Theme; Sustainable Communities

My group: Minna, Alex, Mel and I.

Our topic is sustainable communities.
The plan that our group chose to take in action is to:

Investigate the footprint of a building in your community and write a letter or do a presentation on ways that this building could reduce it's footprint.

So we decided to find a building that had made a huge footprint and reduce it. To do this, we are thinking we should find the cause of the huge footprint and whatever it is, make it so that the footprint is less visible.
If the building is using too much light, we can make a proposal on how to reduce the use of lights in the building and other energy efficient ways to conserve energy.

Our first step is going to try and find a building that is leaving a big footprint and a huge impact in our community.
We need to do a lot of research about which buildings aren't conserving energy at a low level that we want them to.
We have to go around and research how much energy an energy efficient building uses, and the difference between one opposed to one that's not as energy efficient. We're going to have to start researching soon, because I know we have a lot of work we need to do.



I think the school could be a good place to start out, to figure out how much energy our school uses. We can propose some kind of solution to how we can conserve energy in our school. There's a possibility we may be able to raise money for dual-flush toilets. Just to figure out how much energy our school uses.
After we've done some research as an example, we can move on and start research on a building in our community, aside from schools.
That could be a possible way to start off our project. To get some background information and so when we conduct research on the real building, we would already have a list of what we need to know. Testing the school could be a rough draft of the real thing.

These are some things we are hoping to accomplish:
starting a Zero Waste day in the school;
promoting an energy saving campaign to shut lights off in empty classrooms and at home;
organizing a sustainable transportation day at school;
developing and executing a plan for garbage and recycling in the school and/or school grounds and community;
working with the school board to develop a 'green' procurement plan for school cleaning supplies;
starting (or actively joining) a green club at school;
installing a dual-flush toilet in the washrooms of the school or home; and
installing roof solar panels or tubes.

In our project, we are hoping to figure out what is leaving this huge footprint and how to reduce it. In order to do that, we have to find the cause. We would have to figure out the amount of energy, & water they are using. We need to figure out what solutions we can give to this building to reduce the amount. Our goal, in my mind, is to try and make a difference. Even the slightest thing could make a huge difference in the future.
I hope to accomplish a lot of things while working on this project. If we can make a proposal to a building about how to conserve energy, and make a difference, we can surely do that to other buildings too.

I do some many questions about this project;
How are we going to get started?
What if we don't have enough resources to figure out which buildings conserve energy and which ones don't?
What if our proposal or presentation have no effect on the building, the community or the earth itself?

I'm sure I can start answering these questions as we start to work deeper into the subject, and really get into the project. I just have to keep them in mind and be able to answer these by the time the project is finished.

;

Green Bricks - Class Visitation

The Green Bricks people came to our class on November 5th, 2007.

They educated us and told us about what we can do to conserve energy and what's happening to the earth right now.
They showed us a video in the beginning about teenagers flicking off and not polluting the air by biking and walking instead of taking a car or the bus.
It was interesting because this video was targeted for teenagers. We are the new generation and the future is depending on us to reduce footprints.
Knowing we are the new generation and the future is in our hands, we know that we have to do something to reduce our footprints and to conserve as much energy and water as much as we can.

I learned a lot from what they talked to us about, though there were some information I already knew.
The class was actually pretty fun, we got to design our own school, home or other type of building, with many energy efficient items. There were solar panels, energy efficient florescent light bulbs, dual-flush toilets, etc.
It was really cool, because we actually had to think of what items should be in the building, and why it was there. Our group used up most of the items that we could choose from. We had some different things like insulation, a garden, a bus stop (because we chose to build a school) so kids would be encouraged to take the bus to & from school, and many other things.
After that, at our tables, we were able to build these solar-powered race cars. It was really fun building it together, because Adnan (my partner) and I didn't understand some of the instructions. Also, to put some parts together, you had to put a lot of work into because parts would fit or you had to sand it down. It was really fun.
Finally, we were able to put our work to the test. They had brought these lights with them with very long cords, so we could move our cars from one end of the classroom to the other. It was really fun watching the other people race because there were so many different actions of these cars with the identical parts.
Some went really slow while others moved across the floor to the goal in seconds. Ours was one of the fast moving ones. It was really funny, because ours and another groups were really fast, so we decided to race them. We had run out of time for class, so we had a really unfair race. It was where Adnan moved the car across the floor and declared we won, while the other team had just started to put their car on the starting line.
It was kind of sad we had to return the cars, because we had worked so hard to put them together, and we had to give it back. I hope they come again because it was really fun and I think everyone in the class learned a lot.

For the whole week, we had all the teachers to save energy by turning off some lights in the classrooms.
It was really good, & to me, I think it was a good wake-up call.

;