Dorm Wars Update

Butterworth residents have taken a commanding lead over Bragdon, Forest, and Woodland in the dorm electricity reduction contest. Early in the contest, Butterworth residents have reduced their electricity usage by over 10%. There is plenty of time for residents in the other dorms to kill some watts.

Dorm Worms 2011

Today starts the Dorm War contest between our four dorms with smart meters. Bragdon, Butterworth, Forest, and Woodland will be competing to reduce their electricity usage. The contest starts today and will end next Thursday (April 21st) at midnight. The winner of the contest will be the dorm that reduces electricity usage by the greatest percentage over the course of the contest week. Prizes will be awarded to the winning dorm on Earth Day.

Forest, the energy hogs on campus, have a lot to prove. Enthusiasm in "the Wood" is high and students are ready to defeat their upper classmates. Bragdon residents are looking to trim their usage below their sister dorm Butterworth. Good luck shedding your watts!

Water Flows Downhill

It is a sloppy day on campus today. The rain and melting snow have created large puddles everywhere. As I was walking back to my office I observed two students approaching one of these puddles. The puddle was muddy and the sidewalk wasn't visible for any of the width. The students stopped and studied the puddle. Where do we step? I watched with interest as they made their decision. Perhaps they caught a glimpse of sidewalk that influenced their decision but they stepped into the down slope side and immediately yelled as four inches of water filled their shoes. I laughed and then passed on the uphill side which was centimeters deep.

I began to wonder if they had taken more science classes at Lasell would they would have chosen the uphill side of the puddle? We don't directly teach how to negotiate puddles in our science courses but we do try and teach students how to think scientifically. I'm not talking about applying the scientific method to study the puddle but rather applying a law of nature to their situation. Instead of science courses, maybe more philosophy courses would have helped these students. Something like, "If water flows downhill, then the puddle will be deeper on the down slope side."

The general education curriculum is up for review at Lasell. I have been thinking about what this means for our students. Students are not going to become scientists or philosophers by taking a few general education courses. But I still think there is great value in requiring students to engage in different ways of thinking. Challenging students to think in new ways just might be the tool needed to improve their decision making so, when they encounter that puddle, they can keep their feet dry.

Web 2.0 Tools

Between semesters I enjoy exploring new ideas to bring into my teaching. Clouds have lots of possibilities. This is a cloud of my blog shaped like a tree.

Food Waste Revisited

Yesterday, as part of America Recycles Day, we measured food waste again in the dining hall. This is the third time I have had students conduct this audit. The first year we did the audit, as mentioned in previous posts, food waste was about 0.33 lbs per person. The following fall we implemented trayless dining in the dining hall. Food waste was then measured at about 0.18 lbs/person. It has been about 2 years since I've run the food waste audit so I was curious what the trend has been. I found it encouraging yesterday when our results indicated a slight reduction from 2008. Food waste was measured yesterday at 0.16 lbs/person.

More exciting is the unveiling of our new composting system. Food waste will be collected in a composting bin in the back of the house. This will divert much of our food waste from the landfill and sewage system. While composting is a an important addition to our sustainability efforts, compost is still waste. The important thing for diners to remember is to try and eliminate all food waste. This will reduce the overall quantity of food purchased and help reduce our food print.

New School Year

The start of the fall semester is always the most exciting time on a college campus. We are off to a great year at Lasell. We continue to improve our environmental efforts on campus and make campus a greener place to live, work, and study. Let me highlight some of the changes and initiatives seen around campus:

-The Environmental Studies major continues to grow. In just our second year we are no longer the smallest major on campus. We are excited to have a new cohort of first-year Environmental Studies students and look forward to working with them.

-Kelly Silvia (ENV '11) spent the summer interning for the Trustees of Reservations on Martha's Vineyard. Kelly worked to help track and protect the endangered piping plover.

-The service-learning trip to Ecuador was successful last spring and will run again this year. Students have the opportunity to travel to Ecuador to work on community service projects with Professor Toffler and Amy Greene.

-A new service-learning trip will run this year working on ecotourism issues in Brazil. Professor Janbek and Professor Van Hyfte will be leading this trip. I am jealous of faculty that lead both the Ecuador and Brazil trips and I hope to get involved in a few years once my children are a bit older.

-Marc Fournier, our Assistant Director for Plant Operations & Sustainability, has taken over for me as chair of the Environmental Sustainability Committee. Marc has an increased budget for this group and is excited to get rolling.

-There are two new recycling stations outside Wolfe and Winslow. We are trying to reduce the number of waste bins on campus that do not also have a recycling bin next to them. We hope to capture more recyclable items as people move between buildings. They look great with Lasell College routed on.

-Enrollment in environmentally themed courses continues to grow. Environmental Science (ENV211), Intro to Environmental Studies (ENV101), and Diversity of Living Organisms (BIO102) are all running near capacity. We will likely run more sections of ENV211 and ENV101 in the spring to meet the growing interest.

-The study abroad opportunities for Environmental Studies majors look amazing. We are encouraging all of our students to consider studying abroad. There are opportunities all over the world. For example, students can spend a semester in Australia studying coral reefs or spend a semester in Costa Rica studying conservation biology.

-Sodexo has introduced a take-away program for lunch but designed the program with sustainability in mind. Take-away is available from the dining hall but students must purchase a reusable take-away container. Students return the container to be cleaned and are given a clean container. This provides students the opportunity to grab some food while on the run but will not add to the waste generated on campus.

-I picked up the northern-red bellied cooters yesterday. They are tiny. My FYS class will be working with the turtles to learn more about human impacts on the species and to help care for them. This year we are going to develop a hydroponic system to grow our own lettuce.

Earth Day 2010

Last year we pieced together a small Earth Day event at Lasell. This year, Amy Greene from CCBL has taken leadership and planned an entire festival. There will be a band, an eco-fashion show, vendors promoting green products, student organizations running activities, and even food. Amy has worked hard to take Earth Day at Lasell to a new level. She has recruited student volunteers to help plan the day and spent considerable time securing all the equipment needed for the day. Thanks Amy!

The festivities are happening in the East/West quad from about 11:30-2:00. Come join us! Open to the public. Tell your friends from other schools too.

Come see a sustainable fashion show, the band Hey Mama and demonstrations about the environment. Free food and sustainable products will be given out!

No Room For You

After my wife graduates from Harvard in May, we would like to move the family out of Cambridge into a community with a bit more open space. We also value having reasonable commutes for both of us. My wife will be working in Wakefield and I travel with the kids to Lasell each morning. We've decided the Belmont, Lexington, Arlington area of greater Boston is where we would like to live. It took weeks of studying maps and practicing commutes in rush hour traffic to come to this conclusion. Now all we have to do is find a comfortable place to rent in one of these towns. Craiglist is loaded with listings so this should be easy. Wrong.

While there are hundreds of listings, let's take a look at how many are documented as being deleaded. In Arlington, there are currently 304 listings for apartments on Craigslist. Two are identified as deleaded.

Many people have suggested we don't worry about lead. After all, we grew up with lead in our homes and we are fine. True. We also grew up not wearing seat belts and we laughed at people wearing bike helmets. Laws to promote public health are important, have had huge impacts, and should be respected. Lead paint is no exception.

Lead is most dangerous to developing children under the age of six. It can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, behavior and learning problems, hearing problems, and headaches. Is this a risk we want to take with our children? No thank you.

I asked Professor Toffler his opinion as he has done work with the EPA on lead paint projects. In his opinion, lead paint is definitely something to worry about especially around windows. He also said it is going to be hard to find apartments listed as deleaded.

The Massachusetts Lead Law was designed to eliminate lead from homes with children under six. This law also applies landlords. Unfortunately the cost of deleading a home can be expensive so landlords will try and avoid renting to young families. This is discrimination and also illegal however it is widespread. We've made some calls to listings and been told the home is not deleaded. The conversation is always over immediately and we have not had a landlord yet volunteer to delead the space so our family could live there safely.

We will continue to try and find a home that has been deleaded. I'm sure we will eventually find one but will have to sacrifice many other things we would like to have. It can be tough for young families trying to find a home in an area where the housing stock is old. I won't even mention the costs.

Lasell Smart Meter Project

It has taken a lot of work to get to this point but the Lasell College Smart Meter Project is almost ready to go live. This effort started last summer when VP Ostrow and I wrote a grant to the Tomfohrde Foundation asking for support to install a network of electricity meters in our dormitories. Electricity usage in Butterworth, Bragdon, Forest, and Woodland Hall will be measured by the meters on the minute time scale compared to the monthly time scale we currently have. The data will provide an opportunity for innovative research projects in many areas of study at Lasell including economics, psychology, and environmental studies. Students will examine electricity pricing structures and demand loads in Environmental Economics. Students in the psychology department are researching techniques to modify building occupant behavior.

Below John Audet (left) and Bud Hinkle (right) of Tradesmen of New England LLC, are at Lasell today programming the new controllers and meters for the Lasell Smart Meter Project.

Knotty the Turtle

On Wednesday the most inspiring guest came to my Leadership class to speak with students about living with cystic fibrosis. She shared her life in numbers comparing what she categorized as the good and the bad. Her perspective on life was so uplifting. Despite the many bad things she has had to endure, she has managed to maintain a focus on the good things in life she has been able to do such as traveling to 7 countries and starting her own business called Knot Clothing.

After class I was showing our guest the turtles in the Environmental Science Lab and she asked if they had names yet. They did not. Later that evening I decided that I should name the turtles to honor this inspiring young woman. She was quite proud of her business, Knot Clothing, so I decided to borrow names from her company image. Rather than "The Turtles", these little reptiles will now be called Knotty, Nice, and Chick Magnet. Knotty is the dominant turtle in the tank frequently seen biting at the other turtles. Nice is the runt in the litter as she is almost 10 grams lighter than the other two turtles. Chick Magnet, named after my favorite belt in her clothing line, likes to sun on the floating dock taking in the rays of the heat lamp. He is calm and cool.

While great progress has been made to improve conditions for people living with cystic fibrosis, it is still clear after listening to our guest that more has to be done. This disease needs to be controlled or better yet cured. Students in my Leadership class have been working to help support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in the quest to control and cure CF. We are organizing a campus walk on April 13th to raise money for the organization. Already we have over 25 walkers registered. Members of our campus community are encouraged to join us. Visit www.tinyurl.com/lasellcf and click Join My Team to register.

Facebook

Over the winter break I finally decided to explore Facebook. I was skeptical for a long time but now I see the power of the social networking site. Not only is it great for staying connected with friends but it is also a great community building tool.

Immediately I built a fan page for the Lasell College Environmental Studies program. I take pictures during our field labs and now I have a great space to share them. The fan page also provides a space to share the projects students are working on in the program. I am really excited about the potential of this tool to help develop our program.

I encourage you to become part of our community and join as a fan of the page.

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=260291983104&id=239084839373#/pages/Newton-MA/Lasell-College-Environmental-Studies/239084839373?ref=nf

Green Campus Initiative Report

The 2008-2009 Green Campus Initiative Report is now available on the Green Campus Initiative web page.

On page 2 of the report I wrote a letter to the Lasell Community highlighting our accomplishments. I have pasted the text from the letter below.

___________________________________________________________________________

Dear Lasell College Community,

Since the Green Campus Task Force started its work in October of 2007, Lasell College has made tremendous progress towards making our campus a sustainable place to live, work, and study. In this report we highlight the many accomplishments we have realized on our campus in the past 2 years.

Several accomplishments are worthy of special note. First, the launching of the Lasell College Single Stream Recycling Program now provides the campus community the opportunity to recycle a majority of their waste material. In the first three months, our single stream system diverted over 4 tons of material from the landfill. We look forward to improving the system and launching new education campaigns in 2009-2010 to further increase recycling rates.

A second significant accomplishment in 2008-2009 was the hiring of Princeton Energy Systems to help Lasell College develop an Energy and Sustainability Master Plan. Princeton Energy Systems will provide consulting services to help us optimize our energy usage and evaluate the feasibility of cogeneration, renewable, and alternative energy strategies.

The launching of the Environmental Studies Major and Minor also represents a significant accomplishment for Lasell College. By increasing course offerings related to the environment, we are providing the opportunity for students in all majors to obtain the information, knowledge, and skills needed to promote sustainability in their places of work and in their home communities.

Finally, in September of 2008, President Alexander signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. By signing this commitment, President Alexander has asserted that Lasell College will do its part to help create a “thriving, ethical, and civil society” free from global warming emissions.

We look forward to engaging more of our community in these efforts as we work towards becoming a model institution of sustainability.

Sincerely,

Michael Daley, PhD
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science
Chair of the 2008-2009 Environmental Sustainability Committee

Coffee and Trash

I found a cool little web tool that generates word clouds from text. I ran the application for my blog. It seems trash and coffee are on my mind the most.



http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed Creative Commons License.

Half is Trash

Students in my Environmental Science (ENV211) class conducted an audit of the trash in Wolfe Hall this afternoon. Chris gets the gold star for collecting the trash during common hours. What did we find in these round receptacles of waste?

Trash from about 12 classrooms was collected for a total of about 15 lbs. Of the 15 lbs, 7 lbs were recyclable items (paper, plastic bottles, and glass bottles). Almost 50% of the weight of the trash were items that could be recycled! These results are very alarming and indicate that we still have a lot of work to do on the recycling front.

While digging through the trash we decided to separate out the empty coffee cups. The first observation was that people need to finish their coffee or dump the liquid someplace else. It was a mess. We collected about 1 lb of paper coffee cups. We then decided to sort them to determine where they were coming from. Maybe this data will help us reduce the issue at the source. We had 49 paper coffee cups in the trash. Of the 49, 33 came from the dining hall, 12 were from our campus coffee vendor Peet's, 2 were from Dunkin Donuts, 2 from Starbucks, and 1 from an unknown vendor. Why aren't students using reusable mugs?

While it won't be popular, it may be time to force an increase in use of reusable mugs by eliminating the free dispersal of paper coffee cups from the dining hall. I will not gain popularity by pushing that idea but I am starting to think it is time. Not only is there an environmental impact but the coffee cups in the trash make an absolute mess that our cleaning staff has to deal with every night.

We are working on getting a recycling bin located next to every trash bin on campus. Cost is the big issue. We are slowly purchasing more bins but it is not in the budget to do it in one fell swoop. Any donors out there? We'll gladly put your name on all the bins!

House Electricity Reduction Contest Fall 2009

Residents of Karandon reduced their electricity consumption rate by 12% to win the Fall 2009 House Electricity Reduction Contest. Nice work!

Hasekll, Case, Cushing, Gardner, Keever, and Pickard residents all reduced their electricity consumption rates during the contest week. Durinng the 1 week contest, students reduced Lasell's carbon footprint by 165 lbs of CO2.

Residents of Keever made an impressive effort after finding themselves at the bottom of the pile after two days. While their efforts were impressive they still fell short of the reductions taken by residents in Karandon, Hasekll, Case, Cushing, and Gardner.

Unfortunately six houses fell below the line and increased electricity consumption rates during the contest week.

Final Results:
Karandon -12%
Haskell -9.7%
Case -5.1%
Cushing -4.9%
Gardner -3.7%
Pickard -2.4%
______________

Spence 1.4%
Carpenter 2.5%
Saunders 2.8%
Briggs 4.4%
Mott 6.0%
Chandler 11.0%

350

Saturday is the International Day of Climate Action. It is no accident that this event was scheduled for six weeks before the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen. Events across the world are planned in over 150 countries. In Massachusetts there are over 200 events planned for Saturday. Events range in scale from bell ringings to marches. The day was organized to

The Environmental Sustainability Committee discussed organizing an event at Lasell at our meeting in September. We concluded that we did not have enough time to get organized. But that does not mean members of the Lasell community can't participate in the day.

I am definitely planning on making my way downtown in the afternoon to the Boston Under Water Event. Organizers have all kinds of clever activities planned including a race to fill sandbags to save Boston from sea level rise.

Turtles 2009

This morning I drove with my son to the Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Office in Westborough to pick up three northern red-bellied cooter hatchlings. They are even smaller than last year. They are so small that the biologists decided not to notch the turtles this year because the stress of the procedure would be too much for the little reptiles.

It really is incredible how small they are. They probably weigh about 5-6 grams each. In a few years they will grow to be 10 pounds.

Our participation in the northern red-bellied cooter headstart program last year was a success and I am looking forward to this year. I'm excited to engage students more in the care and maintenance of the turtles and to integrate the environmental issues more into the curriculum. We are upgrading the plumbing in WASS3 to reduce the effort needed to clean the tanks and Sodexo has agreed to donate waste lettuce again.

I let my son brainstorm names on the ride back to Lasell. He liked Chara (his favorite Bruin), Tubby, Shelly, and a bunch of ridiculous sounding noises that really made him laugh. Last year I held contests to name the turtles but this year I am going to let the children and teachers at the Barn name them.

I'll post pictures soon!

What tree is that?

At the end of Diversity of Living Organisms lab on Monday I overheard a student comment, "That was the hardest thing I have ever done!". I felt quite proud. Clearly I had provided a challenge that mentally drained students. It was an activity that was challenging but that could be done with some careful thought and patience. Students were engaged in a project conducting a tree inventory for the campus of Lasell College. Students were assigned parcels of land owned by Lasell and charged with mapping the location of each tree, the species, the size, and health.

The student was right to exclaim the activity was hard. I spent five years studying the trees at Harvard Forest and I found this campus activity very challenging. In a native forest there are a limited number of species of trees one may encounter. It makes identification an easier process. However on an old, suburban, landscaped campus the number of species found grows significantly. As we explored our campus we encountered planted ornamentals, invasives, and rare native species. We encountered at least three species of oaks (possibly four but I am still not sure). While our dichotomous keys were useful, many times the keys could not help us identify the trees.

We ended the lab with what I would call a start at a campus tree inventory. I definitely need help from a local expert. The identification books are useful but some time with an expert would make me more confident. I'm not ready to publish our findings.

We found some beautiful historic trees though. Some of the oak trees measured over 3 meters in circumference. We will bring our maps back into the lab and start to compile and analyze the data. One goal is to clearly map the location of our historic trees. These trees are incredible resources for our campus that deserve additional attention and protection.

Lasell Orienteering Course

Yesterday students in my World Geography class wandered around campus carrying a compass and a set of directions. It was a beautiful afternoon and I did not hear any complaints about heading outside for this activity. In lecture we have been working on map skills including topographic maps. In lecture on Tuesday we practiced how to use a map and compass and on Thursday we went out to put their practice to the test.

I established a set of seven orienteering courses. Students were given a set of about 10 directions. Each direction included a compass bearing and a distance. For example 150 feet at 215 degrees. They worked through the set of directions and hopefully ended at the correct destination. Not only was it a chance to practice their compass skills, the activity also forced them to do a little math. Students figured out their pace (how many steps per 100 feet) and then had to calculate the number of steps they needed to take to move the correct distance. Students quickly master the activity as it is not the most challenging but I still like to do it because it reinforces classroom concepts and it is memorable. As sad as it is to admit it, in a few years students might not recall much from the course but they will all remember that World Geography is the class in which students get to go outside and do a compass course. I like to try and do at least one activity like this in each course I teach. It is almost like trying to establish a brand identity. Professor Fredericks does this well. Everyone knows there is a Monopoly simulation in his accounting course.

Setting up an orienteering course is very time consuming. But having a PhD in geography I figured I must be able to use GIS tools or something similar to set the course without actually having to step outside. I first went to Google Earth to see if it could be done. At first look I could not because the compass did not have degree bearings. I figured somebody had created a compass kmz layer and sure enough I found one. After bringing in the compass I could look at campus from space and craft a set of orienteering directions. Luckily a topic in Tuesday's class was on declination. True north and magnetic north are not the same thing. I knew that the bearings on Google Earth would be true north so I had to take into account our declination which is about 16 degrees.

Waste-Free Lunch

I feel a bit ridiculous in the morning lugging my son and two canvas lunch coolers out of the apartment to the car. I must look like a mess with two lunch coolers, a computer bag, a gym bag, and a daycare supply bag draped over my shoulder. I think my son recognizes my struggle and insists on being carried just to complicate the 200 yard trek. I could easily eliminate the need for the large canvas lunch coolers but I refuse.

I used to eat almost everyday in the dining hall at Lasell but I have shifted to bringing lunch. Weekly costs and class schedules are part of the reason but mainly I do it because I want to eat healthier and eat in a more environmentally friendly manner. When I walk into the dining hall I have a hard time going for the salad bar when there are creamy hot entrees calling my name. The lunch I bring is super healthy and has no meat or refined carbohydrates. Just lots of fruit and vegetables. I need to emphasize lots as you need to eat a lot of fruit and vegetables to feel satisfied.

In addition to eating lower on the food chain, I work on packing waste-free lunches. Instead of plastic disposable baggies most of my lunch is packed in washable plastic containers. The large volume of food I bring packed in plastic containers explains the need for the large orange canvas cooler I bring. I know it looks like I am heading to the beach for a picnic but the cooler it really is just my lunch. I similarly pack a waste-free lunch for my son. This operation turns me into bag man every morning but I think it is worth the struggle.

Waste-free lunches are increasing in practice. Many schools have committed to promoting this approach to help teach reduce, reuse, recycle. The EPA even offers materials on Waste-Free Lunches. I think I will approach the teachers about starting a waste-free lunch campaign to try and modify the lunch packing behavior of parents at the daycare center. Parents will be packing lunches for the next 15 years and now is the time to learn how to do it more sustainably.