U-M Sustainability NeWS: september 2009
U-M Holds 14th Annual Energy Fest September 15-17, 2009 
Want to learn about energy conservation and sustainability initiatives happening throughout the university and our community—all while enjoying live music outdoors? If so, then check out the 14th Annual Energy Fest at U-M on Tuesday, September 15 on the Central Campus Diag or on Thursday, September 17 on the North Campus Plaza. This year, Energy Fest will also include a special “Green Lighting Day” on Wednesday, September 16 in the Chemistry Building Lower Atrium, where you can learn about the latest technology in commercial and residential lighting. All events will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
This annual event will feature informational displays from university and community organizations about environmental stewardship, alternative transportation, green building design, recycling, energy-efficient lighting, and much more. In fact, more than 20 groups will be participating in this free event, including Planet Blue, Climate Savers, the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute, the Student Sustainability Initiative, the Ann Arbor Energy Office, the Ann Arbor District Library, Recycle Ann Arbor, and several others.
Energy Fest 2009 is being sponsored by U-M’s Energy Management Department (a division of U-M Utilities and Plant Engineering) and co-sponsored by the U-M Center for Sustainability Systems and the School of Natural Resources & Environment. As an added incentive to participate, early attendees will be eligible to receive a complimentary insulated lunch bag with the Energy Fest logo. Music will be provided by the local jazz, swing, and pop band “The Dorkestra.” [Back to News Page]
New “ZimRide” Ride Share Program Kicks off at U-M this Fall 
Ever seen someone in your rear-review mirror seemingly driving the same route as you? Or, do you often find yourself looking for folks heading where you want to go so you can ask to hitch a ride? If so, then you’re the perfect candidate for ZimRide—a new, no-cost ride-share program kicking off at the University of Michigan this fall.
Sometimes referred to as “The Ride Board for the 21st Century,” the new U-M ZimRide initiative in Ann Arbor is part a national program started in 2007 in Palo Alto, California that uses Facebook and a proprietary route-matching algorithm to connect people for rides. In collaboration with U-M Parking and Transportation Services, the local ZimRide Program is being offered specifically to those who have “umich.edu” e-mail accounts. Organizers are promoting the program as an excellent way for U-M students and personnel to create social and sustainable transportation.
“This is a great way to build community, as well as to reduce your carbon footprint,” says U-M Public Policy student Sonya Suter of Ithaca, NY, who is helping to organize and launch the program at U-M. “We really want to get people on board.”
Luckily, the concept is quickly catching on around campus. Upon publishing this e-newsletter story, more than 450 people at U-M had already registered on the ZimRide website, which has been operational since mid-June. More and more are signing up and posting rides every day.
Zimride has been launched at other campuses across the country, such as Cornell University, Stanford, and UCLA. Here at U-M, according to ZimRide’s vice president of marketing, if just two students share a ride to Detroit, they can reduce their carbon emissions by 35 pounds of CO2 (based on EPA and AAA assumptions of carbon emissions per gallon of gas and average mileage per vehicle).
“If people get in the habit of posting or looking for rides on ZimRide, then we can really make a difference—particularly for longer trips,” Sonya says. “I’m very optimistic about it.” To register as a local participant of the U-M ZimRide Program, please log onto http://zimride.pts.umich.edu.
For more information about the overall ZimRide program, visit the national ZimRide website at http://zimride.com. If you have a specific question or are interested in helping to organize and promote the local initiative, then please contact Sonya Suter at snsuter@umich.edu, or call her at (607) 227-7151. [Back to News Page]
Michigan Sea Grant Helps Foster “Clean Marinas” in State 
What does a private marina on Lake Saint Claire (Belle Maer Harbor) have in common with a State of Michigan municipal boating facility on the Straits of Mackinaw (Straits State Harbor)? Both are certified as “Clean Marinas” as part of the Michigan Clean Marina Program— a joint effort of Michigan Sea Grant, the Michigan Boating Industries Association (MBIA), the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.
As “Clean Marinas,” these marina businesses have voluntarily pledged to adopt a series of best practices to prevent and reduce pollution from their Great Lakes facility. Personnel at these marinas have undergone special training on how to comply with Clean Marina Program guidelines—and how to be responsible environmental stewards of the waterways on which they work.
To date, 32 marinas have become certified through the Michigan Clean Marina Program—and 43 more are working toward certification. New marinas are encouraged to participate in the next Clean Marina Workshop on Friday, October 2 in Midland, MI. The workshop will cover the steps involved in the certification process, as well as review both regulatory issues and recommended best practices.
“We’ve got some shining examples of Clean Marinas in the program,” says Elizabeth LaPorte, Director of Education and Communication Services for Michigan Sea Grant. “These marinas want to distinguish themselves from the competition, and they want to go that extra mile to help protect the environment.”
To help make the program more accessible and convenient for marinas throughout the state, Michigan Sea Grant is developing a web-based “Clean Marina Classroom,” to be launched in January 2010. This new program is based on the existing Michigan Clean Marina Guidebook, that the Sea Grant team helped produce. Through this new online training tool, marina owners and operators will be able to learn in-depth material about protecting water quality from the Internet. They’ll even be able to test their knowledge through unit reviews. And eventually, Sea Grant hopes to facilitate online presentations about topics such as storm water management.
The Clean Marina training covers a wide range of operations that marinas deal with on a daily basis, such as vessel maintenance and repair, petroleum storage and transfer, sewage handling, and more. This includes items that are mandatory for meeting by government regulatory requirements, as well as those that are recommended for environmental-protection purposes. In many cases, these recommended practices may conserve resources, reduce costs, and/or create new markets for marinas, such as recycling oil.
“The boating industry has really been ahead of the curve, and several of our certified Clean Marinas are going above and beyond what is required,” LaPorte says. “When marinas set a good example, it will trickle down to the boaters—as well as to other industries. Marinas are really making a difference.”
A collaborative program of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, Michigan Sea Grant develops research, education, outreach programs that promote better understanding, conservation, and use of Michigan’s coastal resources. Administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it is one of more than 30 National Sea Grant College Programs in coastal states throughout the United States.
For details about the Michigan Clean Marina Program—and an upcoming “Clean Marina Open House” on Monday, September 28—log onto the Michigan Sea Grant website at http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/cmp.
Program in the Environment Students Gain Valuable Field Experience
Learning by doing.
That’s the essential philosophy of the Field Experience Requirement for undergraduate students enrolled in U-M’s Program in the Environment (PitE). There are several ways students can fulfill the requirement, for example by taking a course at an approved residential field course (such as those offered at U-M’s Biological Field Station or the Camp Davis Field Station), by participating in a Study Abroad Program that is centered on environmental subject matter, or by pursuing an environmentally-focused Internship.
All PitE Field Experiences include a research component, question formulation, information/data collection, analysis, discussion, and overall integration of environmental subject matter, including sustainability. In their own words, here’s a snapshot of how some of the PitE students recently fulfilled their Field Experience Requirement—as well as what the field-based work meant to them:
- Jen DeMoss, Senior PitE Concentrator “I studied abroad program in Costa Rica with the Institute for Central American Development Studies. This program's focus is on sustainable development and ecological field work in Costa Rica, with a trip to Nicaragua. I chose to study abroad because, while I understand that 1) my actions affect others on a global scale and 2) other people are leading wholly different lives than me, I have yet to experience life in another country. This program gave me the opportunity to travel to places I've only dreamt about, develop relationships with people outside of America, and understand how Costa Ricans deal with expanding human populations and ecosystem demands while maintaining their country's rain forests.”
- Jessica Lax, Senior PitE Concentrator “I was an editorial intern for Good, a magazine that acts as a guide for sustainable living. The company is located in Auckland, NZ, and that is where I worked. I mainly did research for their print articles, however, I was fortunate enough to write a few short pieces as well. This was an amazing learning experience for several reasons. I learned about sustainable living while learning to write for a public audience. Furthermore, I learned about the functioning of a small businesses and the processes of magazine production.”
- Eleanor Bomstein, Senior PitE Concentrator “I traveled with 12 other University of Michigan students to Ghana, where we set up plastic recycling collection programs at two universities and in one small town. Plastic waste causes serious health and security problems in Ghana, and our goal was to educate people and connect them to the recycling plants currently running in Ghana. We worked very closely with administrators, students and local youth groups to ensure that the project will be maintained.”
- Katelyn Zemenick, Junior PitE Major, EEB Concentrator (in Photo) “This summer, I spent two months in Chiapas, Mexico at the first organic-certified coffee farm, Finca Irlanda. I focused on a native fungus, Lecanicillium lecanii, which infects two potentially devastating coffee pests (the green scale and the coffee rust). My investigations were primarily concerning its ability to persist in the soil, potential dispersal mechanisms from the soil, and its effect on a keystone ant species in the agro-ecosystem. I absolutely loved my stay at Finca Irlanda, working with a great team of ecologists and with so much to explore! I felt like a real biologist—designing experiments, collecting data, and constantly talking about different ideas about the system with other students and professors. It was surprising to me that the general public has much less knowledge concerning sustainability and organic agriculture than I expected. It was fun to try and explain in Spanish why organic/sustainable agriculture is so important when I met people in town. This summer has made me much more eager to work towards a career in sustainability and ecology! “
- Corinne Marie Land (LSA Senior, PitE & Economics) “I participated in the EcoQuest Program on New Zealand’s North Island. As the course titles suggest, the program provided a multifaceted view of New Zealand’s environmental condition. The topics we studied included: the effects of logging on Kauri forests, estuarine vegetation patterns, marine ecology and policy, pest management, coal mining, Maori culture, sustainable tourism, geology, and many others. Overall, I found that New Zealand’s political bodies are faced with many of the same issues we face in the U.S.; they are underfunded and charged with imperative tasks that are hard to universally implement.
All of the Field Experiences mentioned above were made possible, in part, through student scholarships from the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute. The Graham Institute has offered Graham Field Experience Grants to fulfill two primary goals: 1) to expand the range of field experience opportunities students can afford to participate in and 2) to make sure U-M students pursue field experiences on sustainability-related subject matter.
For information about U-M’s PitE program, visit their website at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/pite. [Back to News Page]
U-M Biological Station Premiers New “Sustainable Urbanism” Course Over Summer 
This past summer, the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) premiered a 2009 Mini-Course focused on land use and sustainability titled “Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature.” UMBS alumnus and architect Doug Farr taught the five-day course, which featured special readings, site visits, and discussions about man-made environments.
Mini-Courses are non-credit enrichment opportunities open to the public. UMBS offers the courses in June and August, and 2009 marked the first time the Station offered a course focused specifically on sustainability in the built environment. Most of the mini-courses concentrate on topics one would expect at a biological research facility, such as botany and ornithology. However, UMBS Director Knute Nadelhoffer says Sustainable Urbanism is wholly in keeping with the Station’s priorities.
“As we progress into the 21st century, the Biological Station is committed to embracing sustainability,” Nadelhoffer says. “Doug Farr’s 2009 Mini-Course represents an important first step in revising our programs to more directly address interactions between humans and the environment.”
As part of the Sustainable Urbanism course, participants toured the Biological Station campus (on Douglas Lake in Pellston, MI). They also visited the nearby communities of Petoskey and Cheboygan, where they had an opportunity to meet with planners and local officials from both towns.
As a unique exercise, Farr invited students to compare the self-contained settlement pattern of the Biological Station, which Farr called a “prototype of a hamlet,” to those in the cities, where “suddenly you have multiple neighborhoods and the further complication of competing city and township jurisdictions.”
In addition to lectures and field trips, the Sustainable Urbanism class spent one full day learning how to conduct a “Neighborhood Development Assessment” as part of an internationally recognized green building certification system called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The class also began collecting sustainability metrics at UMBS, data that can be used for helping guide new carbon-neutral modification ambitions at the Station.
To learn more about the Station, its classes, or other initiatives (including upcoming for-credit courses on the human environment), please visit the UMBS website at www.lsa.umich.edu/umbs. To learn more about the LEED Program, log onto the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) website at http://www.usgbc.org. [Back to News Page]
Major Upgrades to U-M Sustainability Course & Researcher Databases
If you’ve ever wanted to find a U-M course and/or a U-M faculty researcher focused on environmental sustainability, then you’ll be want to check out two newly updated Sustainability Databases managed by the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute. One database helps people to find sustainability-related courses at U-M; the other to find U-M researchers working in this critical area. Both directories can be accessed on the Graham Institute website at www.graham.umich.edu.
“You don’t have to be an environment student to benefit from the wide range of sustainability classes the university has to offer,” says Graham Institute Research Assistant Kristin Sumrall, who helped in upgrading and updating the databases. “There are sustainability-related courses in the schools of Public Health, Public Policy, and Law, to name a few. Many schools also have whole programs geared toward the topic. Now you can browse through them all, or do a specific search, using the link to ‘sustainability courses’ on our website.”
The same applies for the recently revamped researcher database.
Students and faculty alike will find this resource extremely useful for locating advisors, scientists, and colleagues based on their sustainability-related interests. It also allows people outside the university, including members of the media to identify sustainability subject matter experts at U-M. Faculty and research scientists are organized under several topic areas such as Climate, Energy, Land Use, and so on, with most researchers fall into multiple categories. Sustainability involves a vast array of different fields, and the breadth of U-M’s research reflects this reality.
The course directory, which now includes more than 450 courses, will be updated again to reflect Winter 2010 offerings. The researcher directory, which encompasses nearly 300 researchers, will be updated regularly to reflect new research projects, additional faculty members, and professor departures at the university. [Back to News Page]