Fresh Fruits and Vegetables at The Farmers Market

 Every Wednesday there is Testudo's Market on Campus filled with fresh fruits and vegetables available for anyone to purchase.  It is all from local farms, and all fresh every week just like a traditional farmers market.  The market is open 11am-3pm, and it is located at the Cole Fieldhouse.

The Farmers Market at Maryland provides a weekly opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to purchase healthy foods, fresh from local farms. In addition to facilitating physical wellness, a farm to table approach to eating inspires environmental consciousness, which is an aspect of social wellness.

A trial open-air market, referred to as “Testudo’s Market,” was warmly welcomed onto campus in April 2010. Since then, several Wellness Coalition members have been working to establish an enduring farmers market on our campus with the goal of introducing students to the health and sustainable benefits of buying food from local farmers.

The market is a partnership between the Wellness Coalition and the Office of Sustainability. It is financially supported by the Division of Student Affairs. The farmers market is a visible sign of the Division’s commitment to the health and wellness of Maryland students, faculty, and staff and represents a significant step forward in the ongoing effort to create a culture of wellness at UMD.

Mark your calendar and join us every Wednesday for delicious local produce and live music. Help us make The Farmers Market at Maryland a success for local farmers and a thriving tradition for our campus.

For more information on this or other campus events go to the University of Maryland website.

Organizing Your Life, School, and Work by Color

School will be starting up again soon, and people are trying to get organized for the beginning of the year.  Using color in your organizational tools can help you be more productive and efficient at getting your work done in all aspects of your life.  

Organizing your schedule, both personal and professional, is always a challenge. Tools in the digital space let you create to do lists, communicate timelines, and keep track of your scheduling in integrated ways, but sometimes you still need physical reminders to keep you on task. By consistently color coding the different roles in your personal and professional life using both digital and physical tools, managing your lifestyle at a glance becomes much simpler.

Google offers a great online calendar, which, tied to your Google account, lets you create multiple color coded calendars in a weekly, daily, or monthly view. I like to use this to track my time, both professionally and personally, and have created different calendars to reflect different roles and tasks I deal with from day to day. To be able to quickly spot what I should be doing through the week, I've selected color codes for each calendar, often choosing a color pertinent to the task. Outside of the digital space, I bring the same color coding to life by keeping a set of colorful markers and sticky notes around, matching the colors used in my online calendars for consistency.

As a freelance designer, I often work with several different clients at once, and so I like to choose a color to represent each client (often one which matches a color used in their branding). When outlining a project on bristol board as I often do, I might use a colored marker I've associated with a client for headings, or quick fills in mock up sketches, to ensure I can easily spot notes for a specific project or task amongst a pile of others. In setting up a calendar to manage tasks for a specific project, I would again choose a color I can easily associate with the client for quick reference of my schedule through the day.

Outside of a professional workflow, color coding can also be useful for managing tasks around your home. For delegating chores to your kids, or for organizing between you and your significant other, have each member of your household pick a favorite color. Use these colors to create color coded Google calendars to outline and share schedules between each other. Match those colors up with sticky notes and whiteboard markers so each member can make their mark in the real world, sharing easily recognizable color coded messages with each other in a shared space.

Color can also be helpful for managing diet or exercise. Schedule your meals and fitness regiment using a bright color in your online calendar. Leave sticky notes for yourself using a matching color on the fridge or on those cookies in the cupboard for a quick reminder (via color association) of your plan for personal well being.

Adding a splash of color to your organizational workflow helps bring an eye-catching visual component to task management, but it also helps to beautify and personalize the tools we use to organize ourselves. Maintaining consistency is key, as is choosing colors that have meaning to you in the different facets of your life. Simple associations work great, for example using green for finances or red for things that are high priority. As does picking less obvious associations — for example, you might have a favorite supermarket you like to shop at with a bright purple sign, in which case purple might work well as a color for a quick reminder to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work.

Remember to keep things simple; if you find a set of sticky notes that only come in a few colors, try to limit the categories used in your calendar to those colors. This will help you stick to a simple system of organization that is easy to maintain, and quick to reference using just a few bright colors to simply outline how you manage your time.

For more organizational tips check out Apartment Therapy.

University of Maryland Folk Life Festival

The University of Maryland is having a Smithsonian Folk Life Festival.  This event is going on from now until July 8th.  Head to the National Mall to see presentations on sustainable life, robotics, and early photos of the history of the University of Maryland. 

WHAT:

The University of Maryland will be on the National Mall during the Smithsonian Institution's 46th Annual Folk Life Festival. Events include:

• A display of early photos and other materials from the Maryland Agricultural College (later the University of Maryland) as part of the Smithsonian's celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act and creation of the US Department of Agriculture and
• The University of Maryland Extension shows how it is preparing youth for a high tech world through 4-H Robotics.
• Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Kaye Brubaker who is also the director of the Maryland Water Resources Research Center will be participating in an informal APLU panel on "Sustainable Solutions: Coastal Connections" on Friday July 6, 2:45-3:30 at "The Commons." She will be representing Hydrology and Water Resources at UMD and the Maryland Water Resources Research Center.

WHEN:

Wednesday, June 27 through July 1, 2012 and July 4-8. Hours are 11:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Point your browser to this Smithsonian General Information website for complete details.

WHERE:

The University of Maryland will be in two locations on the National Mall. Reunion Hall will house a display by University Archives celebrating the Morrill Land Grant Act and the early days of the Maryland Agricultural College. A separate tent will house the 4H robotics display. See this map (pdf) for locations.

BACKGROUND:

The Morrill Land Grant Act and the Maryland Agricultural College: President Lincoln signed the bill into law in July, 1862. The Maryland Legislature voted to accept the land grant in February, 1864. MAC to Millennium (The University of Maryland A to Z) says: "In 1864, the state of Maryland had 2 senators and 5 representatives in the U. S. Congress. Thus, according to the formula, Maryland would have received 210,000 acres under the act." Maryland was the third institution to benefit from the provisions of the first Morrill Act (and the oldest building on campus (above right) is named after Sen. Morrill). The University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Eastern Shore are the two land grant universities in the state of Maryland. UMES became a land grant institution thanks to the second Morrill Act of 1890.
University Archivist Anne Turkos says, "The University of Maryland Archives is very excited to be a part of this year's Folklife Festival. This is one of the major events of the summer in Washington, DC, a huge attraction for people in the area and for visitors from across the country and around the world. It's a tremendous opportunity for us to reach out to thousands of Festival-goers on behalf of the Archives and the University of Maryland and help commemorate the lasting impact of the Morrill Land Grant Act on higher education in the United States." Also see this Newsdesk Release on the day-long celebration of the Morrill Land Grant Act sponsored by the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities.

The University of Maryland Extension Taking 4H into the 21st Century: In an effort to prepare youth for the high-tech world, the University of Maryland Extension 4-H program has incorporated robotics into its curriculum. Come experience the variety of robotics projects that engage youth, ages five to eighteen, across the state of Maryland. Meet University of Maryland Extension faculty, volunteers, and 4-H youth currently involved in the program; and participate in hands-on, interactive robotics demonstrations.

The 46th Annual Folklife Festival is sponsored by the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. 

For more information see the University of Maryland website.