On 25 May, the University of Lisbon, through the Shared Services and the Academic Association of the University of Lisbon, organized the AmbientALL at Alameda da Cidade Universitária (University City Alley) to celebrate the Environment Day of the university campus.

Holding an event in which the entire civil society could be involved had always been the organizers’ goal.

“A different day at an Alameda as never seen before” was the slogan used by the organizers of AmbientALL to describe what would be a really different afternoon, with plenty of activities.

Visitors to the Alameda of Cidade Universitária had the opportunity to become acquainted with projects carried out by the several companies that supported the project and which were able to disseminate their work in the field of environment in the exhibition area. The entities represented included the Lisbon City Hall, Lisboa E-Nova, the Portuguese Association of Environmental Engineering (APA), Quercus, Ambi3E, and Galp Energia, among many others that made a point of being present at this event.

Besides visiting the exhibition stands, visitors had the opportunity to participate in sports events, listen to concerts by student bands and fly a hot air balloon set up on the lawn at the Alameda.

Student ‘treasure hunt’

As a means to actively involve students and raise their awareness of Environment Day, the event organizers prepared a ‘treasure hunt’ with the assistance of We Value for the academic community, in which the main task was to collect rubbish lying around on campus. During the afternoon, the students who signed up for this activity had to do tests related to the environment, such as calculating their ecological footprint, and demonstrate knowledge of legislation on environmental law. They also had the chance to become more familiar with species and plants growing on the campus and help to clean up the area around the university.

At the end of the hunt, the approximately 110 participants divided into 17 teams managed to collect a total of 186 kg of rubbish on the campus. The big winner of the competition was the Faculty of Sciences team called “Pá Escolinha”, with a total of 31 Kg of garbage collected. The team “Move-te”, representing the Faculty of Medicine, came second, collecting a total of 28.2 Kg of rubbish. Third place went to “Geoquilhados”, from the Faculty of Sciences, which managed to collect rubbish weighting 22.5 Kg.

Creativity was also rewarded in this activity, whose main objective was to clean up the campus, and honourable mentions were granted to the teams “Desentendidos”, of the Shared Services, and “Alfinetes Criativos”, of the Faculty of Sciences.

With this event, the University assumes its role as guide to environmental best practices, not only raising the awareness of the community of the University of Lisbon, but also that of society about the importance of environmental-related issues.

Part of a larger project – The Green University Project – the organizers of AmbientALL will continue this type of activity, among others. Next event will be the 2nd Green University Conference, to be held in November.

This event would not have been possible without the support of the Rector’s Team and of the Governing Bodies of the University of Lisbon, particularly the Vice-Rector, Professor Maria Amélia Loução and the Administrator Dr. Luís Paulitos. We would like to extend our thanks to the Executive Director of the Joint Resources and Shared Services, Dr. David Xavier, and to the entire team responsible for space management and maintenance of the University of Lisbon.

Video Ambientall 2011
Tânia Ferreira
Shared Services of the University of Lisbon
t.ferreira@ul.pt