to helping students acquire, the University is embarking on several key initiatives to support the integration of these attributes in the curriculum.

A key initiative is the first-year forum to be held on campus on December 8. It will give staff and students the chance to share ideas and experiences about the development and assessment of graduate attributes from first year.

The forum – First contact: the challenge of integrating graduate attributes from first year – is coordinated by the learning and teaching unit in the office of Pro-Vice Chancellor (education and quality improvement), Professor Adrian Lee.
“We need to think about how we can best help our students think critically, become problem solvers and information literate,” said Lee.

“To do that, we need to start from the beginning and this is even more of a challenge with the large student numbers we have in first-year classes.”

The forum will include a panel discussion by employers about the qualities and skills they look for in applicants and a panel of students commenting on experiences that have helped them to develop graduate attributes. Recipients of the first-year learning and teaching grants will also talk about innovative projects they have developed. Dean of life science from RMIT, Professor Alex Radloff, will deliver the keynote address.

The first-year forum will be held in the NSG Theatre, Robert Webster Building, on Monday, December 8. Places are limited. If you would like to attend, contact Helen Walker in the learning and teaching unit, Ph 9385 2886, h.walker@unsw.edu.au