End of Year Reflection

As a repeat of what my project is; the goal of the project is to learn more about sustainability, green design, and energy saves, while applying some of my new found knowledge to give back to my school and make it more "green".

What I have done so far was found an amazing mentor, Peter Brown, for this project. Than Peter and I got to work quickly to give me material and resources to start my research into this topic. One resource was going and looking at a LEED design school Peter designed in Ft. Worth TX. We have also presented at the educational conference Educon 2.0. There we talked about my project as well as how we are making long distance mentoring work. At the very end of the year I started trying to fill out a carbonfoot print calculator for my school.

I have learned many things this year during this project. Most of the year was spent making connections and really nailing down the goals that we want to achieve by the end of 3 years. However through that I have also learned about many different ways people are thinking about green design and different ways to make buildings more efficient. Have read many articles and are learning what the pros and cons are for each type of solution to the energy crisis.

I had many expectations for my ILP project. My expectations were quite big though and are only just starting to get accomplished. See my Goals and Dream Goals

My ILP I picked so that I could see if this topic of green energy and such actually interested me before going into chemical engineering in university to work on alternative energy. This project greatly connects to my learning at SLA as well. It is all about designing my own learning and our core values.

From my experience this year with my ILP i'm taking away the skills of making connections to people that could possibly help me with my project. As well as a slightly better skills of setting deadlines and monitoring myself in a big project like this one.

My advice to people who want to take on a project like this is to be open minded. You have to be willing to switch your game plan when things don't work out the way you wanted/expected them to. You also have to have a lot of self motivation and be willing to sit down and work on your own without much guidance.