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A New Class of Campus Ecology Fellows

(National Wildlife Federation)

By Courtney Cochran, March 23, 2009

Group Break-Out View full-size Photo by Courtney Cochran Fellows take part in a break-out session on their project focus.

Talk with Kevin Coyle Photo by Julian Keniry Fellows take part in group discussion with Kevin Coyle.

Discussion Julian Keniry Fellows, Axel Ramirez-Madera, Puerto Rico and Prashant Tank, New York discuss their projects.

Project Description

The Green Room Energy and Environmental Initiative (GREEN) Showcase Room will serve as a residence hall model for students on campus to learn how simple lifestyle and product choices in their dorm rooms can significantly lessen their carbon footprint. The showcase room will house two environmentally minded students and serve as a living laboratory and model for green college living. The room will be fitted with energy saving features and environmentally friendly products and sustainable materials. The students selected to live in the room will document their experiences in green living through an online blog as well as regular features in the campus and local newspaper. The residents and I will help educate the student body about the project and through short workshops, open houses, and public tours of the space promote eco-friendly lifestyle choices and product selection. The room will also serve as an integral educational piece in Furman’s efforts towards meeting the President’s Climate Commitment of achieving carbon neutrality.

Project:

The green roof project involves multiple groups, both on and off campus. Primarily, it is a collaboration with a local non-profit named Friends of Lake Keowee that aims to protect water quality of Lake

Keowee in North-west SC. This lake is developing rapidly, while other lakes in the region are experiencing severe water reductions due to the continuing drought.

Green roofs reduce stormwater runoff, reduce urban heat island effect, and reduce energy costs of the building on which it is installed. This green roof project began as a class service learning assignment, and has grown to see the design and construction of an actual 10x20' green roof. The sedums and delospermas for the green roof were propagated by students, and the other materials were donated by region businesses (Saul Nursery in Atlanta, GA). Since receiving the NWF grant, the

project has really taken off, and is now being reviewed for replication by the SC Botanical Gardens.

Project Description:

The purpose of the project is to assist Northeastern Illinois University in understanding and quantifying its environmental impact while focusing on steps to reduce it. The project involves conducting a greenhouse gas inventory using the Clean Air Cool Planet program, which will create measured benchmarks for the future. It also entails researching comparable schools' climate action plans and strategic plans for sustainability.

Northeastern Illinois University's Strategic Plan aims to establish environmental sustainability as a key element of its identity. The results of the project will give important insight to further develop the plan and provide data to support sustainable initiatives. 

To create a culture of increased awareness and involvement, it is key for students, faculty, and staff to understand the parts they play in the environmental impact of day-to-day campus life. Another goal of the project includes presenting and publishing information to the university community to broaden understanding of environmental issues.

Axel Ramirez-Madera
University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez

Project description:

As part of the project, we are supporting seven fundamental "Green Resolutions".  Transportation is the first resolution that will be handled through the "Ride a Bike!" campaign.  Through the promotion of bicycle use, campus traffic, gas emissions and air pollution will decrease significantly.  The Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle resolution will focus on the reduction of paper towels and the replacement of hand dryers.  It will also focus on increasing recycling, particularly in the school cafeteria.  The third resolution, Energy Conservation and Efficiency, will be accomplished through communication with the administration.  We will obtain a billboard, or other form of media that will help promote various campaigns that benefit the environment.  Communication with the administration under this resolution will also include discussions about the possibility of changing building lighting to CFLs or LEDs, among other energy conservation methods.  The Nature resolution will focus on reforestation around the campus and beach cleanups.  The group will promote the planting of 100+ trees throughout the campus to improve animal habitats and provide natural shades for the students.  There will also be numerous beach cleanups.  The fifth resolution, Purchasing Recommendations, will focus on discussions with the cafeteria and the bookstore in an effort to decrease the use of Styrofoam and plastic bags and increase the availability of healthier, organic food.  The Education and Outreach resolution will involve a 2-day Global Warming Solutions Symposium.  There will also be Global Warming trainings that will teach university students to give presentation that they will, in turn, offer in different activities throughout the island.  The seventh and final resolution, Water Conservation, will be completed through the promotion of water conservation throughout all of the activities and campaigns.  Through the support being received and the volume of students involved, this project will definitely be a success.

Progressing beyond carbon inventories and on to success stories with measurable GHG emissions reductions and offsets is a major priority for the University of Florida (UF) and other ACUPCC signatory institutions. This "Core Project" entails the first year activities associated with designing and implementing the UF Carbon Neutral Action Plan. Specifically, the fellowship will support Hal’s role as a coordinator for this cross-campus interdepartmental endeavor. Major goals and actions will include as follows:

Work with stakeholders in the core UF operational units (including but not limited to: Business Affairs, Physical Plant, Facilities Planning and Construction, Environmental Health and Safety, Housing, and the Office of Sustainability) to assist with the following within 12 to 15 months:

Develop an organizational structure and information management strategy for the development and implementation of the UF Carbon Neutral Action Plan.

Create a living document of goals and objectives for the action plan.

Evaluate opportunities and constraints to plan implementation based on UF’s unique climatic, organizational, and financial demographics including town and gown linkages with UF’s hometown of the City of Gainesville in A lachua County, Florida.

Identify and execute a series of energy efficiency and energy conservation year one pilot mini-projects with an eye on feasibility, scalability, and transferability to other locations around campus.

Estimate return on investment for these pilot mini-projects, including financial returns, energy returns, GHG mitigation returns, and public relations returns.

Develop protocols and interfaces for monitoring long-term performance of GHG mitigation projects (NOTE: long-term goal).

Establish an adaptive management strategy to learn from, revise, and reevaluate goals, objectives, and individual projects based on performance and return on investment (NOTE: long-term goal).

Nirav Patel
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

Project Title – Maximum Power Point Tracking Technique for Multiple Photovoltaic Arrays

Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) Technique is used for multiple photovoltaic (PV) arrays operating under different levels of irradiance and temperature. PV arrays can be used at home, roof, laboratory and many other places. The only drawback is its high cost and less efficiency which can be improved up to 95% using MPPT. Then dependency on oil and natural gas to generate power can get reduced.

There are several techniques for MPPT, of which we would be using two stage technique as it has several advantages over single stage MPPT technique. This technique aims to locate the global maximum power point on the P-I curve of the interconnected arrays to extract the maximum power from the PV arrays thus bypassing any local maximum that might trap other single stage MPPT technique. The first stage of the proposed technique estimates the local maxima and then estimates the global MPP for individual array; in two arrays system two local maxima will be detected. The second stage of the proposed technique will track the real MPP from the estimated MPP. This starting point is expected to bypass any undesirable local maximum. The main advantages of this technique are 1) ability to find real global MPP and 2) faster than other techniques.

FY09 – November ‘’08 class

Summer of Solutions 2009: Worcester.  The purpose of this project is to bring together young climate activists from campuses across the Northeast in order to create community-based solutions to climate change.  We will build a strong, self-sustaining community of people directing our efforts towards specific and attainable projects here in Worcester, MA, while simultaneously developing practical skills to implement real climate change solutions at the local level in communities throughout the Northeast.  Not only will Summer of Solutions 2009: Worcester empower individuals to create and implement feasible solutions to climate change, but we will collectively empower ourselves to operate at the scale of the challenges our generation faces as we work in solidarity with a national network of summer programs.

Students Seeking Sustainability (SSS) is a student lead initiative that seeks funding from the National Wildlife Federation so we can take our sustainability initiatives to the next level. With this funding we intend to do three things: organize and host the first Iowa Student Government Association Summit which will focus in part on statewide sustainability efforts, continue implementing basic technologies that we currently do not have the funding for, and set the campus on the right path by completing a carbon map of the campus’ ecological carbon footprint to which the school will be accountable to reduce. SSS is the first step in a multi phase plan to reduce the "footprint" our campus leaves on the local community and environment.

Warren Wilson College (WWC) Real Time Energy Monitoring will strive to provide students, staff, administrators and facilities maintenance with real time feedback about (of their)student energy consumption. By making this information easily accessible via internet this project aims to educate the WWC community on the impacts of energy use. In addition this tool can be used to, (.) as well as compare building trends to Green Building/EPA standards. Using technology developed by a visiting electrical engineer, , (who currently supervises…) currently supervising the Energy Audit Crew, this project will aim to explore an unprecedented approach to wiring buildings for energy monitoring.

A Windbreak and Carbon Sequestration Plot at Truman State University’s Farm

Land at the University Farm will be devoted to the planting of native species – Eastern Red Cedar, Black Oak, Aromatic Sumac, Big Bluestem, and Illinois Bundleflower – to create a desired windbreak and, simultaneously, a new carbon sequestration opportunity (Figure 1). A mixture of trees, shrubs, grasses and legumes were chosen in order to maximize soil carbon storage (Fornara & Tilman 2008). The net carbon sequestered in the experimental plot will be compared to that of an adjacent control plot supporting the current land use at the farm. The comparison will be accomplished in the context of a new interdisciplinary seminar course to be offered by the University.

The Ecocities class will be taught as Action and Research Team (ART) under the Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP) at UC Santa Cruz. ESLP is a student directed course, now entering its 6^th year that involves over 250 students annually at UCSC in sustainability projects through Action Research Teams (ARTs). The Class will cover Ecocites and will relate back to the UCSC campus in creating an Eco-campus. The Students in the ART will participate in a class project during spring 2009. By the end of the class they will have developed projects to reduce UCSC’s carbon footprint. The projects will be coordinated with the UCSC Climate Action Plan, a draft of which is scheduled to be released in December 2008. The greater purpose of the Ecocities ART is to help UCSC become an Eco-campus by developing student led projects and encouraging further participation in the student sustainability movement.

Energy Harvesting

This proposal is for funding to research the amount of energy available for grid tied use from playground or fitness center equipment. Additionally, the scope of this project will be to determine the best ways to harvest the energy expended by children when at play or adults at the gym for a selected group of equipment.

This project will define and provide a holistically integrated model for optimal biofuels feedstock production from native prairie polycultures in conjunction with optimum management of rare, threatened, and endangered (RTE) grassland species management for the sake of profit driven carbon negative climate initiatives in the Upper Midwest. Research done at the University of Minnesota has identified native tallgrass prairies as an ideal feedstock in terms of input vs. output efficiencies (Tilman, 2006), but little has been done beyond this initial perspective in terms of identifying additional benefits of, or methods for managing feedstock plots. This study will contribute significantly to defining best management practices (BMP’s) to also maximize biodiversity, carbon sequestration, watershed benefits, public benefit, and species protection. A distinct effort will also be made to define economic benefits on a broad scale beyond obvious harvest market values.

Synopsis: This project enables Cosumnes River College (CRC) to establish the first greenhouse gas inventory in the Los Rios Community College District (LRCCD). This inventory will provide critical baseline information to help the campus identify and establish reduction targets and, ultimately, formulate a Campus Climate Action Plan. In

addition, this project includes efforts to: 1) increase recycling awareness at our campus and 2) conduct education and outreach to our district’s three sister colleges, local businesses, and nearby K˙ schools.

Cal Poly Pomona’s Climate Action Plan

Complete a draft of a climate action plan for the University for review. Finalize plan for formal adoption by the University by September 2009. Promote the climate action plan, campus sustainability initiatives and other related resources by creating an on-line sustainability library as part of Cal Poly’s website, creating a Facebook page, and promoting through BrocoBytes and the Poly Post as well as making sure I promote campus events such as Earth Day events at both Cal Poly and at a local elementary school.

FY09 February

Energy conservation measures such as using energy efficient appliances and turning off lights and equipment can significantly reduce energy use and the emissions that contribute to global warming. The University of Maryland Climate Action Plan (CAP) Work Group, a campus group that is developing a strategic plan to make the University carbon neutral, recognizes that many campus energy users have no incentive to reduce their energy use. It recommends that a policy and energy reduction goals be developed that require campus departments to reduce their energy use over time. Coupled with that policy would be the issuance of Departmental Energy Report Cards that inform decision makers of their unit’s energy use. However, before a policy can be fully implemented, a pilot should be conducted to determine the most effective techniques (e.g. incentives, disincentives, etc.) for modifying the behaviors of individuals and to determine the amount of reductions possible through behavior modification. 

My project will promote energy conservation and measure the results in select campus buildings. I will partner with department leadership to share data about current building usage, set reduction goals, provide education about the energy being used (e.g., it is equivalent to the energy used by 25 Maryland households per month), share conservation strategies, and develop incentives for participation. Over time, this process will be expanded to include a department’s total carbon footprint, reporting carbon emissions from energy use, business travel, commuting and other carbon-intensive practices .

* Matt Little, CA, OR, WA
Antonio Bautista, University of California Santa Cruz
Anne Pandey, Cal Poly Pomona
Heather Downing, Cosumnes River College

*Jennifer Pelej, ND, SD, MN, WI
Ian Johnson, University of Wisconsin, River Falls

*John Gale, AZ, NM, CO, UT, ID
Briar Schumach, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

*Marya Fowler, TX, MO,LA
Josh Mantooth, Truman State University

*Steven Bender, KS,OK, AR, IA
Isaac Slings, Wartburg College

*Ron Warnken, AL,GA, SC,FL
Andrea Triplitt, Furman University
Christa Jordan, Clemson University
Hal Knowles, University of Florida

*Julie Lalo, VA ,MD,DE, NC, WV, PA
Joanna Calabrese, University of Maryland
Gideon Burdick, Warren Wilson College

*Don Hopper, MA, ME, VT, NH
Callista Perry, Clark University

*Emily Maxwell, NY, CT, RI, NJ
Prashant Tank, New York Institute of Technology

* Nick Schroeck , MI, OH, IL, IN
Kate Ekman, Northeastern Illinois University
Nirav Patel, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

*Geralyn Hoey, KY, TN, MS, PR, VI
Axel Ramirez-Madera, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez