Climate change and community engagement
This honors seminar that I took during the spring of 2012 was offered through the Environmental Engineering program at UC. The structure of the course offered an extremely unique perspective on both the global issues surrounding climate change and the positive and negative impacts being made on the local level. Guest speakers regularly came in to class to discuss the different different facets of the climate debate and possible solutions to being to combat the problem. Over the course of the quarter we also went on several field trips to places working towards encouraging more sustainable practices in their own organization and the surrounding community. We visited the Cincinnati Zoo and met with the sustainability director, the University of Cincinnati Power Plant, and met with a representative from Hamilton County Recycling Services. It was really interesting to see how organizations and businesses are working to combat climate change and environmental degradation on a local level right here in our own community. We also learned to make biodiesel from waste cooking oil from UC's own cafeterias. This project was very interesting to me as I drive a diesel car and it inspired me to look more into this option for my personal use in the future. This class was right in line with my interests as I am very interested in environmental policy and sustainability and plan to pursue a career in which addressing surrounding issues is a priority. Below you will find several examples of work I completed during the course of this class.
Om Valley Permaculture Presentation:
Below I have attached the presentation that I created when we were given the assignment to briefly research and describe a green organization from the Cincinnati area. This organization particularly fell in line with my interests as it focuses on promoting local food, teaching people about growing their own food, and advocating for living a sustainable lifestyle in general. I chose to upload this particular assignment because I think it demonstrates what this course was all about: finding a way to make an impact on decreasing climate change on an individual and local level.
Below I have attached the presentation that I created when we were given the assignment to briefly research and describe a green organization from the Cincinnati area. This organization particularly fell in line with my interests as it focuses on promoting local food, teaching people about growing their own food, and advocating for living a sustainable lifestyle in general. I chose to upload this particular assignment because I think it demonstrates what this course was all about: finding a way to make an impact on decreasing climate change on an individual and local level.
om_valley_permaculture.pptx | |
File Size: | 4864 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Presentation:
Below I have attached a presentation that I created during this class that focuses on greenhouse gas emissions level. We were given an assignment to research the emission levels and major emission contributors for a particular city and county. This was a very relevant assignment to the this course because it showed which industries need to make major changes in order to become more sustainable and contribute less to climate change.
Below I have attached a presentation that I created during this class that focuses on greenhouse gas emissions level. We were given an assignment to research the emission levels and major emission contributors for a particular city and county. This was a very relevant assignment to the this course because it showed which industries need to make major changes in order to become more sustainable and contribute less to climate change.
climateppt.pptx | |
File Size: | 8960 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
Biodiesel From Waste Cooking Oil:
This image shows the biodiesel that we made in class from waste cooking oil from UC's cafeterias. We spent a significant part of the course discussing biodiesel and spent time working in the lab outside of class on this project. I chose to document this image and assignment because it is a very current and relevant technology to sustainability and combating climate change. Learning about using biodiesel made from waste vegetable oils as a fuel option echoed the overall themes of the course of a practice that one can adopt individually and could also have large impacts if implemented on the large scale. I have also attached below the procedure that we wrote documenting the steps we followed in order to convert the waste vegetable oil into viable diesel fuel.
This image shows the biodiesel that we made in class from waste cooking oil from UC's cafeterias. We spent a significant part of the course discussing biodiesel and spent time working in the lab outside of class on this project. I chose to document this image and assignment because it is a very current and relevant technology to sustainability and combating climate change. Learning about using biodiesel made from waste vegetable oils as a fuel option echoed the overall themes of the course of a practice that one can adopt individually and could also have large impacts if implemented on the large scale. I have also attached below the procedure that we wrote documenting the steps we followed in order to convert the waste vegetable oil into viable diesel fuel.
biodiesel_procedure.docx | |
File Size: | 129 kb |
File Type: | docx |