Office of Sustainability interns work on a variety of projects ranging from public outreach to data analytics. All projects help Brown achieve its sustainability goals while providing students with experience and skills for their post-college careers or studies.
Sustainability and Resiliency
Intern Projects
Sustainability interns learn while making a difference.
Intern Projects
Sustainability interns learn while making a difference.
Clean Break is Brown's campus-wide move-out donation program. At the end of each academic year, our intern team coordinates and leads a program that diverts up to 30,000 pounds of items away from Rhode Island’s landfills and gives it to local nonprofits. Interns coordinate a team of volunteers, work with campus and community partners, and learn valuable project management and stakeholder engagement skills.
Every semester our interns work with staff to create a newsletter about sustainability at Brown and interesting sustainability-related news from around the world. The newsletter highlights the amazing academic and operational sustainability work happening across campus. This project allows interns to network with staff and faculty from different departments and develop professional communication and design skills.
A biannual collection and analysis of data on campus-wide nitrogen emissions, the Nitrogen Footprint Project allows Brown to track our progress in decreasing our nitrogen footprint and gives us insight into which reduction initiatives provide the most impact. Interns learn to engage stakeholders as they collect data from across campus and gain experience in institutional data analysis.
Earth Week
Earth Week is an annual series of events that are hosted by groups across campus and marketed by the Office of Sustainability. Additionally, the office hosts a few of its own events. Interns learn to coordinate marketing and communication across campus departments. Interns also lead the planning and execution of multiple events during the week-long program. Previous events have included panel discussions, tabling events and trivia nights.
TreeMap
Interns used geographic information system (GIS) software to develop a self-guided interactive tour of different trees of interest on campus. During this project, interns gained experience working with GIS, collaborating with operational staff and crafting language that makes science accessible.
My project reviewing and sorting the Sustainability Strategic Plan comments makes me feel as though I'm taking a significant part in Brown's effort to become sustainable. Having the opportunity to directly work on projects of this scope is a real privilege and an incredible opportunity.
Sustainability Intern