Franco Harris Pittsburgh Center Blog

Jackie is an architecture student and is interning with Riverlife as part of his City Semester Pittsburgh experience.

Julia is an environmental resource management student and is interning with Tree Pittsburgh as part of her City Semester Pittsburgh experience. 

This summer, 11 Penn State students across 5 different colleges are spending the summer in Pittsburgh exploring urban sustainability and working with a community partner through the City Semester Pittsburgh program. Each student is placed with a partner for an internship based on their interests, strengths, and goals. Let’s check in with one of the students, Lydia Neuhauser. 

Students from South West College, Northern Ireland, joined Penn State students in Pittsburgh to learn best practices in energy efficient design during the High-Performance Building Summer Camp, a joint initiative between the Penn State Center Pittsburgh, Penn State-led Global Building Network (GBN), South West College and the Green Building Alliance in Pittsburgh.

Our team is in the middle of a busy summer packed with exciting partnerships and immersive learning! Check out some of the current and upcoming programs and initiatives at the Center that aim to support healthy, sustainable, innovative, and equitable communities.

Earth Day comes around every April, but caring for the planet is a yearlong effort requiring all of us to do our part. The theme for Earth Day this year is Invest in our Planet, and it calls for us to work together and take action to “preserve and protect our health, our families, our livelihoods.”

For several years, Pittsburgh was named one of the most livable cities in the country by the Economist Intelligence Unit, based on its education, culture, and health care systems. But Pittsburgh still suffers from major shortcomings when it comes to its environmental health.