Earth Day Celebration and Greenhouse Ribbon Cutting at Stony Brook Southampton

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y., April 29, 2008— Stony Brook Southampton hosted an "Earth Day Celebration and Ribbon Cutting" for the new campus Greenhouse on Earth Day, April 22.

Environmental Studies Professor James Hoffmann kicked off the festivities with a presentation at Duke Lecture Hall, followed by the ribbon cutting for the new Greenhouse, located just east of the Student Center.

View the photo gallery here.

Stony Brook Southampton's new Greenhouse exemplifies the focus on sustainability, and students, under the direction of Professor Hoffmann, are taking a leading role in maintaining the Greenhouse and its neighboring garden. The Greenhouse was built by the SBS facilities team with student advisement.

Created from a former storage building, the Greenhouse contains planting tables that are made from reclaimed wooden shipping pallets and are being used to grow flowering plants for campus beautification. Vegetables, herbs and spices, grown from seed, will be transplanted to an outdoor organic garden and used in Stony Brook Southampton’s healthy-fare Cafeteria.

Professor James Hoffmann (right) and the Greenhouse Group.

More than 1,200 gallons of rain water are expected to be reclaimed and stored in recycled plastic barrels, useful for irrigation and also acting as a passive heat source in cooler weather.  In cold weather, low ash content wood pellets, made from sawdust and recycled hard woods, are burned in a high efficiency furnace. Stony Brook Southampton also plans to install solar panels for supplemental lighting and small electrical loads.

It’s all a part of Stony Brook Southampton’s mission to not only teach Sustainability but to lead by example with forward-thinking new projects on campus.

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