Programs

The USU Extension Sustainability initiative offers programs for educators, youth, producers, and the general public in various areas of sustainability. Interested in professional development? Sustainable You! camps for your kids? Tools and techniques to save money and improve your lifestyle? Find them in our program series.

National Sustainability-Focused Extension Program

Explore USA Extension programs with a sustainability focus on this page. Each program offers sustainability information, workshops, and/or events. Environmental sustainability serves as the foundation as without healthy land, water, air, food, and forms of energy, economic and social sustainability are not possible. Discover programs available in your community, state, and/or across the United States. These programs are helping to improve our environmental, social, and economic conditions.

View our national directory or submit your program

Sustainable You! Camps

USU Extension Sustainability Summer Camps are designed to foster awareness and behavior change among youth through activities and reflection in the five major areas of environmental sustainability: Land, Air, Food, Water, and Energy. Objectives are to help youth 1) Discuss and reflect on key sustainability concepts; 2) Engage in daily activities that improve the natural environment; and 3) Learn daily actions extending beyond the camp that lessen their impact on our environment and conserve resources.

Interested in offering this camp in your area? Download the free curriculum. You can also contact Roslynn Brain at roslynn.mccann@usu.edu for a train-the-trainer request.

Utah Farm-Chef-Fork

Utah Farm-Chef-Fork is a USDA Specialty Crop funded program, that is a collaboration between the USDA, Utah State University Extension Sustainability, and Slow Food Utah. The goal is to enhance community vitality and reduce food miles by connecting Utah producers and restaurants.

Visit the Utah Farm-Chef-Fork page for more information

USU Permaculture Initiative

USU Extension Sustainability is helping create Utah’s first official campus permaculture gardens by planting all of USU Moab’s gardens in permaculture design, and implementing a permaculture garden on main campus in Logan.

Learn more about the permaculture initiatives

Moab Bee Inspired Gardens

Bee Inspired Gardens is a collaborative community garden initiative in Moab, UT, establishing and sharing information about water-wise, ecological landscaping. The mission is “To inspire efforts toward pollinator health, water conservation, and food and forage systems using gardens, workshops and resources in a way that benefits our community and ecosystems.”

Visit the Bee Inspired website 

Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest

The goals of the Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest are to (1) inform high school teens learning to drive to recognize local air pollution, understand the pollution problems associated with their new driving privilege, and learn driving behaviors that can lessen their personal impact (e.g., refraining from idling, carpooling, trip-chaining, taking the bus, walking, biking, etc.); and (2) have those high school teens create educational outreach posters about how people can reduce their personal impact on local air pollution aimed at their peers and local residents.

Students involved with the contest are educated about Utah’s air pollution problems, its sources, ways to preserve air pollution, and social marketing communication techniques used by marketing professionals for creating memorable effective public service announcements (e.g., use of parody and humor, call-to-action, rational and emotional appeals, etc.). In essence, the posters integrate environmental science, art, and savvy marketing where the high school students learn about how to craft persuasive clean air social messages that can resonate with their peers and local residents. Many winning posters of the past two years have been funny, edgy, provocative, and related to teen pop culture and values.

See more about the Clean Air Marketing Contest