Posts filed under ‘programs’
Friends of Florida Environmental Club science lecture
Please come to the Friends of Florida Environmental Club Science Lecture Series presentation at
SPC’s St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus Thursday, September 10th 2009, 12:30 until 1:30 pm.
The presenter, Andrea Alden, Marine Wildlife Legacy Biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Wildlife Legacy Initiative will discuss red tide research, sea grass restoration and will include general information pertinent to Tampa Bay conservation efforts.
Ms Alden is responsible for coordinating and implementing Florida’s Wildlife Legacy Initiative within marine habitats. Her work focuses primarily on supporting regional and statewide coral reef and sea grass conservation and restoration.
The goal of the Florida Wildlife Legacy Initiative is to prevent wildlife from becoming endangered before they become more rare and costly to protect. Rather than rules and regulations, the Initiative creates partnerships to take action.
The September 10, 2009 presentation will take place in the SP/G Natural Sciences Building, room SC236 from 12:30 until 1:30 pm. Light refreshments will be provided.
To learn more about sustainability at SPC, visit www.spcollege.edu/sustainability or call Jason Green at 727 341-3283. To join the St Petersburg/Gibbs Campus based Friends of Florida Environmental Club, contact staff advisor, Crystal Davenport at davenport.crystal@spcollege.edu.
St. Petersburg College and the USGBC Florida Gulf Coast Chapter announce strategic partnership
St Petersburg College’s Corporate Training Office today announced a partnership with the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to provide a comprehensive sustainable building operations training course based on the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance rating system.
The course will be available August 17th.
According to the USGBC, LEED for Existing Buildings: O&M is the tool for the operation and maintenance of commercial and institutional buildings. The certification system identifies and rewards best practices and describes ways for using less energy, water and natural resources; for improving indoor environment; and for uncovering operating inefficiencies.
“Partnering with a Florida chapter of the USGBC puts St. Petersburg College’s Corporate eTraining in the national spotlight,” said James Connolly, SPC’s Corporate Training Director.
The training course provides students the opportunity to increase a building’s operational efficiency while reducing its impact on the environment.
“Sustainable architecture helps illustrate the way in which humans should interact with our surroundings,” said Jason Green, SPC’s Sustainability Coordinator and registered architect. “This training program provides participants with the resources necessary to have an immediate, yet long-term positive impact.”
“St. Petersburg College has made sustainability a top priority in its planning for the future,” said Carl M. Kuttler Jr., SPC’s President. “Our intention is to provide our community with the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve a more sustainable future.”
Josh Bomstein, president of the FGCC, said the collaboration will make the training available beyond the local area.
“We are excited by this great partnership with a leading educational institution in the Tampa Bay area,” he said. “The platform provided by St. Petersburg College for online education is second to none, and we’re happy to be able to provide our expertise in green design and construction for content.”
In further support of SPC’s commitment to becoming a leader in the environmental movement, the college recently announced two new degree programs: an Associate of Science in Environmental Science Technology, and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Sustainability Management, both available in the coming fall semester.
To learn more about SPC’s environmental course and program offerings, visit http://www.spcollege.edu/sustainability or http://www.spcollege.edu/Ct.
“Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” the title of 2009-10 One Book, One College program
The title for the fifth annual “One Book, One College: SPC Reads” program will be “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by renowned novelist Barbara Kingsolver. The book, chosen by a selection committee comprised of faculty, librarians and students from across the college, chronicles the family of the author’s year-long quest to eat only home-grown or locally-grown food.
“Abandoning the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life – vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life, and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.” – from the publisher’s abstract.
With relevance for a broad spectrum of disciplines and programs, the committee felt that this title would offer myriad opportunities for educational programming and curricular activities throughout the college, and fit well with the college’s Wellness and Sustainability programs.
Look for discussions, activities and programs at all campuses throughout the year. Anyone wishing to participate in planning the year’s events is invited to join the One Book One College Steering Committee that now is being formed. Please contact Matthew Bodie (bodie.matthew@spcollege.edu), Information Services Librarian, TS, for more information and to sign up.
Multiple copies of the book are available now in hard copy, e-audiobook format, and on DVD in the SPC Libraries.
Green job opportunities
Did you just graduate? Well, go look for a green job!
According to Pew Research Center, green-collar jobs are being created every day. In fact, the industry has grown 9% a year, more than twice the growth of more traditional jobs.
In a Wall Street Journal article, Joel Yudken, a member of an advisory panel for the Pew study said, “With all the emphasis in the stimulus and energy bills, there’s going to be new demand and a lot more investment in these businesses, which will mean more jobs. It’s a growth area, there’s no question about that.”
Visit these websites to learn more about green jobs:
Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act
Holmes Hepner & Associates Architects
The 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act passed in Congress, which will provide funding for energy efficient investments in Tampa Bay area schools. Schools can use the money to make classrooms more energy efficient and to update science labs, libraries and technical education facilities.
In a release, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa said “Buildings, classrooms and educational technology will be updated. The goal is to provide modern classroom environments that prepare students for careers in the 21st century”.
The Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act should create approximately 136,000 jobs around the country.
Hillsborough County schools are expected to receive a $19.1 million grant through the legislation. Manatee County schools are slated to receive about $4 million and Pinellas County schools nearly $11.5 million.
Money provided by the bill would be in addition to the $1.8 billion now available for Florida schools under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the release said.
Informed students shown to be most realistic about future
According to an international assessment of 15-year-old students, those who are well informed about environmental science are the most realistic about future environmental challenges. The students who are least informed are the most optimistic about the future.
Those are the findings of Green at 15?, a study by sociologist David Baker and others at Pennsylvania State University. The assessment measured the knowledge and skills of more than 400,000 students in 57 countries around the world.
The report looked at achievement, or “scientific literacy,” as well as students’ attitudes about the environment. It used a combination of questions to give students an opportunity to analyze and interpret data.
Seventeen percent of American students demonstrated the highest level of proficiency, indicating they could consistently identify, explain and apply scientific knowledge to a variety of environmental topics. They also could link different information sources and explanations to make decisions about environmental issues. However, 42 percent of American students performed at the bottom of the scale, showing difficulty answering questions containing scientific information about basic environmental issues.
Green at 15? showed that most students were familiar with such issues as air pollution, energy shortages and extinction of plants and animals.
Jason Green bumps into his old friend, Captain Recycle
(Note: This story appeared in a recent issue of the Blue & White, St. Petersburg College’s newsletter for faculty and staff.)
He wasn’t wearing his mask and cape, but college Sustainability Coordinator Jason Green recognized Captain Recycle the minute he walked into the room.
Alan Shapiro and Jason Green
To most people, Alan Shapiro is just a mild-mannered Instructional Technologist at the Seminole Campus. But it wasn’t too many years ago that Shapiro was Captain Recycle, Boca Ciega High School’s masked marvel of all things green and recyclable.
Jason Green remembered, because he was one of Captain Recycle’s students. And Green says that 18 years after his Boca Ciega days, he owes his ecologically friendly career to his old high school teacher.
“He had such an impact, he was such a passionate teacher,” Green recalled. “He couldn’t help but have an impact on how I looked at the world. From that class, I became a lifelong environmentalist. I made sure my family recycled at home. When possible, I rode my bike rather than drove and tried to raise the consciousness of my friends and family about not wasting energy and water.”
Now, both men are employed by St. Petersburg College, and both ended up in the same meeting at the Seminole Campus recently to discuss some college-related ecological subjects. Green recognized his old teacher right away; it took a few additional minutes for Shapiro to recognize Green.
But Shapiro’s memory is pretty sharp when it comes to Captain Recycle.
“I was a science teacher at the time, and the state of Florida had just passed a law requiring communities to recycle a certain percentage of their waste,” Shapiro said. “I wanted to get a recycling center started at the school, so I started a club we called Eco-Action.”
Boca Ciega High School is in Gulfport, but Shapiro sought help from Tom Lehmann, the recycling coordinator for the city of St. Petersburg. He and his students drew up flyers, urging people to bring their recyclables to school.
To generate excitement among his students, Shapiro dreamed up the Captain Recycle character.
“I got a t-shirt airbrushed with the letters CR on the front, and I got a cape and a mask and I walked around the school as Captain Recycle,” Shapiro said. “The whole thing became pretty popular.”
The club gathered and recycled aluminum cans, paper, cardboard and Styrofoam. The effort was so successful that the recycling center at Boca Ciega became one of the most productive centers in the St. Petersburg system.
All of that made a big impression on many Boca Ciega students, but it made a huge impression on Green, who went on to a career as an architect and sustainability expert. He now leads all of the environmental efforts at SPC.
“(Shapiro) didn’t care about appearances, he was so passionate and he ran around school in that cape and mask making sure students and teachers did the right thing by recycling.” Green said.
It took Shapiro a little while to recall Jason Green, but once he did it created a rush of memories from his early-1990s Captain Recycle days.
“It blew me away, it was wonderful,” he said. “Jason said, ‘You kind of inspired me.’ It made me feel good as a teacher, and as someone who still tries to do things for the environment.
“Teaching can be good.”
All of SPC’s recent green efforts, led by Jason Green, have Shapiro thinking about bringing Captain Recycle out of retirement.
“My old cape is gone,” he said. “But I bet I could get another one.”
Sustainability programs at St. Petersburg College
St. Petersburg College recently announced the development of two new degree programs: an Associates of Science in Environmental Science Technology and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Sustainability Management. The two cutting edge programs will be rolled out in time for the Fall 2009 semester.
sustainable | SPC 