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How ya doing? I'm Todd Holland, the Energy Manager, and we did some work here
in this building -- the new residence hall -- and I'd like to talk about the solar hot
water system and the energy-saving showerheads.
This is a LEED gold certified [building]; the highest standard is platinum. Originally
the building was supposed to be silver certified, but we did so well during the design process
we got enough points for gold.
One of the biggest energy uses in the building is hot water, and most of the hot water in
the building is used for showers.
A good portion of the hot water in the building is made by the solar hot water system.
There's 24 panels on the roof, and we can see its performance over time. On this day -- this
is the line -- it was a sunny day a few days ago and we made about a little more than a
third, almost a half, of the hot water with the solar panels.
But even simpler than that one thing that saves more energy than the solar hot water
panels make are the showerheads.
This little showerhead uses one-third less water than a regular showerhead.
It mixes the water with a little stream of air and that makes it come out very fast so you get
less water, but it comes out at a very high rate of speed so you get a nice invigorating
shower, and people like them.
The Food Justice Society is mostly involved in a lot of the student activism that goes
on behind the scenes with the gardens. We went to a real food challenge conference with
other college students who are really involved with food justice -- just to kind of educate
ourselves about how we can bring more food onto our campus. How can we communicate better
with dining services? I think we have a really well-established relationship with dining
services already, compared to a lot of other colleges in terms of bringing more local
food on campus. Either 25.5 or 26.5 percent -- around that range --
of our food during the year is sourced locally.
It's mostly student run, but the Center for the Environment does a lot of helping
with funding, helping with hiring, and they decide who the garden managers are over the summer.
About three years ago we started a student garden, which was a gift from the class 2007.
What this garden has done pretty much is we teach--the students work on the garden and
we grow food that is then used for the Gracious Dinner in the fall. What we've also
started doing is connecting with some members of the 1944 through 1946 Victory Garden and
asking what their experience was as far as growing food for social reasons, for political
reasons, and what it meant to be a part of that process.
The best way to get something going is, if you have an idea do it, and incorporate that
into your academics 'cause that's the best way to get something done and do it so that
it's manageable.
That's one thing that I felt that someone like a senior or an upperclassman could have
told me, 'cause so many ideas that I had, I just kind of did on side and tried to juggle
it with the Mount Holyoke workload. Incorporating that in an independent study or a class for
community-based learning would be probably ideal. That's my number one advice.
Well, I got involved with Nuestras Raices through the CBL program here in a class with Giovanna DiChiro.
She basically had us partner with an organization doing a project that
would help the organization and also teach us something as students. Giovanna looked
to us to come back and also work with new classes--classes that just came in--maybe
the next environmental justice class or a class from a different title. I would come
in and give kind of a workshop and tell them what needed to happen. I also even went to
Smith College and helped them do that.
I think my experience with Nuestras certainly gave me some kind of the ideas of how you
have to reach out to people who don't understand the basics of environmental issues. Then coming
back here and doing the Capstone course, working on the Vampire Power film that I worked on
with you . First of all, we used a medium that is so tangible to everybody.
Everybody can go and see a film and kind of get something from it, and it's an entertaining
way to get a significant issue across.
Film Clip: Did you get my message?
About global warming? Cranky students? Vampires?
I feed upon your electricity.
Yes, come in.
And doing that I definitely used skills that I learned in my classroom and also in my life
experience working with Nuestras.