MUM courses:
- Energy Use by Man and Nature
- Hands On Course In Sustainable Technologies
- Permaculture Design Certification
- Sustainability Forest Academy
- Artisan Foods and the Slow Food Movement
- Local Economy
Grinnell College courses:
Resource Center
SL 420: Energy Use by Man And Nature
Professor:
Lawrence (Lonnie) A. Gamble, P.E.
lonniegamble@yahoo.com
641-469-5240
Course Dates: 9/4/06 - 9/30/06
Thomas Friedman (author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded) in a spirited exchange with NPR's Terry Gross on creating a new vibrant green economy Sept 2008. He gives specific policy recommendations and comments on Obama and McCain's position on creating the green economy - mp3 audio, trust me it's worth a listen.
Course Description:
The sunlight, the wind, the earth’s temperature, the ocean tides, plant biomass and rainfall — all of these provide energy flows that power the economy of nature. This course explores how the human economy (a small subset of the eocnomy of nature and utterly dependent on it), can be designed to be powered by in the same way.
As the supply of fossil fuels runs low and the atmosphere suffers from their polluting effects, learning to harness these new energy sources is not a luxury but a necessity. Making the switch to sustainable energy requires rethinking every aspect of human endeavor.
SL 420: Energy Use by Man And Nature
This course will redefine your understanding of energy, heat and power. You will study state-of-the-art technologies that can generate and use energy from sources that are not only renewable but also sustainable.
The inefficiency of our modern industrial society will be closely
opportunities for improvements. By understanding how to use energy wisely, you will learn how our industrial society can be powered by sustainable energy at a competitive profit.
In addition to lectures, classrooms sessions will include films, slide presentations, demonstrations, presentations by students, and outside guest speakers. The course will also include field trips, a lab, and a project that will give you a chance to apply these technologies.
As many classes as possible will take place in a building that is powered by renewable energy, and students will monitor and operate the building energy systems. Each day, the design principles of systems based on renewable energy will be related to the natural laws that structure our own awareness and govern the universe efficiently and automatically.
For most of the month, the classroom was powered by a portable 1-KW photovoltaic array called the Solar Traveler.
Students planted a small garden outside the classroom and later built a greenhouse over it.
As a class project, the students created a wiki Web site called Community Energy Resource, which went on to become http://RenewFairfield.com .