The U.S. Green Building Council has just announced the recipients of their Excellence in Green Building
Curriculum awards and grants program. This is the first year these awards have been presented, which are intended to identify and transform green build curricula throughout K-12 and college education.
These schools show some exciting new developments in training for green-collar building jobs, a sector that is worth about $12 billion today and is expected to grow by leaps and bounds over the next few decades. We've highlighted the colleges and universities which received recognition below.
Awards, which were judged on demonstrated success, ability to replicated, scope of influence, advancement of green principles within the educational community and the fostering of a collaborative or interdisciplinary approach:
University of Texas Alley-Flat Apartments:
U. Texas took a neighborhood approach to green building by teaming up with
several local development organizations to create prototypes for
apartments that fit into Austin's underused alleyways. These homes,
which will be environmentally-friendly as well as affordable, will
demonstrate the role of architecture in community building, as well as
test a way to provide housing for under-served and lower-income residents.
Yavapai College's Residential Building Technology Degree: Yavapai teaches students to design, build and manage safe, durable and energy-efficient living spaces. Students can earn three certificates through a short year-length program, or earn an applied science degree in two years. From their site: "Students also learn to incorporate appropriate (climate-specific)
building materials, systems and technologies, and make design and
material selections based on current applied building-science principles and sustainable design/green building practices."
University of Virginia's ecoMOD Homes: ecoMOD is a research and design/build project which aims to create ecological and affordable prototypes for homes. They are experimenting with modular and pre-fabricated materials, and will explore the potential for these homes to be used by organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Piedmont Housing Alliance, which will receive the first four prototypes.
Grant recipients ($20,000), which were evaluated on originality, collaborative or interdisciplinary approach, scope of influence, feasibility and the ability to be replicated:
Eastern Iowa Community College District's Green Building Tech Curriculum: Eastern Iowa's Community College District received a grant to develop a four-credit course for Green Construction development that will give students hands-on construction experience. Modules in HVAC, interior design, horticulture and manufacturing will also be included.
Santa Fe Community College: The USGBC grant will be directed towards the development of an online course to visually document the process of an energy-efficient home that generates its own power, off-grid style. Part of a certificate program in green building, the three-credit course will provide videos of each stage of the building process, as well as interviews on resident health, costs, automation and materials.
Cornell University: The Collaborative Green Building Practice course will emphasize interactive learning and critical thinking to place green building in the wider context of communities and the environment. As part of the course, students will produce a ten-minute documentary film for posting on an interactive learning website.
University of Maine at Farmington: UMF will use its two new LEED-certified buildings to launch a sustainability curriculum which includes university students as well as local Pre-K through 12 schools and community members. Faculty will incorporate the LEED buildings into their curricula, training students and schools on personal and institutional action.
It's almost a given that any discussion of energy efficiency will, at some point, address light bulbs. CFLs, which use about 25% of the energy required by traditional bulbs, are already mainstream and can save a significant amount of wattage. When the University of Tennessee swapped in CFLs for 1,760 incandescent bulbs in spring 2006, they saved $4,190 and 60 tons of CO2 in a single semester.
However, newer light bulbs are on the horizon that may turn CFLs into old news. (This is great for those of us with clumsy fingers--when I changed to CFLs in my apartment, I accidentally shattered a bulb and had to look up the guidelines for proper disposal of the fragments, which contain very small amounts of mercury. I have never Googled the EPA's website faster! Rest assured that I have suffered no ill effects, and that these precautions are exactly that: precautions. The mercury in CFLs should not be high on your worry list.)
LED technology has been around for a while in indicator lights and small electronics. However, new white LEDs are being piloted that can emit light on the full spectrum and scale of traditional light bulbs, with even less electricity and wasted heat than CFLs (which are already a massive savings over incandescent). They also have much a longer lifespan, sometimes lasting more than ten years even when running 24/7. Oh, and you won't need to check HAZMAT disposal guides when you drop a mercury- and lead-free LED.
Universities such as Marquette University, North Carolina State, and the University of Arkansas are getting in on the action by installing these new bulbs in partnership with LED University. For example, N.C. State estimates an energy savings of 66% in a student apartment complex with recessed down-lit LEDs.
Recyclemania, a light-hearted, friendly competition between campuses, aims to reduce waste and raise awareness. Over a 10-week period, colleges and universities compete in different contests to see which institution can collect the highest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest total amount of recyclables, the smallest amount of trash, and/or earn the highest recycling rate. There are also categories for individual waste products, such as paper, food products and cans. Four hundred schools participated this year across sixteen divisions, and results have just been announced.
Kalamazoo College of Michigan took first-place honors in both the Grand Champion (highest recycling rate) and Per-Capita categories, with a cumulative recycling rate of 58.93% and 75.22 lbs recycled per person over the length of the challenge. The Gorilla Prize, which awards the highest number of pounds, went to Stanford for recycling 1,231,012 lbs of waste in ten weeks. North Lake College of Irving, Texas, won the Waste Minimization prize for producing a scant 12.53 pounds of unrecycled waste per capita.
To see the rest of the awards, check Recyclemania's site here. In total, these schools recycled 58.6 million pounds, which not only lessens the load on landfills, but also helps to minimize the impact that industry has on the environment. Many of these products, such as paper and cardboard, which would emit methane if left to degrade in a landfill, also lower carbon emissions when recycled. Congratulations to the schools involved! If you didn't participate this year, click around www.recyclemaniacs.org for ideas and consider competing next year.
NYT Magazine's Green Issue Profiles Campus Efforts
I spent a few hours this morning reading through the New York Times Magazine's intensive survey of new green projects in buildings, energy, food, transportation, lifestyle and technology. There are some interesting new developments, as well as plenty of caveats for the possibility of negative unintended consequences, and a vast difference of opinion in regards to the efficacy of government involvement in emissions.
The section titled "Learn"
mentions higher education institutions (as well as public schools) that
are making serious progress in fighting climate change, such as the
University of Washington, Carleton, Harvard, MIT, and Middlebury
College. The article also mentions the Energy Action Coalition, which
started the Campus Climate Challenge. Take some time to browse; the NYT's report will mean that some of these projects will be receiving a lot more attention in future!
Breaking News: Global Warming Solutions Showcase Airs World Wide
Hundreds of colleges and universities, schools and businesses all across the world are hosting the National Wildlife Federation’s second annual broadcast, Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming as part of their series of activities leading up to Earth Day on April 22. The Chill Out competition and awards program continues the National Wildlife Federation’s tradition of recognizing and celebrating innovative solutions to global warming on our nation’s campuses. The inspirational examples illustrate how it is possible to dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels and human impact on the climate to achieve what the science is necessary: a minimum 2% annual reduction in CO2 emissions.
For example, Butte College in Oroville, California expects to be carbon neutral by 2015 without relying on carbon credits by employing solar panels and fuel cells for energy storage; the University of Missouri has grown by 60% but has reduced energy consumption by 19%; students at the University of Montana have taken 1,000 cars off the road every day through green transportation policies; Cascadia Community College and the University of Washington-Bothel are sequestering carbon dioxide and protecting wildlife through extensive habitat restoration; and students at the Berkshire School in Massachusetts capped carbon emissions and trade allowances among the residences.
As noted by moderator, Andrew Lee, a member of the National Wildlife Federation’s Youth Advisory Council and former Campus Ecology Fellow, “we have a moral responsibility to lead, especially in the US, where we have only about 5% of the world’s population, but use almost 25% of the world’s energy resources. Our colleges and universities are among the wealthiest in the world and are recognizing more and more that our higher education institutions bear a profound responsibility to lead.”
Host sites include colleges and universities, high schools, schools and businesses in the US, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Canada, China, India, Iran and Syria. An additional 150 sites or more are anticipated to host the program in the month of April 2008 and beyond. To date, Chill-Out is the only nationwide program with a global reach that specifically showcases solutions to global warming on US campuses.
Christopher Hill, a biochemistry professor at the University of Utah, recently published a great op-ed in
the Daily Utah Chronicle about the potential of wind power at his campus. Currently about 9% of the university's grid power comes from wind turbines, but with a very small percentage of additional per-student costs, this amount could be increased dramatically:
"One hundred percent of the U's share of grid electricity would come
from new wind sources if the ASUU [Associated Students of the University of Utah] donation were increased by $10 per
student per semester, each faculty and staff member donated $30 per
year, or the administration contributed less than 0.04 percent of total
U revenue."
We are especially impressed that individual departments can campaign for wind power (see the breakdown here) to cover their share of electricity needs. Many are already at 100% or more! It's a very tangible way for campus offices to get involved on a voluntary basis, and see the results of their involvement.
We're less than a week away from the second annual Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warmingwebcast! This FREE webcast will feature colleges from around the country that are leading the fight against global warming. Ask our panelists questions, learn more about what youcan do to confront global warming on your campus, and watch student videos.
Chill Out is next Wednesday, April 16 at 7pm Eastern. Sign up today to host this free webcast on your campus!
There are few speeches that people remember. Most of us know at least the first few lines from the Gettysburg Address, or FDR’s ‘a date which will live in infamy’ response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. And who hasn’t heard a politician quote from JFK’s inaugural ‘ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’ speech? But no speech is more powerful or symbolic of a movement than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream.’
On this fortieth anniversary of King’s assassination, I feel that it is important for all of us to stop and take a minute to appreciate all the amazing strides the civil rights movement made in the 60s. Dr. King and other civil rights leaders laid the groundwork for the social justice movements going on today. As we continue to strive for equality and we work to improve our environment, take some time to remember how far we have come and be inspired by the changes we have already made.
It's been a busy few days here at Campus Ecology, between gearing up for our rapidly approaching Chill Out broadcast and our attendance at the Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference yesterday and today. Yours truly was there, live-blogging on SCUP's excellent Campus Planning Network (think Facebook, but with warmer colors and a campus sustainability focus).
I suggest you check it out to see what I learned. And, since I lack the ability to be in more than one place at once, you can also look at AASHE's live-blog, which covers some of the sessions I didn't make it to. If you were there, we (and AASHE, who has a similar conference planned for the fall) would love to hear what you think.
Overall, it was an exhausting and inspiring two days. We heard about some great things happening at different campuses (Ithaca, Yale, Ohio, LACCD, and UMD are just a few), and talked to people on the cutting-edge of clean technologies and sustainability planning. Please do look over our live-blogs, and send us your questions and suggestions.
Being part of National Wildlife Federation, those of us at Campus Ecology talk a lot about wildlife habitats. Not only are we invested in maintaining biological diversity and preserving the migration paths of plants, birds, butterflies and animals, we also know that creating spaces for wildlife means that we are providing natural carbon sequestration opportunities.
We recently hosted a teleconference on campus habitat restoration, and learned about some great things that schools have been doing to green their campuses through the use of habitat. The University of Central Florida, for example, focused their efforts on education by creating several distinct ecosystems in the UCF arboretum that replicate habitats exclusive to central Florida. The 12-acre biogeographic garden is crisscrossed with trails for students and visitors. The university has also started a temperature tracking system on campus to explore the "urban heat island effect." Native vegetation will be planted on roofs and in hot spots, and then temperature will be tracked again. Staff hope to see significant cooling in certain areas.
Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois, took a different approach by restoring habitat that had already been damaged. Oakton's acres of habitat had been overrun with buckthorn and a Eurausian garlic mustard plant which crowded out native species and plants. With a grant from BP and a lot of help from student volunteers, these plants are slowly being eradicated to make room for seeds from local (within a 25-mile radius) northeastern Illinois. Once these take hold, the ecosystem can return to its natural state and attract pollinating insects and other wildlife. Oakton also uses controlled burns, as local species are adapted to fire and will survive, while invasive plants often won't.
An even bigger project is currently taking place at The University of Washington Bothell Cascadia Community College, where staffers looked at a dilapidated section of the North Creek floodplain on campus lands, and embarked on a decades-long restoration to manage watersheds and coax the forest back to life. (Look here for more details.) The restoration is ongoing, and acts as a valuable case study to students, as well as attracting good press to the school as one of the biggest floodplain restorations in the Pacific Northwest.
It can sometimes be difficult to convince other campus decision-makers that habitat restoration is important and effective. It took several years to formulate the plan and gain permits for the wetlands restoration project at UWB/CCC, and even though progress is being made, it takes several decades for an ecosystem to reach maturity. Many of the people who contributed to the project may never see this part of North Creek functioning in its full glory. For some people, seeing energy costs go down due to increased energy efficiency is more satisfying than knowing that green space is sequestering carbon, and for that reason many campuses are more willing to retrofit buildings than create habitats. Both are important, but we think that the Wildflower loop at UCF's aboretum is good evidence that habitats are important for well-being, not just carbon capture.
Contact us for more research and examples if you're interested in implementing this kind of project on your own campus. To start small, consider dedicating a small section of your campus as a Certified Wildlife Habitat. And for extra credit, check to see if Fritz Haeg's Animal Estates exhibit is coming to your town. This traveling installation reintroduces animals into environments such as strip malls, garages, office parks, freeways, front yards and parking lots to examine the displacement of wildlife by humans and bring species back into harmony.
The U.S. Green Building Council has just announced the recipients of their Excellence in Green Building
Curriculum awards and grants program. This is the first year these awards have been presented, which are intended to identify and transform green build curricula throughout K-12 and college education.
