HSU students Kylee Singh, left, Amanda Platt and Matthew Baker fill up their water bottles at the campus’s new Hydration Station. / Humboldt State University

A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held in the Depot at 3:30 p.m., where a hydration station is currently being installed. The campus’ other station, located in the new Kinesiology building, is on schedule to be running by the time of the event.

“With the hydration stations we are trying to encourage people to drink local tap water and to liberate students, staff and faculty from bottled water,” said Sarah Schneider of HSU Takes Back the Tap. “They give people the option to drink free filtered, drinking water.”

The hydration stations are a hygienic, hands-free filtered drinking fountain operated by sensor where people can fill their reusable containers. The stations are meant to improve the accessibility of tap water to students, staff and faculty while helping to overcome the negative perceptions people have about tap water.

“While the water quality at HSU is known to be very high, often the aesthetic qualities of the water from individual drinking fountains is less than desirable, “ said Natalynne DeLapp, co-founder of HSU Takes Back the Tap.

One hydration station was funded by a grant from the Humboldt State University Energy Independence Fund (HEIF), the other station was donated by manufacturer of the hydration stations.

Humboldt State University is not alone its endeavor. San Diego State University and University of Oregon’s Portland campus are two universities that have already installed hydration stations.

“We’re trying to bring the appeal back to drinking tap water and eliminate some of the negative perceptions,” said Schneider.

In addition to the hydration stations, HSU Takes Back The Tap is in the early stages of planning a Bottle-Free Day to bring awareness to the negative effects of bottled water and enlighten people about the availability of quality drinking water.

The goal of the campaign is to reduce bottled water sales by 20 percent within three years, which is expected to produce a savings of 3,202 kg of carbon dioxide emissions.

“The real issue,” says DeLapp, “are the hidden environmental and social costs of bottled water, which include extracting raw material to make the bottles, bottling and shipping the water, and water privatization. Those factors make tap water the clear choice in my mind.”

Students from the 16th annual HSU Day of Caring. / Submitted Photo

In the final count, more than 350 Humboldt State University students, staff, and faculty, local citizens and AmeriCorps members contributed a sum total of more than 1,000 hours of service at over 30 different sites in our community. Beaches were cleared, buildings were cleaned, not-for-profit agencies had their service sites revitalized, and gardens were built.

It is important to recognize the wonderful contributions of the Kiwanis Club of Eureka, Henderson Center Kiwanis Club, and the Humboldt Bay Kiwanis Club, who worked together to continue their generous tradition of feeding this army of volunteers.

All three clubs donated significant amounts of time, energy, and money to the project of “serving those who serve.” Please join us in extending our gratitude to all the volunteers, and to the agency representatives who set up meaningful service opportunities.

The project, which began several years ago, is a statewide initiative among scientists, educators and media professionals to enhance public understanding of California’s rapidly changing environment. The collaboration includes California State Parks, the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Public Television Consortium, as well as higher education and science museum partners. NSF funding supports three major components of the Legacy Project:

• A two-hour television documentary, “Reinventing California,” will journey across 2 billion years of California’s history and explore the fundamental nature of our relationship to a changing environment. The target date for its PBS presentation throughout California is fall 2012.
• The Changing Places Initiative will use “place-based” programs to reach park, museum, science center, and school audiences at regional sites, including Lassen Volcano, Redwood Forest, Point Reyes, Los Angeles Basin/Baldwin Hills, and Anza Borrego Desert. Each will feature short films, video podcasts and print media.
• An Online Educational Portal will create new digital learning systems, giving users access to multimedia content, searchable databases, lesson plans, interactive maps and online learning communities.

“I applaud the faculty members involved in this project for their outstanding dedication to science education and environmental awareness. Their work is helping to keep the California State University at the forefront of the most important issues facing California,” says Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez.

Humboldt State President Rollin C. Richmond says: “For me, what’s most exciting about this project is that it provides a new way for scientists to share their knowledge. Californians care quite deeply about our natural environment. They want to understand it better and protect it, and this will help.”

Project Director Jim Baxter, a Sacramento State biology professor, says the three-year grant will create a novel integration of the three instructional components by combining new digital media with a place-based approach to learning. Sacramento State is the lead institution in the grant work. Humboldt State will develop the place-based programs.

“By creating high-quality educational programs and media resources that connect learning about environmental change to local places, the project will explore the fundamental nature of our relationship to a changing environment – where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going,” Baxter says.

Jeffrey White, project co-director and Humboldt State biology professor, adds: “The National Science Foundation is a primary supporter of the California Environmental Legacy Project, and this funding will allow us to carry out our goal of deepening public understanding of environmental change and our place in the environment.”

Kit Tyler, a Sacramento-based filmmaker and president of American Mercury, Inc., will produce and direct the public television program. David Scheerer, professor of film at Humboldt State, will produce the media for the Changing Places Initiative. Remote-Learner.net is the digital learning systems partner for the project.

More information is available on the Legacy Project website: http://www.csus.edu/celp.

For media assistance, contact Sacramento State’s Public Affairs office at (916) 278-6156 or Humboldt State’s News and Information office at 707-826-5105.

Environmental Research & Engineering graduate student Nathan Sanger works with HSU alum Bryce Mayall as the two install photovoltaic solar panels atop the Old Music Building. /Humboldt State University

“We chose the location because of its high visibility. We wanted people to notice it when they came back to campus in the fall,” said James Robinson, student manager of the Humboldt Energy Independence Fund (HEIF), a campus energy initiative funded by students

The project is so visible that community members and campus visitors have called the contractor in charge of the job, Scurfield Solar, asking when the array’s output meter will be up and running.

“A few people have even called to tell us that it’s broken, but we just tell them we’re not quite finished yet. It’ll be up and running soon,” said Bryce Mayall, Humboldt State environmental science alum and solar installer for Scurfield Solar.

The installation, a joint project between the Renewable Energy Student Union and HEIF, will feature an interpretive sign and display from Natural Resources Planning & Interpretation students and a solar-themed art installation on the back of the PV panels. HEIF is currently soliciting proposals from art students to take on the project.

Robinson says HEIF’s mission is to reduce the environmental impact of energy use at Humboldt State University through student-driven projects—and this project hits the bull’s eye. On a sunny day, the array can provide as much as 40 to 50 kilowatt hours, roughly enough to power four homes.

The panels were installed over the summer, when the work could be completed with minimal interruptions. Christopher Carlsen and Nathan Sanger, both students in the Environmental Research & Engineering program, were selected as interns to work side by side with the contractors, providing labor and learning first-hand the tricks of the trade.

HSU Environmental Science alum Bryce Mayall shows Environmental Research & Engineering graduate student Nathan Sanger how to install PV solar panels atop the Old Music Building. /Humboldt State University

For Scurfield, an HSU alum himself who frequently works with HSU students, the project was an opportunity to expand the training and raise Humboldt’s profile as a place to learn about solar.

“The problem we’re facing right now is that there is tons of solar ready to be installed but no real place to get the training. Between HSU and CR we hopefully are meeting the demand and making Humboldt a destination for learning about solar.”

The Old Music Building project, part of the California Solar Initiative, supplements two existing University projects, a small solar demonstration system at the Telonicher Marine Laboratory in Trinidad that is a component of a hydrogen generation system, and a demonstration PV panel at the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology.

The Humboldt State solar projects along with projects at 15 other CSU campuses, are expected bring eight megawatts of green power on line, offsetting almost 9,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to mothballing almost 49,000 cars. ##
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On the roof of the music building contractors and student interns install racks for photovoltaic panels.

Lou Jacobson

Jacobson will receive the 2009 Robert Dentler Award for Outstanding Student Achievement for his master’s thesis: “Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Mitigation: The Social Barriers to the Diffusion of the Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb.” The $200 award is given by the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology.

Jacobson’s study explored the barriers to HSU student use of CFL bulbs, which offer a cost effective way to mitigate human-generated greenhouse gas through reducing net electricity use. His study used an online survey model reaching a randomly selected sample of 916 students.

“As in other studies, HSU students reported that product factors like cost, toxicity, compatibility, flickering, humming, brightness and color quality were deterrents to CFL use,” Jacobson said. “Many of these actually were problems of early CFL technology. Yet even though we’ve improved the CFL, the beliefs still hold back people from giving it a try.”

Among his findings about beliefs: spiritual, atheist and agnostic students were more likely to adopt CFLs than Christian and Protestant students. Politically liberal students were more likely to use CFLs than those who defined themselves as more conservative.

Jacobson researched factors other than quality and cost, including shopping patterns, opinion leadership, risk perception, meaning association and gender. “These need more study,” he said. “I’m particularly interested in understanding why male students were more likely to adopt the CFL than female students.”

Before graduation in 2008, Jacobson had already accepted a position with the RCEA. According to Dana Boudreau, RCEA operations manager, “As Lou interviewed alongside the usual environmental and engineering candidates, we realized that his sociology background and mindset could be a powerful addition to our organization. Risk perception, peer involvement and worldview had been subjectively and haphazardly considered before Lou’s arrival, but now we can explicitly build this capacity into our analysis and decision-making process.”

Boudreau added, “With a passion for social well-being and a pragmatic focus on sustainable practices, Lou Jacobson ensures that we keep our priorities straight and follow a well-reasoned path towards success.”

Augie Diana, chair of the ASA Section Awards Committee, said, “Lou’s work is unique in that it integrates more complex sociological concepts like ‘worldview’ in building an adoption model. We were all impressed by his ability to link sociological theory so artfully with a very real and pressing problem like understanding energy choices.”

Jacobson will receive his award Monday, August 10, at the annual association meeting, hosted this year in San Francisco. His thesis is available through the Humboldt Digital Scholar at http://library.humboldt.edu/.