For my fourth visit I decided to go to Jiminy Peak.  Jiminy Peak is a Ski resort up near my country house.  I chose them because they have a wind turbine that provides about half of the energy the ski resort uses.  So I went and interviewed an expert on the wind turbine.  And the most surprising fact that I found out was that they didn’t install the turbine to be Green, they installed the turbine to save money, so it’s good both ways.  But instead of writing an incredibly long blog post I will just put up the questions I asked and their responses.  

Oh, by the way:  KWh stands for Kilowatt hour.  

• What made you decide to get wind turbines?
  • The main reason for them to get a wind turbine was to gain some control over what they were paying for electricity. 
  • Their costs had increased greatly and the couldn’t increase their prices so they went looking for a solution

• How long did it take for the wind turbines to generate enough electricity to be sufficient?
  • Depends on the time of day
  • swings from back and forth each day: less and more
  • but based on a scale of a year, they use only about half of what they generate
  • they only have one turbine
  • they purchase, about 4.6 million KWh per year.
  • They actually use about 7 million KWh per year
  • 2.3 million KWh is used from what the wind turbine generates. 

• Where did you get your equipment?
  • It was purchased from general electric
  • the components of the turbine came from all over the world
  • The blades came from brazil
  • The nacelle came from Europe
  • The tower came from Canada

• How expensive was it?
  • The turbine cost about 2 million dollars about half of the whole project costs
  • The engineering, the environmental studies, the delivery, and they needed to change also the electrical infastructure to coop with the turbine
  • the whole thing cost about 3.9 million dollars
  • From that they got a grant of about 600,000 dollars from the Massachusetts Technological Collaborative 

• What do you think is the best alternative energy?
  • He is most familiar with wind power
  • He doesn’t know much about other alternative energies
  • For this environment, jiminy peak: The wind there is the highest in the winter months and that’s also when jiminy consumes the most power.  

• Do you think jiminy peak will branch out and try different types of renewable energies, Like solar?
  • There looking at solar a little
  • they are thinking of attaching solar cells to the administration building
  • downside is that they don’t have a lot of space to put the cells. 

• Do you think that the wind turbines were a good investment economically speaking and environmentally speaking?
  • Yes, but they didn’t do it to be really green, the did if for a pure economical sense.  
  • They do enjoy though the green effects of it
  • but the true purpose was to get ahead economically

• Do you guys make any money by feeding back electricity into the grid?
  • they decrease the amount it costs for the KWh from 16 cents to 9 cents

• Are you guys dependent on the wind turbine?
  • No, because it goes back and forth some times they take energy from the turbine and sometimes they take energy form the grid. 
  • But it is a great asset to them.

• Do you think that you will add more turbines later on?
  • Maybe, they have another site that is capable of holding another wind turbine
  • But currently for them it doesn’t really make economic sense.  It would make the “payback” time longer
  • After the first “payback” time they may think of investing in another wind turbine. 

I went to visit the museum a while back.  I thought that it was interesting but I don’t think i could do a whole project on it.  i Noticed a lot of incredible peces but some of them i just didn’t understand and I know there is all that stuff about symbolism and modern art and stuff but i still don’t get it.  I am very happy that my visits are over because i really thought they were the most boring thing of the year and i advise teachers to not do this again.  the whole project just causes problems and is very frustrating.

Today we interviewed Shulian’s mom’s friend, named Andy.  He picked us up from the train station in New Jersey, to go to The Raptor Trust (read more about our visit there on the next post).  Andy works for a group called The Trust of Public Land.  It’s an organization that preserves land, therefore maintaining animals’ habitats and lives.  Shulian and I decided to interview Andy (as a separate visit from the Raptor Trust).  This is what we learned:

• Andy has mixed feelings about the bird-calling machine (that Bob DeCandido used) He says it’s a bad thing because it stresses the owls out for no reason, and interferes with their lives.  He thinks it’s a good thing because it makes the owls come out, allowing people to see them.  Like Sunny the park ranger, he believes that educating people is a step toward maintaining the owl existence in the park.  Andy thinks it’s helpful for people to see the owls because it will make them know that they are for real and need to be sustained.  Seeing the owls will make people want to get involved.  Andy believes that, though it’s good and bad, the bird-calling machine shouldn’t be used too often.
• Like other people we interviewed, Andy guesses that the owls disappeared in the first place because of habitat loss and pesticides infecting their food.  Another reason is that some animals depend on fallen trees that get removed. Also, he said that some birds can only nest in one kind of tree, and what happens if they can’t find that tree in the limits of the park?
• He believes that keeping owls alive are sustainable to the Earth because if one species dies out, it affects other species, and changes the “animal system.”  All the species are linked together.
• Speaking of species being linked together, we discussed how the food chain is a major issue having to do with the owls disappearing.  Raccoons eat owls.  If raccoons’ predator population gets smaller, there are more raccoons to eat the owls.  Overpopulation of predators=Under-population of prey. 
• Andy said that most people just think about how the weaning of animal species affects people’s lives, and not other animal’s lives (or the species itself!)  For example, people remove fallen trees for the “beauty” of the park, but it could be killing animals who depend on that dead tree for a home. 
• I asked about the possibility of there being a dead tree somewhere.  It’s a danger to people to because it could fall, but it shouldn’t be cut down because it’s home to animals.  Andy made a point that, when you run a park or nature preserve for people to visit, people’s safety has to be the priority.  He said that, in that case, the area should be fenced off, so people wouldn’t go there but the tree wouldn’t be cut down.
• He doesn’t think the owls being hunted would be a reason for their disappearance.
• Andy doesn’t believe that global warming or any kind of climate change has to do with the owls disappearing.
• Parks are hard for wild animals to live in because of people, traffic, and limited space.  (Limited space is a new issue that Andy brought up). 
• Big animals need more space therefore it’s harder for them to survive in a public area (not specifically relating to the owls, but just something to think about).
• There are a lot of birds that live on places like Staten Island, where the land is in danger of being developed.  This is what Andy and the Trust for Public Land prevent.  The Trust for Public Land accomplished saving wetlands on Staten Island, which are key places for herons, egrets, and ibises to thrive.

Interviewing Andy really added to our knowledge of the screech owl project.  He didn’t know about the specific project so much, but he knew about animals’ habitats in general, and he gave his thoughts on the project.  We always like to ask the same questions (in addition to new ones that come up) in interviews to compare and solidify answers,.  Also, Andy has done work with saving habitats and land himself, which is what needs to be done for the owls.  We need to remember to send Andy a thank-you note.  

Today we went to help out at Animal Haven again. First, we cleaned out the cat litter for the cats with leukemia. We had to be very careful with their cages and couldn’t use sponges, but had to use bleach. We then had to ‘socialize’ with the cats. It’s kitten season apparently, so there were a lot of them. The first cats that we socialized with were in the window. We had to sit in the window and play with them. We then went upstairs and they had just gotten a new litter of cats. They were 5 weeks old and had just opened their eyes (they open their eyes at 4 weeks). Their eyes were really blue. Since they were drawf cats, they were extremely small and could fit in our palms, while the normal 4 week old cats were already much bigger. They were left out the door to Animal Haven in a box and smelt really bad. We played with the cats for a bit and then left because there were a lot of volunteers today and there wasn’t anything left for us to help out with.

Campbell has died, hew was one of my favorite cats at the shelter. Jayson, the manager of the cat loft, said he was probably sick and they didn’t know. But otherwise, Kirra accompanied me to the loft. Her favorite cat was Philip, he was sick so we couldn’t touch him, but she thought he was so cute. She wants to adopt him for her birthday. I also learned that the shelter is affiliated with the animal clinic next door and the pet supply store they own. They also get donations from a thrift store called Beacon’s Closet close by, on Bedford Avenue. More places that donate money to BARC are Dancing for Animals, a dance company that gives dance lessons and give the proceeds to Animal Shelters. And the Garden, an organic food market in Green Point Brooklyn. I really like all of the cats and they’re all so cute. This time I took pictures, Here a few of the cats at the shelter

Benny   Kirra with Provenzano    Jack      Kaia   Charmaine   Oscarella

  Kali   Salt  Slate  Butterball  Cindy

Pepper

• This week Aaron and Isabella accompanied Kirra and I to BARC. We also learned that Philip had been adopted, Kirra wasn’t happy to hear that but I’m glad he found a home. Aaron also learned that he likes cats and most of the cats like him.Cherub also freaked out this week  Poor Cherub is very unsociable, and has problems I don’t quite know what her story is but she’s just a kitten.
• Kirra also found a new favorite cat, Sinatra  He’s so cute and it’s sort of interesting the way that he likes to lay down in his litter box, I think he likes the pellets and how they are soft.
• There are also two new kittens, Marie and Theresa they’re grey and have yellow eyes, Marie is a lot more friendly than Theresa. A woman came in today and asked if she could just take Marie but Jayson said that it would be best if they stayed together. I really can’t wait to see the cats again.

Lily and I are going to Whole Foods next Thursday with Jonah and Harry. After that we will be visiting the Museum of Arts and Design at 2 Columbus Circle to see Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary.

Me and Liam M. visited my apartment where we learned about the aspects of a green building. The guy who toured us showed us a detailed model of the entire building,  One really interesting aspect was called gray water pumping, not so sure that was what it was called but anyway but it toot he water from the drains and resued for toilets and other parts of the bulding which eliminated wasting water but it reused instead.  We didn’t learn alot of new things but its spread our knowledge towards how a green building works and what’s needed in a green building.

There is not that much to say anymore now that we know Bluestreak+ the whole entire Chelsea Piers is going to be 100% Green. Laurence, Atlas, and I were very excited to hear this news. We are going to try this new museum in the Columbus circle and we are very excited. It is a museum made out of all recycled material. We are glad that we are visiting and were going on Saturday. If anyone wants to tag along just ask Laurence, Atlas or me.Jeff Banastey  

Our group finally found an Organization that Atlas showed us. He has been doing it for many years because of his hockey team, to keep in shape. He brought Laurence along to workout with him and than I went with them.Our organization is called Blue Streak, which is a sports training center.  It uses wind energy to power a lot of it’s equipment. It is located on the Hudson River..(Chelsea Piers). And as a soccer player myself I found it very interesting that Chelsea Piers as worked this hard to make their entire place green. The energy they use is wind energy and I am happy that they do this. Because instead of making our world dirty they are cleaning it by making Chelsea Piers Green. And Chelsea Piers is Huge so its important that we don’t damage this world more than it already is. They are going to put bins all around Chelsea Piers to recycle glass and plastic bottles. This is a good Idea and i think that we should expand on it. And put this more around our school. Jeff Banastey 

So, for my third sustainability visit, I decided to go to a place near my country house in Upstate New York.  This place was called Sun Dog Solar.  This was there solar company, they also had a company called Cling magnetics.  This company is a company that sells solar energy to the local people in Upstate New York.  I went there because I was interested in Solar energy.  I learned a whole lot.  I learned of an entirely different solar energy that I did not know existed.  I learned that you can take the light directly and use it to heat water.  But also you can do more, if you take to concept of an propane fridge, you can use the heat collected from the solar thermal panels and create air conditioning without using electricity.  Wow, when I first heard that I was very surprised.  But instead of telling you what I learned I’ll just give you the notes I took and some pictures.

• What is the main focus of this company?
  • Many things going on at the same time
  • Part of the company is cling magnetics
  • manufacture different products referring to magnets.
  • Also they produce many products for education
  • 3 years ago they started installing solar panels.
  • China is beating them, they are stealing all of the competition
  • The solar panel business had just taken off
  • installing a lot of solar voltaic
  • and solar heating for water

• How often do you get a purchase?
  • Currently they have 60 side contracts worth 8-12 months of work
  • they keep expanding and expanding their installation crews
  • They may need a third or more people on the groups
  • in relation to the economic prices they are hiring instead of laying off
  • the stimulus package is really going to help solar.

• Where do you get your equipment?
  • They get it from all over the world
  • The solar modules come from Tennessee, by Sharp
  • They also buy modules made in China
  • They hope to work with Evergreen solar which are situated in MA.
  • Also, BP British Petroleum.

• What do you think is the best type of alternative energy?
  • They heat the building with vegetable oil
  • make hot water with solar
  • They also have a hydro source for power
  • Most people have sunshine
  • Solar seems to be most abundant, but only 18% of light.

• Does the company ever think of branching out and trying different types of renewable energy/fuels?
  • Yes, they already sell magnetic stuff
  • and they use different types of alternative fuel.

• I have heard from certain sources that solar panels aren’t a completely finished technology, and that the material used only absorbs the infer red light coming down in the spectrum, only 18%, is this true?
  • Yes the best solar panels absorb 18%

• If this is true do you still think that solar panels are a worthy investment for the economy and for the environment?
  • Even still a large investment for both, Germany proves this
  • Germany has what is called “Feed in Terra”
  • A utility that pays an accelerated amount for a five year period, then after that’s up they go to the regular price, and eventually the person will be able to make money by feeding electricity back into the grid.
  • In New York the subsidies are based on a SBC System benefiting charge, that’s just a small fee on everyone’s electricity bill, and that’s what funds rebates for solar energy in New York.
  • You can get a rebate on 1/3 of the solar system you buy in New York, and then another 1/3 is tax credited from the federal government.
  • Up till this year there was a cap for only 2000 dollars but now there isn’t, now you can get a 12000 dollar package instead of only 2000.

• If one house used on solar panel from your company on average what fraction of the house’s electricity would be coming from that one solar panel?
  • That one solar panel would make about 200 watts
  • so probably all the light bulbs in an average house.

• Do you think that solar panels should be the main solution to the global climate crisis, or do we need something else?
  • Solar seems the best, but we need everything but solar is usually always there.  

Third trip to Materials for the Arts:

On the way over to Materials for the Arts we were trying to guess what we would be doing for our next trip whether it was sorting, folding, or cleaning i couldn’t wait to see what it was.

When we arrived we just walking right down the long hallway as if we had been doing it our whole lives. Even though it would be only our third time I felt like a pro. After we signed in and put our things down in the conference room we rolled up our sleeves and rushed out to Johnese to see what our task for the day would be.

The task was folding cloths, clothing. we were taken to two metal shelfs tha were covered in clothing and cloths that had been messed up, shuffled around, and unfolded. our job was to refold and rearrange everything in a way that made it appealing to the costumers.

So we began our job by taking everything off the shelves and refolding and reorganizing everything in a way that we thought would be appealing: we organized it by putting things together according to size the big stuff went on the bottm and the smaller on the top.

The clothes were put into a different pile, and retaken to the front of the warehouse where the customers come in and are put on a rack where they can be taken as clothes (pretty cool..huh).

This trip was very fun and exciting and made a million ideas burst into my head by seeing all the unique patterns and textures.

Thanks!

Today Isabella and I went to the Manhattan Animal Shelter and Adoption Center at East 110th between 1st and 2nd. The center is funded by the government. This means they have to take any and all animals given to them. We met with Matt Wildman who is the AC&C Humane Educator and Volunteer Coordinator. He gave us a lot of information and some of it even shocked us. He told us that if you were to average the number of animals being dropped off or picked up a day is 120. He was telling us how they try to get 120 pets adopted a day, but unfortunately it doesn’t happen. He told us that out of the 44,000 pets that are dropped off a year about 18,000 of them are being put to sleep. There aren’t enough homes for these animals and they have no where to put them so they have to put them to sleep. He also told us that after leaving the center the animals only last about one year. He said we can avoid this by spaying and neutering the animals. By doing this we are stopping the reproductive system there fore stopping breeding and helping these animals find a home. I know this is sad, but we can find a way to avoid it. Our final visit will be once again to B.A.R.C on Saturday.

On Friday Isabella and I met with named Cheryl Blaylock. Cheryl works with Trees NY and works at a volunteer garden at 83th street and Riverside Drive. We had to move some hydrangea plants from one spot to another. As we worked Cheryl explained what she was doing in her garden. She told us about this giant rock right next to her park,and how she places logs and branches near it to stop erosion.  When Cheryl first was given this garden it was over grown now it is beautiful garden. While we were working many people stopped and asked us what we were doing. Cheryl later told us that she gets volunteers by doing this. We had a lot of fun and experienced the day of a gardener. It was a great project and if anyone would like to go help out you can contact me for her information. Before leaving, we asked her to come in and talk to the class, but her schedule could not clear up until May or June. We then realized that would be too late.  I think we will be able to process some pictures later that were taken by Isabella’s mom. Our next visit is to the Animal Care and Control Center.

Harry and I visited the Riverhouse, which is the ‘green’ building that is Harry’s home. We were minus Adam because of a prior appointment made for him prior to our scheduling of the visit. Harry and I had a tour given by a building official. The paint in the building contains no pollutants or poisons or a miniscule level of them. The rain water, after being purified, is turned into toilet water and any other water that is not consumed by humans. Also, the apartments have one master light switch along with individual switched for each room.

Sorry I did not get to post this sooner. But during break Atlas, Laurence and I went to Blue Streak 3 times. As Atlas said we knew much about it and the wind power affect but they didn’t have anything else to say to us that we didn’t already know. But we learned that Chelsea Piers is trying to make the whole place 100% green, by adding more recycling bins around. I think it is important that we recycle and I think that are school should do more recycling. This made us think that we should do more recycling of plastic, glass and cans. 100% of Chelsea Piers energy use is offset by certified green-power generated by wind. The main majority of waste at Chelsea Piers is comprised of plastic soda and water bottles. In order to keep these out of the landfill, Chelsea Piers staff will remove all bottles and cans for on-site collection, shredding and distribution to a plastics recycling facility. So, I think all 3 of us know enough of this topic that we should do our day of learning on it. They really work hard on making there whole place “Green.” And I think that it’s great. They have even created there own Green team.

Jeff Banastey

Yesterday Jeff, Laurence, and I went and visited a rep at bluestreak. The Man did not have much to say other then what we already knew. One thing that he said that i found particularly interesting was that all of chelsea piers was green not just bluestreak. This amazed me because it must take so much power to run that place and it is amazing that all of that can be done in a “green” way. I was also surprised to hear that by 2010 they hoped to be 100% green as well as having recycling deposit centers all around the piers. I think that it would be great to have the recycling deposit centers because then people can easily deposit there cans and bottles and then get money for it. I don’t think that we will visit with the Rep again because he didn’t have much to say but i will try to get in touch with a rep at another part of the piers. This way we might be able to get some more information on chelsea piers and how they are helping the environment. Overall, chelsea piers is doing a lot to help NYC and the environment and i think it would be a very good place for our project.

On March 11th, Sadie, Surayya, Lucy and I had our third visit at Materials for the arts. We left at 2:45 and arrived at 3:30. We signed in and put down all our things and then walked out of the office to meet Johnese. She started to tell us what we would be doing. Tuesday and Thursday are shopping days for Materials for the arts. On shopping days artists, public school teachers and other organizations come and take the recycled supplies that Materials for the Arts collects. One of the materials they can take is fabric. When the shoppers arrive at Materials for the arts they want everything they are looking for to be easy to find. Our job was to take all of the fabric off the shelf and re-fold it. All of the fabric that is donated is many different sizes, colors , and patterns so it would be very hard to re-fold and re-organize the fabric every time there is a shopping day. So instead they don’t categorize the fabric by color but just make sure they are folded neatly so it is easy for the shoppers to see all the fabrics they might be interested in taking. We folded all the fabric onto the shelves, sometimes having to use the ladder to reach the high shelves. There was a very large variety of sizes. Some were the size of patches and others were 15 feet long. We also found many clothing articles that people have donated to be used as cloth. Whenever we found an article of clothing we put it on a hanger and hung it in the entrance of Materials for the Arts so anyone working there could take it. Johnese also helped us think of projects we could with these pieces of fabric or any other materials we had seen. At 5:00 it was time to go.

Today Aaron and I went to the Manhattan Animal Shelter and Adoption Center at East 110th between 1st and 2nd. Like our visit to BARC we socialized with the animals. Only this time it was cats and dogs. Unlike BARC the Manhattan Animal Shelter and Adoption Center isn’t privately funded, it’s funded by the government. This means they have to take any and all animals given to them. If you average it out the Manhattan Animal Shelter and Adoption Center gets 120 animals per day 44,000 per year. At that rate they should be adopting out 120 animals per day, but that is not the fact. Some things we can do to stop this are, spaying and neutering all pets. If animals can’t reproduce then animals wont end up in shelters. You see a dog can have from 1 to 12 puppies per litter, they most likely will have 6. On average only 2 of those puppies will be in one home for their entire life. The other four will end up in shelters contributing to the animal population. Another thing you can do to help is, stop getting pets from breeders and pet shops. When breeders bred pets they are taking away homes from animals already alive.

Yesterday Aaron and I visited a woman named Cheryl. Cheryl works with Trees NY and works in a volunteer garden at 83th street and Riverside Drive. A volunteer garden is a lot like a community garden, thou slightly different. When we met up with her she talked to us about what we would be doing. Cheryl also told us about the most common trees in New York City before we started working. We had a rather small, but effective project to do that day. We had to move some hydrangea plants from one spot to another. As we worked Cheryl explained what she was doing in her garden and how it helped out. You see there is a giant rock right next to her park, much like the ones in Central Park. She places logs and branches to stop erosion. Also by planting more plants on the small hill side garden it stops rain water from flowing into the streets. When it rains the water runs down the rocks then down the hill and then into the street. The more plants that the water has to go through the less water ends up on the streets. When Cheryl first was given this garden it was over grown and not appealing to they eye, know it is beautiful garden. While we were working many people stopped and asked us what we were doing, this is generally how Cheryl gets volunteers.

Bluestreak is a gym that Laurence and I go to.  We found out that it was powered completely by wind power.  This was very interesting so we set up a visit for later today with one of the reps of bluestreak.  We are going to meet him at BlueStreak at 5pm tomorrow.  Hopefully this visit will help us learn more about what New York is doing to help.  i found an article that will help us now more until our visit.  In October, the club’s owners started purchasing 100 percent green wind power in the form of Green-E certified Renewal Energy Credits (RECs) equal to its annual projected electricity usage. This purchase will offset more than 13,344 metric tons of electricity-related greenhouse gas emissions (CO2), an annual amount equal to taking 2,856 cars off the road or planting 12,250 acres of trees. Chelsea Piers has also become a Green Power Leadership Club member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership. Leadership Club requirements include the purchase of at least 20 percent green power (electricity generated from eligible renewable resources) over a one-year period.

I was amazed at how energy efficient Spain was.  In the Hotels you had to put in your key card so that the power would turn on.  Without the key card you could not turn on any lights.  I thought that this was an excellent idea because people would never forget to turn the lights because they would not have their key card.  I also saw a ton of solar panels on the roofs of buildings so I decided to do some more research and I found out some incredible information.  Here is a quote from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article389061.ece , “Jose Montilla, the Industry Minister, has announced that from next year, anyone who intends to build a home will be obliged to include solar panels in their plans, with the aim of turning Spain from a straggler to a European leader in the use of renewable energy.  With the price of oil rising above $50 a barrel (£27), solar energy could produce savings of at least €80 (£50) a year on fuel to heat domestic water supplies per household, and reduce greenhouse gases, the Government said.”  I thought that if we did this in America we to would help out the world and improve our environment greatly.

The other day Aaron and I visited The Museum of Art and Design.  In MAD there is a two floor exhibit called Second Lives.  Second Lives is filled with sculptures, paintings, self portraits and anything else you would find in a normal art exhibit, but unlike a normal art exhibit everything in Second Lives is made out of recycled materials.  Like any museum we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but luckily on the Museum of Art and Design website they have pictures of all the work in the exhibits.  It is hard to say what piece is exactly my favorite because they are all so interesting, but some of my favorites would be, Trinity by Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth, the entire collection by Yuken Teruya which were all untitled, and My Back Pages by Paul Villinski.  Trinity by Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth is a chandelier made out of needles, crystals, gel capsules, brass and chrome.  When you first look up at Trinity you think that it is a normal chandelier with a slight dangerous feeling, but you aren’t sure why exactly.  When you take a closer look you understand why.  The entire top half is filled with gel capsules and hanging along the bottom are needles.  If you take an even closer look the crystals that hang down from and fill the needles look eerily like blood.    My next favorite piece is more peaceful don’t worry.  The small collection by Yuken Teruya is made out of paper bags.  Inside each bag there is a tree made out of paper taken from the top of the bag.  The tree in its self is beautifully cut out, but there is a tiny detail that makes it even more beautiful.  The light shines through the top of the bag where the tree was cut out, casting shadows all along the back of the bag.  A small detail most people over look.  There are ten bags in total so I won’t show you all of them and also you unfortunately can not see the shadows in the pictures.    The last piece that I am going to talk about is My Back Pages by Paul Villinski.  My Back Pages is made up entirely of vintage vinyl records, a record player, wire, and record covers.  People today hardly ever use records and so they sit collecting dust.  Paul Villinski wanted to give a second life to his old records because he didn’t want them to disappear forever.Now I could go on and on about what we saw at the museum, but you would eventually get bored.  I highly encourage others to go and check it out.  Even if it isn’t for one of you sustainability visits you’ll enjoy it.  Even though each of the pieces in Second Lives had a meaning behind it they all had the same under lying meaning.  We have to recycle materials.  Weather is be how the artiest from Second Lives and other artiest that haven’t even been focused on or in your own way.  We have to start taking care of our planet and find a way to get rid of all the trash on it.  Come on we don’t want to end up like Wall e do we?   hehe sorry little inside joke from after the visit.  

The other day I talked to Josh Tickle.  Josh Tickle is the director of the movie Fuel.  He is a visionary and tried to show us all how to be green and use efficient fuels.  I called him and talked with him and recorded the call to use in my robotics presentation.  When I called I asked him various questions like why did he try to spread his message.  I also asked him why he decided to spread his message via film.  What was striking to me was his extensive knowledge of Green cities such as Portland, Oregon, and what they are doing.  He taught me that there are cities that are actually doing this without having trouble.  Like the people of Portland actually got an efficient carpool system running.  (a carpool system is where different people who work in the same neighbor hood take the same car to the same area so they can still drive cars and emit less CO2).  Somethings that I would like to take home would be the knowledge of different ways to be green, like taking more public transportation.  My goals for the next visit would be to go to a company like Green Watt.  I would like to explore the inner workings of the technology that allows us to be energy efficient, like they have a car that runs on hydrogen and I would like to know how it works, exactly.  But I would have to say I learned a lot.  Some of the most important things that I learned were that taking public transportation can decrease your carbon foot print by a lot.  Secondly I learned that cities that can organize people to ride bikes or share cars can really make their environment much, much cleaner.  The last and most important thing that I learned was that being sustainable really depends on what the person wants to do or what they can do but these people even if they can not do one thing to be sustainable to do another, it really just all goes back to you. 

Today Bella and I went to see the Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design. It was a very interesting exhibit. Two floors filled with statues and objects and different types of art made out of recycled materials. One of the most interesting sculptures was made out of buttons and glue. It was made by Tara Donovan and was entitled Bluffs. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but I was able to find one online. Upon first seeing the sculpture in person you think it is a crystal or rare gem. When you get up close and read the sign you are amazed at how beautiful it actually is. Bluffs by Tara DonovanAnother interesting sculture was hanging from a ceiling. From far away you may think it is a chandelear. When you get up close you find out they are spectacles. 1,020 spectacles to be exact. It was so fascinating that the artist but so much work into this and how nice it actually looked. Spectacles by Stuart Haygarth Metal Jacket made out of 3,000 dog tags on U.S. military jacket fabric liner. Created by Do Ho Suh. Meltdown Chair: PP Tube was made out of Polypropylene Tube. It was created by Tom Price. I could go on and on about the amazing things we saw, but that would get boring. So I suggest you go see  the exhibit. It is really fascinating and there are objects made out of the weirdest things you would have never though about in a million years. I had a fun time and was very surprised. Overall, it was a great experience. Our next visit is on Friday. We are going to go a garden that is part of Riverside Park with an organization called Trees NYC. We will be adding logs to a hillside walkway to prevent erosion. This is going to involve digging, placing logs in place, and pounding in stakes. I am prepared to get dirty.

On Saturday Aaron and I joined Kirra and Diana at BARC.  BARC stands for Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition.  BARC is a none profit no-kill animal shelter in Williamsburg Brooklyn.  If you volunteer on Saturdays you are only socializing with the cats.  I guess this gets them used to being with different humans.  I felt really bad for the cats.  They are  kept in an upstairs loft.  There are some cat roaming around on the ground, but most of them are in rather small cages.  Most of the cats at BARC are adults.  This is because adults are less likely to get adopted because people always want the young new kittens.  There was one cat that reminded me of my old cat Tim.  He was incredibly cute and sweat.     It was really fun to interact with all the cats at the BARC shelter.  I have grown up with cats all my life and love them very much.  I really want to help these cats out.  Maybe would could do some sort of drive.  We have coat, cloth, and food drives all the time at school.  Why not have a drive to collect cat food, cat toys, or anything else related to cats? 

Yesterday me and Isabella joined Diana and Kirra in their visit to BARC, the Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition. It was a really cool experience. For me it was my first experience actually interacting with cats. I’m more of a dog person, but anyway the cats there were so cute. I immediately connected with a cat who later got mad at me. But I feel bad for the cats. They seemed depressed. For example, my favorite cat named Benny, the people who worked there said that Benny was depressed. We tried to get Benny out of his cage, but there seemed like there was no hope. The next time I go I hope to help Benny out. He was such a sweet soft cat. Here’s a little biography on Benny from his cage:****Benny is shy but very sweet. With patience and a gentle approach he will accept petting and attention. Breed: Domestic Short Hair/Color: Black and White/Age: Adult/Size: Medium/Sex: Male***The people at the shelter would love to find Benny a loving and caring owner. So hopefully maybe along with Kirra’s idea of sponsoring a cat, we can find some of these pets loving and caring homes in which they will be happy. This being my first sustainability post was an awesome experience. I can’t wait to go back and hopefully see Benny and the other cats again. Our next visit is actually to go see the exhibit at the Museum of Art & Design called Second Life.  This will be on Wednesday March 25th.

My visit to charity water was an enlightening, and surprising one.  The organization champions a very noble cause.  The office was well kept, and the people all friendly.  Charity water is dedicated to building wells, and purifying wells for villages and people in Africa.  They also supply containers used to transport water to poor villagers that would otherwise have no means to haul water back to the village.  We signed up for the school program, where students spread awareness about the water situation in Africa.  We also recieved bracelets, which are sold for 5 dollars each, and support wells in Africa.  Our tour guide described to us the situation in Africa.  Many people have to walk 10 miles a day just to receive a meager amount of drinkable water.  Much of it is dainted with disease, and wells frequently and quickly dry up, or become contaminated.  I felt very impressed with what the organization has accomplished.  It was started by one man, and it grew into an international organiziation that is making an effect on the world.  It was an inspiring experience, and teaches what perserverence and inspiration can accomplish.

 

On Wednesday we went to Charity Water, it was very interesting. Charity Water is an organization, which helps promote local water, and most recently, they are working on a project which funds water wells to many schools in Africa. So far they have 110 schools. Our group will be promoting this foundation. They have wristbands, t-shirts and other types of clothing wear, which are for sale. Charity Water has been running for 3 years now, they want young adults to get involved in using local water. If you use local water we will save energy from all the thousands of bottles that are shipped to America each day. I will be going every Wednesday with my group. I am very excited to get involved.

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Today we went to Animal Haven again.  We first cleaned the cats cages which was problemic, but we eventually figured it out. We had to give them new food and water and throw out the cat litter. A couple of cats did not want get out of the litter boxes. When we tried to pick them up so that we could empty the litter, they would go crazy. I guess cats have something about sitting in poop. We finally found a way to get them out of the litter box which was to simply dump them out and take the litter box or pick them up and take the litter really quickly before they started scratching, then put them back in and close the cage. I was surprised at the amount of cats who had leukemia. There was a whole room full of them. We had to be careful not to use a sponge on the food or water bowls for them because it made them more sick for some reason that we didn’t really understand. After we finished cleaning all of the cat cages, we started to walk Bella, a dog owned by animal planet. She was there because they film a show about dogs there. She tried to walk into every open door and walked started jumping on every person we walked by. She was very strong for a little dog. We couldn’t walk any other dogs because they were either too strong for us to walk as new volunteers or had already been walked. We walked back with Bella and then left.

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Wedneday, was our first actual working day at Materials for the Arts.  We were strictly told to leave at 2:45 at our last visit, so we left school at 2:45 sharp.  We had a new person join onto our group, lucy, on the way to the subway we quickly gave her a overview of what Materials for the Arts does.  Once we got onto the train we were trying to guess what cool activity we would be doing to help.  We were told before that mostly all of the jobs would be folding or sorting (for example folding fabric).  We were worried that we didnt think of many ideas for the surveys (I talked about in the other post). but we quickly got over it remembering that Ahmed Tigani said that we didnt have to worry about it right now it would be a project for later.

Once we got out of the subway it felt like i was already a natural.  We still had a couple minutes to spare (but we wanted to make a good impression by being early), so we each grabbed a bag of chips and hurried up to the third floor: our destination.  We prepared lucy by telling her she might want to have her camera ready at hand because there were so many things to take photos of. we rushed down to the offices area and we told to wait in the conference room, prepared to hear rule and regulations, or be introduced to what we would be doing for the afternoon.  but Johnese took us right out to a area right across from the offices.  There was a rolly table and a huge canvas bin holding more bright yellow plastic bins.  To our suprise we were not folding fabric we would be sorting jewelry of some sort. 

The only thing to watch out for was that it a working day so thre would be people working and rolling things aroung and the fraight elevator going up and down and retrieveing new shipments, and to watch out.

Prosess:

1. Try to disect a huge mound of jewelry, we would usually have to use pliers (not easy).

2. Put a generous handful in a smallish plastic bag.

3. And repeat this over and over again untill you finish the bin.

We were told that the jewelry was usually sent from stores that didnt need them anymore or were jewelry that was returned, unwanted.  Todays jewelry was sent from American Eagle and Urban Outfitters.  As we started working Jonhese helped us and gave us some ideas for projects we could do with the jewelry.  we were looking at all the different designs and patterns of the jewelry and charms attached, we though we could do something with all the different designs, like some sort of print making.  we also found many hearts and thought it would be cool to make somethings with all of those.  Johnese had this great idea to make a plastic bag of a few materials and then we could have a class at random each close their eye and take a bag and try and do something with it and have tight limits, and see what they come up with.

When we got to work we were introduced to a woman named Aaron she got out of Collage a year ago. She was really nice and interesting and was doing the same thing we were acept she had been there since 1:00 and we got there at 3:30 and she had been doing the same thing the WHOLE time! And she left when we did at 5:00! this was her second week volunteering at Materials for the Arts.

It was soooooo much fun and i can’t wait to do the next thing at Materials for the Arts on Wednesday. 

Thank you,

Sadie

Last week Me, Rene, Malcolm, and Thomas went to Tapped Ny a local water company based and founded in New York.  What this company does that sustainable is they not only use tap water but they only ship things locally for example, instead of shipping Fiji water like all the way from Australia (approx. 10,000 miles) they ship water only 20 miles… from New Jersey.  They are now trying to open up all over the United States and the world for example, they have been working to open a factor in California to ship in California (instead of shipping all the way from New Jersey).  Plus, one of the best parts they only started 7 months ago so they are growing fast and are spreading the word, so if you have nay friends in NYC tell them about Tap’d NY water.  Their website is http://tapdny.com/ if you want to visit their facility that’s up to you.

Today we went to Animal Haven for the second time to do various things to help out. Anna and I helped write thank you notes for all the people who have donated money. Since they recently moved from their adoption Center in Flushing to the one in Soho, Sophie and Edith organized boxes of office supplies. While we were doing this, Tiffany (the event coordinator) brought in a new dog that she adopted for her neices in texas. We played with the dog for a little while in a big room where dogs come up to get some excercises and there is training there and other sorts of dog classes while Tiffany did some more paper work. We then left after we finished organizing and writing the thank you letters.

Friday and Saturday Meghan, Sophie, Edith and I went to Animal Haven.  On Friday Edith and Sophie helped organize supplies while Meghan and I addressed envelopes for thank you letters to donors.  The donations ranged from $10 to $2,000. On Saturday, we cleaned cat litter boxes, fed the cats and cleaned out the rest of the cat cages.  One of the cats scratched and bit me.  Several cats had feline leukemia.  At the end of the visit we walked an already adopted dog named Bella.  We had a lot of fun and we love working at Animal Haven, with all the cute cats and dogs.  Next time we go, they said we are allowed to lead a dog training class, where owners and their dogs are taught to do certain tricks.  🙂 

Today, Adam and I visited the Center For Architecture.  It turned out that they did not know much about green architecture and instead of talking/learning about green architecture, we did intern jobs.  Mine was to make business pamphlets for people they wanted to donate to their organization.  Adam’s was to file the scholarship proposals for students applying to architecture colleges.  We did these jobs for about and hour and a half before taking a brief tour of their museum which had pictures of unusual buildings.  They didn’t have much of what we were looking for which is about green architecture, so this was disappointing.  One piece of useful information we obtained were the names of two sustainable organizations related to green architecture: Solar One and The Science Barge.

Adam, Harry, and I visited a man named Stephen T. Del Percio, who is a construction and real-estate attorney.  He is also the publisher of the blog “Green Buildings NYC,” which is a major reference for anyone looking for information about happenings in the world of green architecture.  While at his office, we had a little over an hour-long discussion over a few topics related to green architecture and the work Stephen does.  One of the main topics we covered was the fact that many buildings had been given the LEED label, but they were not completely energy-efficient.  Two examples are the Hearst Tower and Time Warner Center.  We were told that while both of these buildings have a LEED label, they may be less efficient than a simple brick building.  This is because of the fact that both buildings have an all-glass exterior.  We learned that buildings with a lot of glass windows surrounded its exterior can lose large amounts of money from having to pay larger heating bills from the heat that seeps through the glass.  Stephen gave us a demonstration by telling us to place our hands on the window of the conference room we were in.  We all noticed that the window was freezing.  This is because heat can easily travel through glass, causing that heat to be wasted, and more cold to come in.  Having said that not all ‘green’ buildings, are efficient, I’ll move on to another one of the topics we discussed.  Harry lives in a building called the Riverhouse, which is a LEED building.  Two people that you may or may not know that also live in that building are Tyra Banks and Leonardo Dicaprio.  We discussed whether or not these two peoples’ choice of housing could be used as a marketing device to provoke people to purchase green homes.  While this would be good for the green companies, it might take away from the purpose of having a green building, and that people would just be moving in to catch a glimpse of a celebrity’s lifestyle.One final thing is that when we mentioned the school we attend (LREI) and how it is becoming green, he somewhat recalled an article that he wrote about our school.  While I am not sure the whereabouts of this article or if it in fact, was written, I will post the link if I find it.-Liam M. The link to Mr. Percio’s blog is: www.greenbuildingsNYC.com 

Liam, Adam and I both went to a law firm to meet the publisher of GreenbuildingsNYC who is a part time lawyer, Stephen Del Percio.  We spent a little over an hour discussing why greenbuildings in the city are important, the efficiency of some of them, and how greenbuidldingsNYC tries to be one of the best resources for green-buildings in the city.  We talked about how some materials in green-buildings aren’t very efficient such as glass, and how in the future the buildings will make progress in being more efficient in the near future.  We also discussed why it’s important that people start looking to green real estate and that greenbuldingsNYC is not only a resource for green-buildings but a way to spread the message of buying green real-estate.

At about 5:00 Amyrah and I went to Ollies Place again.  We spent about ten minutes knocking and than we spent another ten minutes finding someone with internet so that we could find out the phone number for Ollies place.  No one picked up and finally on our way back to have one last go at the door we saw someone going in.  We finally got in at 5:20.  We worked with a different person.  Her name was Emily.  She worked with the downstairs cats (they are usually newer than the upstairs cats and aren’t aloud out of the cages because they might get out of the building) while we worked with the upstairs cats.  We cleaned out the litter boxes.  We took all of the mats and blankets out of each cage and then swept all the peaces of food on the floor of the cage.  We also thru out all the old food and cleaned the bowls, then gave each cat about 1/4 of a bowl of dry food and 2 tablespoons of wet food.  It wasn’t as fun as the time that we went on sunday because we could only have about 5 cats out at a time and all the other cats wined and stuck their paws thru the cages to get out.  On sunday all of them were out at once so no one was complaining.  When I was cleaning Mr. Bings cage Willow kept tapping me on the arm.

Today was my third time at the Grand Central Food.  That day, I was planning to take the night van route with one of the drivers, but it turns out that I need an adult with me because when the route is over, the driver does not want to drive me back to my house, so that would mean leaving me out somewhere, at about 10:00 at night, and if something happened to me, then the driver would be responsible.  So, I am planning to bring my mom next time to the pantry, and have her help give out food, and then have her come on the tour with me. It’s really fun working at the pantry, because there are a lot of friendly people, and it feels really good to be helping people.  What is really cool, is that they have a lot of good food, like croissants, pizza, sandwiches and many other things, and before the people that I’m supposed to serve come in, I’m allowed to eat a small portion of the food that is there.  Sometimes I feel kind of bad eating the food, because I could buy this somewhere else, when the people that I’m serving can’t buy the food. A lot of the people I see I remember from previous times that I have been their.  What really surprisses me is that when we offer them extra food, they don’t take it.  If I was somewhat needy, and was offered free food, I would take everything that I could. What distinguishes this food pantry from others like the St. John’s Food Pantry, is that they give out food to anyone that wants or needs it.  Unlike
St. John’s they don’t need a drivers license, or need to be registered to get food.  All they do is wait on line, and when it’s their turn to get food, they come in take the food that they want, and leave.  I like it much better than St. Johns for this matter, and the people are much friendlier at the Grand Central Food, than at St. Johns. Overall, I really like working at Grand Central food, and I just can’t wait to go back on  Friday to help out again.  Probably after my five times are up, I will still go back and help out. 

Today I didn’t choose to participate I was forced to. 😉  Today Carey Pulverman was supposed to come to school to do a composting workshop with the pound of words I bought this weekend.  But as you all know we had a snow day.  I emailed Carey this morning because I had a feeling the worms weren’t going to stay alive another week until she could come and do the workshop.  Carey called me back and explained that I was right, the worms wouldn’t make it unless I set up the bin myself.  (And no Momii, I couldn’t return them.) So with no prior experience and no workshop, I set the bin up myself.  My mother helped but she wouldn’t touch the worms so she was my photographer.  I looked at a brochure Carey had given me and went to the website, nyccomposting.org.  First I cut one-inch strips of newspaper and soaked them in water.  Then I desperately searched for food scraps in my kitchen because I had dropped most of them off on Saturday at the farmer’s market drop off stand.  I peeled a potato, got some old lettuce, some dried flowers, and some used tea bags.  I put the food under the damp newspapers in the bin.  Then I dumped the worms and soil on top.  Hundreds of worms started wiggling and borrowing through the soil to get away from the light.  I am leaving the bin open for an hour and then letting my cats back out from where they are locked up.  Enjoy our first snow-day in almost a decade!! 

When we arrived at the building where “the magic” of tap’d is held, up the stairs and into the small studio, I felt like a business woman. Especially when Nile, Malcolm, Thomas and I were ushered into the conference room, with an oval black table and 6 matching wheely chairs. We got a chance to sit and speak with Craig the creator of tap’d. We spoke about our project, the idea behind tap’dNY, where its being sold, and how we could be of help to Craig over the next few weeks. We decided another 2 visits, one to see the factory where the water is bottled, and another to visit a few places where tap’dNY is starting to be sold. What I found interesting was their plan, being a small company that promotes drinking local tap water instead of imported water from Figi or Glaciers who knows where. Craig would love to see his company expanding to cities and towns all over the world, using the local tap water from that place i.e. tap’dSan Francisco or tap’dLas Vegas. I’d like to remember all the facts Craig had about how bad it is to drink overpriced water that is responsible in a large part for destroying our environment. One, for example, is “If you were to travel to Fiji, it is advised not to drink the local water there.”  Why would we have their water shipped here, costing fuel  and pollution, bottled in plastic bottles that will go into landfills when we have some of the world’s best drinking water (said by testing and world-wide standards) right here in NYC?

• Yesterday I visited BARC, the Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition. It’s a no kill animal shelter were someone can Adopt a cat, a dog, a bunny, or a rooster. I had the honor to volunteer at the Cat Loft, during my stay I witnessed a kitten getting ready to be a adopted, I felt so happy to see that this little kitten was going to have a a home soon. My mom, my brothers and I had a great time playing with the cats, giving them treats, and watching Butterball, the fattest cat at the shelter, continuously eat from his bowl.
• I didn’t get to stay that long because my Mom’s sinuses were acting up, but my favorite cat at the shelter so far was Campbell. He was so friendly, he jumped on to my lap and wouldn’t let go. Another cat I really liked was a cat who had a sister but was separated from her when she was adopted. He was so shy, once he warmed up to you though, you could tell all he needed was some affection. There were two other cats that I liked their names were Kali and Cindy, they were both abandoned and abused so they were a little bit scared. I was so glad to see that after all these cats had been through, they were still so happy.
• I really like the shelter, but I might try to visit other places as well. I can really see how much the people who work for BARC really care about these animals. Because they are non-profit I wonder how they get their money, either from the pet supply store they own, donations or the veterinarian affiliated with them. I really hope to visit again to play with the cats.

-Diana

Today I went back to LESEC Drop Off Stand at the Union Square Farmers Market.  I dropped off the food scraps my family had collected this week.  It was great to see Aurelia again.  The Drop Off Stand was very busy and five bins were already full of food scraps. We had kept ours in the freezer so they wouldn’t rot all week.  I read this was a good idea on a composting blog.  Then I purchased a composting bin and one pound of worms for $40 to bring to school Monday so our class can start our composting.  I bought oatmeal and sprinkled it on the worms so they will have enough to eat until Monday when they start munching on our LREI waste.  The worms are in my kitchen and my cats are extremely fascinated by them, even though they’re safely tucked away in the bin.  Carey Pulverman, project coordinator for the Lower East Side Ecology Center is coming Monday at 1:30 to give us a workshop.  I will bring my red wriggle worms and the bin to school on Monday.  See you there! 🙂  

On wednesday, Sarah B. Maddie, Surayya (the leader) and I took a very confuzing train ride up to Long Island City, to have our first meeting with Materials for the Arts: volunteer coordinator: Johnese Wilson, direct donations coordinator: Ahmed Tigani, and deputy director: Chelsea Romersa.  After taking a quick snack break at the “lunch area” we took an elevator to the third floor. As we passed through a couple hallways i started to see more and more pieces of artwork and signs that creativity was close.

As  we stepped through the warehouse doors, I already had flung out my camera and was snapping away.  When you first went in there were cases of artwork and the walls decorated with innovative ideas.  As we walked down alittle farther we turned to our lefts only to discover a HUUUUGE warehouse, there were isles going down the the whole place. It resembled a regular store with odd objects, anything you could think off was there: beads, paper, cloth, backdrops, tubes, costums, fake knights, left over christmas trees, fake flowers, tiles, socks, hats, shopping carts (for taking or using to collect), furnature, TV’s, shelves, filing cabenets and more…   

When we made our way down the neverending warehouse, we made a right into the Office area. Which we were then led into another confrency room.  We sat there gossiping about the amazing things we saw. Then after about 5 mins the Deputy Director came in with a very strict face, and we could tell that it was time to put our sirous faces on. Her name was Chelsea and was kind of scary. She quickly told us to fill  out forms and asked us a couple questions.  When she left the Direct Donations Coordinator, Ahmed Tigani came in and relaxed us by saying that was just a test (official interview) and that we had passed.

Then he gave us more information about the organization:  it has been around for 30 years, and the basic meaning of the organization is that they resive donations of the items i listed before from donars. They have very strict rule about the items that they collect: 1. it can be no older than 4 years, 2. it has to have immediate life, 3. has to be in great condition.  Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays are their shopping day which are pretty hectic, (the shoppers cannot just come in whenever they want: they must become a member online by going through a questionair and other identification information then you have to scheduel an oppointment) THERE IS NO COST, EVERYTHING IS FREE, when you are all done you check out and are given the name of the doner of each  object your taking and you have to write a thank you note to all of them.  (they sometimes use the leftover items to help build a class room in a public school or something alomg those lines)

Our jobs as volunteers at the Materials for the Arts would be to (on non-shoping days) help fold and put things away. And on the shoping days we would help customers and maybe make a survey for the buyers to get information about the certain things that are bought more often, or what do theater companies buy, what do people want that there isnt at the warehouse.. and more (even about the costomers moods at the warehouse).  Also while we are they they saide that we are open to making art projects or taking materials and testing with them.  

After the “interview/conference” we were guided around the warehouse and show the categories and items that we would be working with or that we could use to make something to inspired the cutomers to take them. We have a huge list of projects and ideas that cannot wait to try. my brain is already exploding with ideas that we could pursue.  I cannot wait to get back to that warehouse and do whatever i can to participate…just being in the inspiring atmosphere made my finger tingle with excitment. 

Thank you

 Sadie