SC Wind Turbine Installation - July 13 Update

For the past several days, we have been waiting for the concrete footing to set before the tower for the turbine can be installed. In the meantime, this afternoon KWCH Channel 12 out of Wichita, KS came down to SC and interviewed me regarding the wind turbine installation. The interview will air on the 6:00 pm news broadcast tonight.


Here are some photos of the interview and the concrete footing.

SC Wind Turbine Installation Update: July 8

Today, the concrete foundation was being poured into the hole that was dug yesterday.

SC Wind Turbine Installation Update: July 7

 The installation of the wind turbine began today with the digging of the hole for the footing of the turbine tower. The photos show the hole and the reinforcing cage.

SC Wins Grant to Install Wind Turbine

In May, Southwestern College was notified that it would be the recipient of a small wind turbine via the Wind for Schools program. Southwest Windpower, of Arizona will provide the college with a Skystream 3.7 land turbine system and Cate's Supply of Winfield, KS will install the turbine along with the help of the Southwestern College plant operations staff. The Skystream 3.7, a 2.4 kW wind turbine, will produce up to 400 kilowatt hours per month and will enable Southwestern to create curriculum to educate the campus and community about wind energy.

The location for the installation of the turbine will be on the southwest corner of the former soccer field and installation is scheduled to be completed by the end of July. I will provide daily updates and photos as to the progress of the the turbine installation, so check back frequently to view real time updates of the progress being made.

Here are the first photos of the site (multiple views) where the installation will take place along with a campus map with the location of the turbine starred.

Yellow star indicates where on the SC campus the wind turbine will be installed

View looking towards stadium

View looking towards SC hill

Green Team Students Going to Chicago

Members of Green Team Southwestern will be participating in a service learning trip to Chicago May 9-17.

“The Green Team does a service learning trip every year and this year we are going to Chicago,” says Green Team director Jason Speegle.  “We are going to be working at Riverwoods Christian Camp, which is a camp for underprivileged kids in the Chicago area.”

Speegle says that the Green Team will help prepare the camp for summer usage by painting, landscaping, wood chopping, and trail paving among other things. The Green Team will also be attending the Chicago Green Festival on May 14.

“This is an opportunity for our students to experience, serve, and learn from a community and culture that is different from Winfield and the surrounding area,” Speegle says.  “We plan to do some hard work, have a lot of fun, and grow as individuals and as a team.”

Students attending the trip are Clint Dick, Spivey; Sydnee Nelson, Clay Center; Sarah Rommelfanger, Baldwin City; Daniel Van Sickle, Maize; Kelcie Parrish, Oklahoma City; Mark Strecker, Tonkawa, Okla.; and  Tendai Kwaramba, Zimbabwe.

Alex Gottlob from Gottlob Lawn and Landscape in Winfield will accompany the students along with Speegle.

SC Fares Well in Recyclemania

The results are in from the 2011 RecycleMania event and Southwestern College fared well with state wins in four categories.  RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities.

Southwestern ranks #1 in the state of Kansas in the following categories:

·         Grand Champion Division (percentage of waste being recycled)—Southwestern is at 27.03 %

·         Per Capita Classic (the amount of recycling collected per student at SC)—SC is at 8.53 lbs. per student.

·         Cumulative paper recycled per person—4.54 lbs. per person. 

·         Bottles and cans (includes steel, aluminum, plastic, and glass)—1.41 lbs. collected per person.

Southwestern finished in front of the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, and Johnson County Community College in each of the above categories.

SC finished in second place in the Waste Minimization category just behind Johnson County and in the cumulative cardboard recycled per person, just behind Kansas State.  Complete results can be found at www.recyclemaniacs.org. 

“The Green Team is trying to make it easy for students, faculty, and staff by placing recycling bins in convenient locations,” says Jason Speegle, director of Green Team Southwestern.  “We are trying to recycle a wider variety of material.  We will try to keep changing and improving the recycling program in order to make it more convenient to recycle more.  Our hope is that the SC family would make decisions that would lead to less waste, such as using reusable coffee cups and water bottles in lieu of disposable ones and not printing materials unless necessary.  Small changes go a long way.”

The law firm of Stinson, Morrison, and Hecker financially supported Southwestern in their RecycleMania participation.

Creation Care Day and Earth Day Celebration

SC MANistry student build outdoor chapel

Students worship on the 77 during the CCD concert

City of Praise

Since 2008, when Southwestern College decided to Go Green, the celebration of Earth Day has stretched into more than a week. Commencing with Creation Care Day on April 16 and stretching all the way to Earth Day on April 22, the celebration of Earth Day has come to include a myriad of campus and community activities involving SC students.

MANistry students clearing trails

This year, Creation Care Day got the celebration started in a big way. Saturday, April 16 marked the first day of SC’s annual Park-It Week, a Green Team initiative to encourage SC students to drive less and raise money to feed the poor. This year 90 students signed up for Park-It Week and they pledged to not drive a total of 347 days during the week of Earth Day. For every student that signed up for Park-It Week, Sodexo, SC’s operations management company donated $1 to the charity Stop Hunger. The Green Team also collected old cell phones to be recycled.

Several other activities took place on Creation Care Day. MANistry, SC’s men’s ministry, held a Trail Cleanup event to create hiking and biking trails and build an outdoor chapel. Green Team Southwestern held an outdoor Creation Care Day Concert, praising the God of our creation with the band City of Praise and guest speaker, Joe Skillen, pastor of Asbury Church in Wichita. Green Team Director, Jason Speegle spoke about the importance of sustainable living at a men’s breakfast at Grace United Methodist Church that morning as well.

City of Praise plays for SC community at Creation Care Day

Sunday, April 17 continued the activities with SC students participating in Grace UMC’s cleanup efforts at Island Park as well as preparing the new Winfield community garden, a collaborative effort between Winfield USD 465 and Green Team Southwestern.

During the weekdays leading up to Earth Day, students groups were still very active with planet celebrating events. Green Team Southwestern students, Kelcie Parrish and Clint Dick presented about sustainable living to the Winfield chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (April 20). Some students planted trees on the SC campus on Earth Day. Students from Leadership Southwestern and Green Team Southwestern collaborated on an educational activity with students at Irving Elementary. The elementary students collected aluminum cans and recycled them. The money they raised was donated to the Winfield Humane Society. During the morning, they learned about the importance of recycling and were able to plant some trees.

SC students Sarah Rommelfanger and Christian Camacho plant a tree in front of the Welcome Center

Sarah working in the Community Garden

At SC, Earth Day is becoming more than just a one day celebration. Our goal is to create a culture in which we treat every day as Earth Day.

SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE FEATURED IN "THE PRINCETON REVIEW'S GUIDE TO 311 GREEN COLLEGES"

Southwestern College  is one of the most environmentally responsible colleges in the U.S.A. and Canada, according to The Princeton Review (www.PrincetonReview.com). The well-known education services company selected Southwestern College for inclusion in the just-released second annual edition of its free downloadable book, “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 311 Green Colleges: 2011 Edition."

Created by The Princeton Review in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) (www.usgbc.org), "The Princeton Review's Guide to 311 Green Colleges” is the only free, comprehensive guidebook profiling institutions of higher education that demonstrate a notable commitment to sustainability in their academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation. The Princeton Review chose the schools for this guide based on a survey of administrators at hundreds of colleges that the Company polled in 2010 about their school's sustainability initiatives.

Released on April 20, just two days prior to the April 22 celebration of the 41st Anniversary of Earth Day, the guide has profiles of the colleges that provide application information plus facts, stats, and write-ups reporting on the schools' environmentally related policies, practices and academic offerings. The free guide can be downloaded at www.princetonreview.com/green-guide.aspx and www.centerforgreenschools.org/greenguide

The Princeton Review first created this one-of-a-kind resource for college-bound students in 2010 with the U.S. Green Building Council, which is best known for developing the LEED standard for green building certification. This past fall, USGBC launched its Center for Green Schools (www.centerforgreenschools.org) to increase its efforts to drive change in how campuses and schools are designed, constructed and operated so that all educational facilities can enhance student learning experiences.

“College-bound students are increasingly interested in sustainability issues," said Robert Franek, Senior VP, Publishing, The Princeton Review. “Among 8,200 college applicants who participated in our spring 2011 'College Hopes & Worries Survey,' nearly 7 out of 10 (69%) said having information about a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the school," he added. "Together with the USGBC, we are pleased to make this free resource available to all students seeking to attend colleges that practice, teach and support environmentally-responsible choices.  We highly recommend the colleges in this book."

Southwestern College joins the ranks of outstanding universities and colleges nationwide that are leading the “green” movement through their own special programs and initiatives. “It is exciting that Southwestern College is being recognized for our Green efforts,” says Jason Speegle, director of Green Team Southwestern.  “Being environmentally friendly has become such a priority for our administration, staff, and students.  We are trying to become a model of sustainability.”

"A green campus can transform the college experience for students through enhanced sustainability education and by creating healthy living and learning environments all while saving energy, water and money as part of an institution’s bottom line," said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chair, USGBC. "We launched the Center for Green Schools at USGBC with a vision of green schools for all within this generation.  Partnering with The Princeton Review to provide this invaluable resource to college-bound students was a no-brainer for helping to create transformational change on these campuses."

How Schools Were Chosen for the Book

The Princeton Review chose the 311 schools based on a survey it conducted in 2010 of hundreds of colleges across the U.S. and in Canada to tally its annual "Green Rating" scores (scaled from 60 to 99) of colleges for its school profiles in its college guidebooks and website. The survey asks administrators more than 50 questions about their institution's sustainability-related policies, practices and programs.  The Company tallied Green Ratings for 703 institutions in summer 2010.  The 311 schools in this guide received scores of 80 or above in that assessment. (Note: The Princeton Review does not rank the schools in this guide hierarchically (1 to 311) according to their Green Rating scores, nor does it include those scores in this book's school profiles.) Information about The Princeton Review’s Green Rating methodology and its "Green Honor Roll" list saluting schools that received Green Ratings of 99 is at http://www.princetonreview.com/green.aspx

Southwestern to Offer New Minor in Sustainability

Beginning in the fall of 2011, students at Southwestern College will have the option to pursue a Minor in Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SES). The SES Minor will be available and achievable by students in all major fields of study. "It is truly an interdisciplinary minor," states Associate Biology Professor Rick Cowlishaw. The SES Minor incorporates courses from Economics, Political Science, English, and Natural Science along with three newly created courses in Sustainability. The culmination of the minor will be a practicum course in sustainability where students will be required to plan and carryout a sustainability related project on the SC campus or in the Winfield community.

Southwestern College has as part of its mission to "strive to live by and teach sustainability." The new SES Minor will help SC in accomplishing its mission.

SmartMeter Devices to Measure Electricity Usage Installed at Southwestern College

In an effort to more efficiently measure how much electricity is being used in each building on the Southwestern College campus, SC has teamed up with SmartSynch and is installing a smart metering system throughout the campus.

According to Jason Speegle, Green Team Director at Southwestern College, the SmartSynch energy meters will capture electricity usage from every building on the campus every 15 minutes and download wirelessly so that it can be viewed and monitored via the internet.

“It is important for us to know where we’re using the most electricity,” Speegle says. “We desire to cut down on our electricity usage in order to be more fiscally and environmentally responsible. This new system will help us focus on where we can become more efficient in how we measure our electrical consumption.”

Currently, multiple buildings are metered together making it impossible to distinguish energy usage of one building versus another. With the SmartMeters providing a visual reading of the energy usage, the college can identify problem areas or procedures that need to be improved and, according to Speegle, determine ways to impact the students’ energy use habits in order to lessen our environmental impact.

The SmartMeter system is also a tool that the city of Winfield may look into.

“I think the SmartMeter system is leading edge technology as far as metering goes,” says James Ging, assistant director of water and electric department for the city of Winfield. “The new generation in our industry is pointing towards smart grid technology. It gives a lot of information. I think the city and the college can work together. We could use their input and if things that help the college could help us that would be great.”

The SmartMeter system automatically monitors data collection schedules and meter alarms. In fact, these particular SmartMeters can be set to return near real-time electricity usage data as frequently as every 15 minutes. In addition, SmartSynch devices use deliver the stored data securely via public wireless networks.

SmartSynch is a Smart Grid Technology Company, which means it lets utilities communicate with any device on the electrical grid. The company promotes two-way delivery of real-time energy usage data over public wireless networks (AT&T, Rogers, T-Mobile, etc.). Founded in 1998, SmartSynch has installed SmartMeter systems for over 100 major North American electric providers and is the largest commercial and industrial smart metering provider in North America.