October is local foods month! As part of the food group we have been distributing and publicizing our survey on campus dining sustainability practices. Judging by our premature results, a significant majority of students (as well as staff) would be willing to spend in the 5-10 or 11-20 % ranges EXTRA for local or organic foods. Is this fact surprising to you? I think this is important for dining services to recognize. Their goal is to get business from students and staff and we are looking for local food! I am excited to see the results after the month is up so we can further analyze them and take steps for change through pressuring dining services and working with them to make sustainable choices.
On another note, this weekend is the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall in D.C. (my home town). The event began in 2002 and happened again in 2005 and 2007. Teams of students from colleges and universities across the globe compete in designing and building the most ‘attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house.’ The houses are brought to the Mall for display and the public can go in the houses to see them. Houses must be easy to live in, maintain healthy indoor environmental conditions, adequate lighting, supply energy to household appliances for cooking and cleaning, power home electronics, provide hot water, and balance energy and consumption. They are judged based on architecture, market viability, engineering, lighting design, communications, comfort zone, hot water, appliances, home entertainment and net metering. I think this is a super cool event and got to go into some of the impressive houses in 2007 and learned about the benefits of energy efficiency, renewable energy and green building technologies.
For more information, check out the website: http://www.solardecathlon.org/
I hope that with all our resources on campus from UEPI, this class specifically, other physics/science majors, as well as eager environmental stewards we are capable of participating in this awesome event. Maybe we could buy solar panels at the discount rate when the solar project on campus buys its panels. We could even create a team by combing with other institutions in the area like UCLA, Cal Tech, or the Claremont schools. Do you think it would be possible for Occidental to pull together a team and compete in the future?
I'm so happy you wrote about this event. I am from DC also and I love going to it. I really think that this is something Occidental should consider doing. While most of the schools that participate are larger institutions with many more students, faculty, resources etc. than Oxy, there is definitely a fair representation of smaller, liberal arts schools.
ReplyDeleteProf Hightower has worked with local highschool students on a solar boat competition. If we get the array then we should figure out if we can participate in this kind of event, it usually requires engineering and architecture students but maybe in collaboration with caltech as you suggest. Incidentally the california team is ahead in the competition.
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