How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
Although most students select their dorms based on its location to campus and the size of its rooms, a number of students decided in 2007 that they wanted to live in a residence hall that focused on stustainability efforts.
In 2008, representatives of Residential Life created the Green House at the Seventh Streeth residence hall.
Jonah Cecil Scheib, the director of energy and sustainability at NYU, has used the Green House at Seventh Street as a test bed for projects like low-flow shower heads. That alone helped the residence hall save over 100,000 gallons of water in its first year.
Each suite in the dorm is retrofitted with inexpensive shower timers and light switch stickers reminding students to turn off the lights.
The community at Seventh Street is a network of people who actively seek eco-friendly initiatives, said CAS senior Debbie Chung.
The dorm's sustainability efforts have encouraged Chung to alter her habits. She now reuses Trader Joe's bags and air-dries her laundry.
"You don't have to be a die-hard environmentalist though," Chung said. "Even if you're just a concerned citizen, it's still a good place to start."
One way that Seventh Street encourages sustainability goals for all residents is to have each student join one of four focus groups: Communal Dinners, Conservation Programming, Community Gardens and Service or Communal Development. The Community Gardens and Service branch, for instance, organizes local gardening projects like sprucing up tree pits and leading garden tours in the East Village. The Communal Dinners group is responsible for coordinating bi-weekly dinners for all residents.
According to Tisch senior Ramona Sadiq, who was placed in the Communal Dinners group, the meals have themes that relate back to sustainability, whether it is fruits and vegetables in season or all locally grown produce.
The Conservation Programming group assists in the organization of informative programs for the residents. Chung said that her favorite event was when famous blogger and author Colin Beauvan, better known as the "No Impact Man," was invited to speak at the dorm about his attempts to live without making any net impact on the environment.
That included living with no air conditioning, which is something the Seventh Street residents can relate to. But this hardly bothers Tisch junior Elyse Gauthier.
"We have a ton of fans. And our windows open all the way," she said. "Air conditioning really isn't that big of a deal."
Despite being immersed in sustainability efforts, the Green House is ultimately what its residents make of it.
"The one thing that I noticed at Seventh Street is that you weren't forced to partake in green activities. It required a little self-motivation to get involved. What was great about living there is that when you want to do something green, the necessary resources were available," Tisch alumnus Jared Zeizel said.
