Tech & Science
Technology and Science news from Boulder, Colorado
CU students reach big carbon neutrality goal
Feb 16th
FACILITIES REACH CARBON NEUTRALITY
The University of Colorado Student Government has reduced the net emissions of greenhouse gases, or GHGs, from its student-run facilities to zero after committing in 2007 to reach carbon neutrality.
CUSG operates three large CU-Boulder facilities including the University Memorial Center, Student Recreation Center and Wardenburg Health Center.
“We are very proud of this accomplishment,” said CUSG Vice President Carly Robinson. “It’s a reflection of our sustainability-minded campus community and the impressive resources we have on hand to be more environmentally friendly, and even save money, by implementing green strategies.”
CU-Boulder students will gather for a “Getting to Carbon Neutrality” forum on Friday, Feb. 17, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Aspen Room of the University Memorial Center. They will discuss the campus’s carbon neutrality achievements and remaining challenges with input from a panel of CU staff. The event is open to CU students but requires pre-registration at http://ecenter.colorado.edu/carbonneutrality.
More than 9,000 metric tons of GHG emissions attributed to operating the student-run buildings have been eliminated through renewable energy generation, energy conservation measures and carbon-offset strategies implemented by CUSG. Carbon neutrality was reached even as square footage and usage of the facilities increased in recent years.
CUSG partnered with Facilities Management to install additional solar panels on CU facilities that contribute roughly 72,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per month to the electricity grid — enough to power about 80 houses. This renewable energy generation replaces a portion of the energy generated by traditional systems that emit GHGs.
CUSG buildings also have been renovated with better insulation and sealing technologies, more efficient lighting and windows. These upgrades reduced the buildings’ total energy consumption by nearly 15 percent over the last five years.
CUSG also has worked with Colorado communities on carbon reduction projects as a way to offset GHG emissions from CUSG buildings. The projects provide educational, economic development and social equity benefits for the state.
One of the projects includes solar thermal system installations, used to heat water, for low-income housing in Loveland, Colo.
Two years ago, the CUSG helped support the installation of a system that converts methane gas from the Larimer County Landfill in Fort Collins, Colo., into energy. Methane gas is a potent GHG emission.
Recently, CUSG contracted with Native Energy — a carbon offsets program provider — to support a novel kiln system used by Commercial Brick Corp., an Oklahoma brick manufacturer. The kiln system is powered by methane gas captured from a nearby landfill. It prevents methane emissions and replaces fossil fuel use. The company, which will participate in the Feb. 17 forum, provides 200 jobs and produces 144 million bricks per year sold in 15 states.
The CU Environmental Center coordinated the carbon neutrality effort. The center administers grants and loan programs within CUSG facilities that have helped fund energy conservation projects, delivering over $1.6 million in energy cost savings for CUSG over the last five years while driving down GHG emissions.
CU Boulder’s video game design research catches fire with students
Feb 15th
to continue video game design research
The University of Colorado Boulder exceeded its own researchers’ expectations with its iDREAMS Scalable Game Design Summer Institute, and that success has been rewarded with a new $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. CU-Boulder researchers are tracking how video game design engages students in computational thinking and STEM simulation design.
STEM simulations are computer programs that model natural and social phenomena, such as how a forest fire spreads from tree to tree. Students design these simulations to learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
The new NSF-funded Computational Thinking for Teaching Computing grant to computer science Professor Alexander Repenning and co-investigators Kris Gutiérrez and David Webb from the School of Education, will build on previous work the team did on video game design as a motivational tool for computer science education.
That project, called iDREAMS, involved more than 100 teachers and over 8,000 students producing more than 10,000 games and STEM simulations. The project started in Colorado but quickly expanded to Alaska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming where it gave teachers the tools and support needed to take the video game design curriculum into their classrooms. Participation far exceeded initial projections for the iDREAMS research project of about 40 teachers and 1,200 students over three years.
The curriculum, as taught through the Scalable Game Design Summer Institute on the CU-Boulder campus during the past three summers, was found to be highly effective across a wide spectrum of communities, including technology hubs, urban/inner city, rural and remote Native American communities.
The research team was encouraged by the extraordinarily high levels of participation and motivation, especially for girls and underrepresented students: 45 percent of participants were girls and 56 percent were underrepresented minorities. Motivation, expressed by a willingness to take more game design classes, was determined to be 74 percent for boys, 64 percent for girls, 71 percent for white participants and 69 percent for minority students.
In the new project, student performance data using measures of computational thinking will be integrated to further analyze how video game design helps students reason and learn STEM content. The performance data will be used to enhance the Scalable Game Design curriculum and professional development opportunities for teachers.
“I am extremely excited to see the enormous energy of students and teachers involved in the Scalable Game Design project,” said Repenning. “They have shown that it really is possible to bring computer science education to public schools and integrate it into the curriculum. The Scalable Game Design curriculum includes problem solving, logical thinking skills and sophisticated math and science concepts highly relevant to STEM and computer science education.”
CU-Boulder will again host its popular Scalable Game Design Summer Institute for K-12 teachers this summer, June 4-10, as part of its long-term efforts to improve and broaden participation in computer science education.
“We now want to analyze the impact of the research on students’ motivation and what they are learning, continuing the success of the iDREAMS project,” said Webb. “With the new grant, we can build up more robust research instruments that can be used for computer science education. We will continue to be very intentional regarding our research of particular populations and will be broadening the scope of groups studied.”
Project partners include AgentSheets Inc., the Computer Science Teachers Association, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, the Shodor Foundation and SRI International.
For more information visit http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu.
CU Boulder prof gets MAJOR cred
Feb 9th
National Academy of Engineering
Diane McKnight, professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering and a fellow of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
McKnight is among 66 new members and 10 foreign associates of the academy announced today. She joins 16 other faculty from the campus who have been elected since the academy’s formation in 1962.
Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice or education” and to the “pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”
McKnight was recognized for making clear the interrelationship between natural organic matter and heavy metals in streams and lakes.
Her research expertise is in the interactions between freshwater biota, trace metals, and natural organic material in diverse freshwater environments, including lakes and streams in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica.
In the Rocky Mountains, she has focused on the impact of metal contamination in acid mine drainage streams and the influence of climate change and nitrogen deposition on alpine lakes and wetlands. McKnight has interacted with many state and local groups involved in mine drainage and watershed issues in the Rocky Mountains.
“Diane is a worldwide leader in the interactive effect of metals in our water system with natural organic matter,” said Professor Ross Corotis, who was dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science when McKnight joined the faculty and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in 1996. “In addition to her advanced research for protecting environments from the Antarctic to the Rocky Mountains, she is a leader in developing books for children to help them learn about the water cycle.”
McKnight has been working in Antarctica since 1987, and is a leading investigator studying extreme life at the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research site funded by the National Science Foundation. In the harsh polar environment, stream channels flow only a few weeks out of the year and the only life forms inhabiting the area are microorganisms, mosses, lichens and a few groups of invertebrates.
She wrote and published a children’s book, “The Lost Seal,” in 2006, that tells the true story of a wayward seal discovered near the research camp in 1990 and its eventual rescue. The story gives children an understanding of Antarctica’s extreme environment and the work of scientists there.
She earned three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1975, a master’s degree in civil engineering in 1978 and a doctorate in environmental engineering in 1979.
She was a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Research Program for 17 years before she came to CU-Boulder. She was named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009.
She is a former member of the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board and Polar Research Board, and she received a Meritorious Service Award from the U.S. Geological Survey in 1995.
Other CU-Boulder faculty who have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and their years of election, are: Bernard Amadei, 2008; George Born and Kaspar Willam, 2004; Ross Corotis and Fred Glover, 2002; Frank Barnes, 2001; Delores Etter, 2000; Martin Mikulas, 1999; Valerian Tatarskii, elected a foreign associate in 1994; Earl Gossard, 1990; Don Hearth and Richard Strauch, 1989; Jacques Pankove, 1986; Richard Seebass (deceased), 1985; Klaus Timmerhaus (deceased), 1975; and Max Peters (deceased), 1969.