UF Celebrates 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, Sustainable Change on Campus

This year’s Campus Earth Day Celebration included herb giveaways from Gators for a Sustainable Campus, clothing donations and hazardous waste collection. There were also educational games, art activities and a number of student and community organizations interacting with passersby. A “Greening Your Career: Bringing Sustainability to the Workplace” panel discussion, hosted individuals speaking on how they had incorporated sustainability principles into their positions, and advice for students about to enter the workforce about how to channel their own passions when they transition.

President Machen gave his annual “State of Sustainability at UF” address, emphasizing the importance of individual action and the part every Gator plays in transforming our university. He commented on the solar panels currently being installed on Powell Hall, and what this can mean for both UF and the community at large. These panels, done in partnership with Progress Energy, not only represent a step toward sourcing energy through renewable means, but to also be an engaging, educational piece for the over 200,000 annual visitors to the Florida Museum of Natural History about the prospects of solar energy in sunshine state.

Additionally he remarked on our continued recognition on the national scene. The University of Florida was most recently included in the Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges.

This year also marked the second year of the Sustainable Solutions Awards. There were a number of notable achievements, and the following list helps reflect some of the efforts, individuals and groups who help champion sustainability here at UF:

Most Active Green Team - Finance and Accounting
Most Active Student Organization - 2010 Solar Decathlon Team
Waste Reduction - Online Swap Meet Program
Student Waste Reduction - Florida Alternative Breaks
Water Conservation - “Can You Take A 5-Minute Shower?” - Water Conservation Pilot Program
Energy Efficiency and Conservation - Physical Plant Division, Retro-Commissioning Team
Student Energy Efficiency and Conservation - Neutral Gator Renter’s Initiative
Bright Idea Award - “Pushing the Envelope” Campaign, Susan Smith
Student Bright Idea Award - Clotheslines at Campus Housing Facilities, Ricardo Brown-Salazar

Congratulations to all of our winners and nominees!

UF team sets open house for solar home that will compete internationally

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida Solar Decathlon team will hold several events this week to showcase its project: a student-designed solar home that will compete internationally this summer.

The events culminate in an open house Friday where the public can tour the home that will compete in Solar Decathlon Europe, an international competition designed to advance innovation and research in solar, sustainable and industrialized housing.

The Project: RE: FOCUS team will encourage the UF community to “Make a Change, Not a Footprint” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Plaza of the Americas with an expo featuring solar panels, renderings of the home, the home’s floor plan staked out to scale, and other information on the project.

On Thursday morning, Project RE:FOCUS will take over the 34th Street wall to inspire the Gainesville community members to make a small change in their lives to reduce their carbon footprint.

Friday’s open house will feature tours of the home, information about the project and presentations by College of Design, Construction and Planning Dean Christopher Silver, team leader and building construction professor Robert Ries and student team leader and doctoral student Dereck Winning.

“The Solar Decathlon gives students from across the university the opportunity to work together on a real-world project, and Friday will be the first opportunity for the team to present their work to the sponsors and the community,” Ries said.

The open house will take place at the UF Solar Energy Park, 2610 S.W. 23rd Terrace, from 3 to 6 p.m., with the presentations delivered at 3:15 p.m. Those who attend are encouraged to carpool to promote sustainability and due to limited parking.

The UF team, comprised of more than 125 students from four colleges and eight disciplines, will compete in Madrid this June in 10 categories that include solar power, innovation, sustainability and communication. The team’s entry fuses innovation with the design of the historic Florida Cracker House to further the field of solar energy and inspire solutions for sustainable living that fit market needs.

For updates on the house, visit http://www.floridasolardecathlon.org/

Writing Credits: Kathryn Watson

Annual Sustainable Florida Best Practice Awards

Sustainable Florida is now accepting nominations for its annual Best Practice Awards program to honor and promote outstanding examples of sustainable development principles—e.g., water and energy conservation, waste diversion, community engagement, building social capital, building green, transportation alternatives, historic preservation, healthy initiatives, organic farming, landscape innovations, and more.

The nomination deadline is at the end of March. The awards program will held June 4 at the Florida Green Building Coalition Green Trends conference. And, the Governor and Cabinet usually honor the winners with a resolution at a later meeting.

UF To Represent U.S. In International Solar Decathlon

Two years of planning, designing and building will end with the final phase of competition for the Solar Decathlon Europe in Madrid, Spain this summer. The UF Solar Decathlon Team will be one of only two U.S. universities in the competition. For the decathlon, 19 university teams from around the world compete against each other to build the best 797-square-foot modular sustainable home, according to criteria in 10 different areas.

UF’s design is unique among the competition as it takes inspiration from Florida’s own vernacular buildings, specifically the Florida Cracker House. The UF house includes passive, natural techniques – such as a central breezeway, porch and elevated platform – for a design approach that integrates traditional means of housing with innovative solar technologies to create a house that is both efficient and functional.

The competition itself has brought together students and faculty from all over the university, from as many as eight different disciplines. There is a core group of about 15 students working on the project, but approximately 120 students have had a hand in the designing or planning. Students were separated into teams with some working on design, some on communications and some on construction, according to their specific skill set.

The house is being constructed by the students at a University of Florida site, appropriately known as the Energy Park, and construction will continue this spring. Steel and wood flooring have been delivered to the site recently and students have begun construction on the Project RE:FOCUS house. Interiors and mechanical systems are the next construction tasks, followed by the deck and outdoor area.

To learn more, or to join the effort to showcase the talents of UF students in this international competition, please visit their website.

UF Green Build Team Wins Sustainability Competition

Six students on the Green Build Team joined their faculty advisor, Dr. James Sullivan of the Rinker School of Building Construction, in Reno, NV last month and their Building Information Modeling team won second place recognition in their division and a special award for Best Presentation at the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) LEED Competition.

The competition, held February 12 and 13, challenged teams to provide solutions for a problem statement from a hypothetical retail construction in California. Six rounds of questions highlighted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification and rating systems.

The student team was challenged to explore sustainable options for the proposed construction including a new form of structure temperature flow known as “Night Sky Cooling,” which allows for downsizing conventional air cooling units by cooling water through radiative and evaporative means.

The students were given building plans and had just 14 hours to research and propose a 20-page response. The following day, the report was submitted as a 25-minute presentation including an expert panel testing the students in a question-and-answer symposium.

The UF team labored diligently in their efforts and showed great teamwork in their proposal. Their efforts paid off with recognition for Best Presentation. UF’s Green Build Team was one of 17 schools participating, and one of only two schools competing from east of the Mississippi.

One of the winning students, Kristin Gray, said, “We had been quite busy as students leading up to the competition and then had lots of make-up work to complete upon our return, but we feel great about our contributions to the competition.”

Gators Winning for Sustainability

It seems Gators are not just champions in sports. Many of our students are winning national and international awards for their work related to sustainability at UF. We want to thank the following students for their hard work, and congratulate them on their accomplishments:

Sara Hutton was awarded a 2008 Morris K. Udall Scholarship for her studies in sustainability and wildlife ecology and conservation.

Ryan Graunke won the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education's (AASHE) 2008 Student Sustainability Research Award for his work on the bio-digestion of Broward Dining Hall’s food waste to create methane fuel.

Hal Knowles was named the 2008 National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology Fellow for his work on the UF Carbon Neutrality Action Plan.

Alison Erlenbach won the oikos Student Award 2008 in the 'Sustainable Campus' category for her project Campus Climate Solutions, which trains students to calculate carbon offset needs for events and businesses.