So I know this is extremely late, but better late than never right?
Our Educon presentation went very well. We had very few people in our room though, and Peter never showed up which we though he would. Robert and I had to kind of ad-lib the part of the presentation where Peter was supposed to talk. Other than that things went smoothly.
Meg Peterson a student from Canada came to our talk and we had a great time afterwards talking to her about things that her school was doing and what we thought we could have both schools do to become more green. One thought was to set up a wikispace that connected the two schools where we could post what we were doing and photos. So far we have not gone on to actually put that into action, but hopefully we will talk soon again and do something.
I did find that this Educon was not as helpful as last year.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
March update!
So here is another quick update on our project.
* Jason has still to get back to us with the calculations from his computer
* Went and saw Edinburgh University and saw their green building. (whole side with solar panels!)
* Finished my english project
* Presented with Robert Y. at educon 2.1! that went really well
* Proposal put together and sent out for a USGBC Green Build conference in November in AZ.
* Trying to call the school district to talk to them about recycling
* Researching recycling programs in the area
* Writing a 500 word essay about how our school is green for a contest
* Jason has still to get back to us with the calculations from his computer
* Went and saw Edinburgh University and saw their green building. (whole side with solar panels!)
* Finished my english project
* Presented with Robert Y. at educon 2.1! that went really well
* Proposal put together and sent out for a USGBC Green Build conference in November in AZ.
* Trying to call the school district to talk to them about recycling
* Researching recycling programs in the area
* Writing a 500 word essay about how our school is green for a contest
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Quick update!
So a very quick update on our project:
* Jason has helped me with an energy model of our school over winter break (more to come, including calculations hopefully!)
* went to visit the new California Academy of Sciences in San Fransisco! (hopefully a blog entry to come with photos!)
* working on dealing with recycling in the School District of Philadelphia in connection with an English project (English project information to come)
* Getting ready to present at Educon 2.1 on Sunday Jan 25th!
* Putting together another proposal for a USGBC Green Build conference in November in AZ.
Thats all for now. Hopefully the new year will mean that i will write more on here.
* Jason has helped me with an energy model of our school over winter break (more to come, including calculations hopefully!)
* went to visit the new California Academy of Sciences in San Fransisco! (hopefully a blog entry to come with photos!)
* working on dealing with recycling in the School District of Philadelphia in connection with an English project (English project information to come)
* Getting ready to present at Educon 2.1 on Sunday Jan 25th!
* Putting together another proposal for a USGBC Green Build conference in November in AZ.
Thats all for now. Hopefully the new year will mean that i will write more on here.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
New Year New Chapter
So a little late, but better late than never right? As the new school year starts it has stirred up new excitement for this project. First off we have a new member of our crew! Robert Yemola has joined us this year. Last year he was working with a company called SmartPower and this year he is bringing his expertise to us. I will post the link here to his blog when he sets one up.
So an update to the project. In some ways we are in the same place we were at the end of last year and in other ways we have moved far beyond that. We are in the same place because we still do not have a carbon footprint or energy usage of the building. HOWEVER after a TON of searching and asking the experts we have found someone to help us out. His name is Jason and he works for Green Dinosaur which is a company that creates buildings that are low on energy consumption. Jason is going to help Robert and I to create a model of our school building through this program which will give us the energy consumption of the building. So soon we should have an energy audit completed. Also this summer as i was traveling around i saw and observed many windmills (there are a lot in Scandinavia!) I had no idea there were so many different designs. Some had really long skinny blades and others had short fat blades. I'm hoping to get the chance to look into why there are different shapes and when to use the different types. Also this summer I picked up many books of ways to green the office or to teach kids about global warming and how to live green. They were very interesting books and I will add the titles to the wikispace shortly.
That is where we are at the moment. Hopefully the ball will really start rolling shortly when we have the energy audit done.
So an update to the project. In some ways we are in the same place we were at the end of last year and in other ways we have moved far beyond that. We are in the same place because we still do not have a carbon footprint or energy usage of the building. HOWEVER after a TON of searching and asking the experts we have found someone to help us out. His name is Jason and he works for Green Dinosaur which is a company that creates buildings that are low on energy consumption. Jason is going to help Robert and I to create a model of our school building through this program which will give us the energy consumption of the building. So soon we should have an energy audit completed. Also this summer as i was traveling around i saw and observed many windmills (there are a lot in Scandinavia!) I had no idea there were so many different designs. Some had really long skinny blades and others had short fat blades. I'm hoping to get the chance to look into why there are different shapes and when to use the different types. Also this summer I picked up many books of ways to green the office or to teach kids about global warming and how to live green. They were very interesting books and I will add the titles to the wikispace shortly.
That is where we are at the moment. Hopefully the ball will really start rolling shortly when we have the energy audit done.
Monday, June 16, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Earth Day!
Happy Earth Day everyone!!!
I sadly had nothing planned for Earth Day which is a first. So like I said in my last post I'm taking it as a chance to catch up on my ILP. So a quick update:
I sadly had nothing planned for Earth Day which is a first. So like I said in my last post I'm taking it as a chance to catch up on my ILP. So a quick update:
- Finally got two resources for calculating Carbon footprints from my classmate Robbert. One is for calculating household and personal travel foot prints and the other is actually specifically for schools. Hopefully will have results from those up shortly
- Added a few books to the Bibliography on my wiki.
- Attempted to sign up for a Design Science Lab program this summer up in NYC with the UN, but sadly they didn't have enough people signed up so they had to cancel it. Which is a shame because it was all to do with green design and alturnate energy, exactly what I studying and extremely interested in.
- Still trying to sit my dad down to help me with the LEED check lists to see where SLA stands in the points.
- Hopping to be able to write a proposal to Philly Management soon to be able to get a dumpster put out behind SLA so we can start recycling paper.
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