Mapping a Greener World
Students who participated in the seventh annual PSEG Institute for Sustainability Studies’ (PSEG ISS) Green Teams program this summer at Montclair State University learned that they can contribute to creating a greener world in both large and small ways.
Those on the Northern New Jersey Communities Foundation team discovered the project they worked on could have helped mitigate flooding by as much as 18% or 34 million gallons of water by using rain barrels and creating rain gardens. Meanwhile, some students made green changes in their personal lives, like switching from single-use plastic to reusable water bottles.
In all this summer, 50 students from 31 universities across the country and in various fields of study participated in the 10-week summer internship program.
PSEG ISS supports research and community projects, including climate change in New Jersey, and energy and water studies globally. In its seven years of operation, the PSEG ISS Green Teams Internship Program has had 320 undergraduate students from 68 different universities and almost 120 degree programs go through the program. At the end of this summer, a total of 64 teams had completed over 250 projects for 39 different hosting organizations, many of them repeat customers, says PSEG ISS Director Amy Tuininga.