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5 UC Berkeley Students Win Clinton Global Initiative Award

Clinton Global Initiative University Announces Doug DeRoy, Kevin Hur, Jonathan Lee, Richard Novak, and Anurag Sridharan of the University of California-Berkeley as 2009 Winners of CGI U Outstanding Commitment Awards.

“CGI U offers college students a space to create positive change in local communities or on a global scale,” said Robert Harrison, CEO of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).  “Funding provided by the Pat Tillman Foundation and the Wal-Mart Foundation for the Outstanding Commitment Awards will ensure that these exceptional commitments are able to achieve the impact these extraordinary students have envisioned.”  

 

Through grants from the Pat Tillman Foundation and the Wal-Mart Foundation, winners will receive funding to advance their CGI U Commitments to Action: new, specific, and measurable plans launched through CGI U to address a global challenge of the winning commitment maker’s choosing.  The CGI U Outstanding Commitment Awards are designed to support unique, meaningful work that creates lasting and positive social change, most notably within CGI U’s focus areas – energy and climate change, global health, human rights and peace, and poverty alleviation.  The awards recognize students and student organizations from a wide variety of graduate schools, historically black colleges, Ivy League institutions, religious and tribal universities, and state schools. 

Here's what they plan to do:

Doug DeRoy plans to design and implement low-cost, practical, and self-sustaining student vegetable garden programs in a pilot test of 10 selected California public schools, with an emphasis on underserved areas.

DeRoy will create programs that foster a fun, experiential learning environment to engage students in the entire process of growing their own food. He will design three general program models: one for elementary (K-5), one for middle (6-8), and another for high school (9-12) applications. Then, he will solicit his program models to public schools throughout California, with an emphasis on those in underserved areas. Out of those solicited, he will select a pilot group of ten schools – based on faculty interest, need, logistical feasibility, and other factors – to participate in his project. 

Unlike most student garden programs, DeRoy’s focuses on under-served areas, instead of wealthier communities. His goal is to demonstrate that with small funds, a team can implement a practical, hands-on, and self-sustainable student garden.   

Kevin Hur commits to combating Hepatitis B, a major health issue, within San Francisco’s Asian Pacific Islander community. 

Hepatitis B significantly affects Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) more than any other population and yet little progress has been made to screen and vaccinate APIs in counties that have a high percentage of APIs, such as Alameda County, California. 

Hur will employ a three-part strategy that includes targeted outreach education about Hepatitis B to the API population; screenings and vaccinations provided by health professionals and free clinics; and establishment of stronger ties between the API community and existing health services within the county.  

Jonathan Lee accepts the award on behalf of Global Medical Brigades-Berkeley.  Led by University of California Berkeley undergraduates, Global Medical Brigades-Berkeley commits to developing a comprehensive community health worker training program in the region of Honduras.  

In settings deprived of healthcare infrastructure, community health workers extend access to basic health services by diagnosing, treating and referring patients, as well as delivering medical interventions. Jonathan Lee and team aim to create a sustainable model for healthcare through the empowerment of individuals as community health workers (CHWs). By serving as CHWs, community members directly contribute to the establishment of a primary healthcare foundation and become active participants in managing their health. Partnerships will be developed between CHWs and distant health centers, and a community-wide health promotion program will be offered to educate individuals on hygiene, sanitation and household water treatment. In order to implement the recommended strategies, hygiene resources and materials will be distributed to community members.  

Over the period of one year, health programs will be conducted in 50 rural communities, resulting in over 35,000 individuals gaining the capacity to better manage their health. By investment in the human capital of CHWs, this commitment ensures continual access to medical services and transfers responsibility from NGOs to the communities themselves. 

 

 Richard Novak accepts the award on behalf of Future Scientist.  Future Scientist, a student group from the University of California-Berkeley, plans to develop a solar energy electrical system for an orphanage in Puerto Alegria, Peru. 

Their goal is to provide the initial resources to an impoverished community that will enable them to become a focus of technical expertise that nearby communities can utilize. 

This project will provide the area with clean, off-grid power, unlike the gas generator currently in use.  Students will learn to maintain and develop solar panel systems at a level that will permit self-reliance. This team also plans to train the community so that they could start a solar business, if they so desire. 

Anurag Sridharan accepts the  behalf of Berkeley Green Home.   Berkeley Green Home is a University of California-Berkeley student-initiated and student-run project that is developed to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on existing housing lots for the UC Berkeley community.  

Accessory dwelling units, also known as backyard homes, have long been built and used by homeowners throughout the United States and are well-represented in the Berkeley community. This team proposes to take this existing platform and make it highly energy efficient and a healthy living environment through a sustainable construction process that involves off-site pre-construction of building panels and subassemblies with rapid onsite final assembly.   

Once construction is complete, ongoing testing and monitoring will be conducted to record the impacts of the incorporated technologies. They will coordinate with on-campus courses to present findings to interested students and community members, record potential improvements and offer a real life setting for future generations of students to advance this environmental initiative even further. 

About Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U)  

CGI U, a project of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), challenges college students and universities to address global problems with practical, innovative solutions. At CGI U, young people and universities do more than simply discuss the world’s challenges – they take real, concrete steps towards solving them. To date, 1,700 commitments have been made by students, universities, and youth organizations.

 

 

Take the RSF Energy Survey

Rec Sports has partnered with the Mechanical Engineering department to research energy use at the RSF. We've done quite a bit already to reduce energy use at the RSF; most notable is the switch to more efficient – but brighter! – lights throughout the facility. See our blog posting for more on this.

One goal of our partnership with Mechanical Engineering is to discover further energy saving technologies that could be applied to the RSF.  To this end, researchers would like to better understand how you perceive the amount of energy used by our cardio machines, and how your use of these machines might change if some of the energy generated could be captured and applied back to the energy grid.

Please help us out and take the survey!

 

Help Clean the Scene

Make a Difference in Berkeley on September 19 at Coastal Clean-up Day 

Here in California, we pride ourselves on our breathtaking coastline and beaches. Unfortunately, our beaches are very polluted and often are cluttered with trash and litter. Pointless pollution is harmful to the coastal ecosystem and to public health. Here's why:

• contaminates drinking water and waterways,
• closes beaches and shellfish beds,
• causes algal blooms which can lead to fish kills,
• contaminates sediments in waterways,
• adversely affects the life cycles of aquatic organisms,
• can lead to public health risks and fish consumption advisories for humans, and
• endangers wildlife through ingestion of and entanglement with litter.

According the the Natural Resources Defense Council, "in 2008, beach pollution prompted 20,341 closing and swimming advisory days at ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches." Yuck!  In order to make the beaches and coastline in our community happy and healthier, we invite you to come help clean the scene in Berkeley. 

International Coast Clean-up is a one day world-wide event and will be held on September 19, 2009. 

There will be 8 sites this year in Berkeley and you can register through the Berkeley Marina Shorebird Nature Center

 

Out of town on the 19? Click here for volunteer opportunities across the state. 

Source: "Non-point Source or Pointless Polltion," www.cleanoceanaction.org

Goats at Rec Sports?

Proving once and for all that Rec Sports has the most diverse workforce on campus, we recently employed a small heard of voracious goats to clear 5 acres of bushes, grass, weeds and poison oak on the hillside behind the Golden Bear Rec Center, creating a clean fire break for the building. Not only do the goats work cheap -- $1,200 for the goats vs. $2,500 for human labor -- but they work green too. Instead of gas mowers, blowers, pesticides and trucks to haul off the waste, the (nearly) zero-emission goats quietly and cleanly go about their task. Learn more about the goats.
 

Electrifying Workouts!

Improving the health and wellness of employees at work is important. To that end the Department of Rec Sports offers WorkFIT -- an in-house fitness program where our certified fitness instructors come to your site and lead regular fitness classes at a time convenient for your staff.

 

Healthy people need a healthy planet, so rather than hauling our gear across campus  -- about 90 trips per month to our 15 WorkFIT sites -- we thought it made sense to do so sans gaz.  The result of this green ethic is the little yellow electric truck pictured above.  The truck has a battery life of 115 minutes and a maximum speed of 25 mph, but the coolest thing is the zero emissions that it produces.

 

Of course, an electric truck is only as clean as its energy source. This one plugs into the campus power grid. The campus receives electrical power from Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), and according to PG&E, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest electric power: non-emitting nuclear generation (23 percent), large hydroelectric facilities (13 percent) and renewable resources (12 percent) such as wind, geothermal, biomass and small hydro. The remaining portion comes from natural gas (47 percent), coal (4 percent), and other fossil-based resources (1 percent). 

 

And you thought only the workouts were electrifying!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn Your Old Shoes Into New Sport Surfaces

 

 

Did you know that your old sport shoes that you no longer use can help kids and fellow athletes? The Bear Student Athlete Advisory Council (Bear SAAC) is currently running a used shoe drive and needs your help! Bring in all your old sports shoes (running, tennis, basketball, etc.) and place them in the collection bins located in the RSF atrium near the Coke machine.

 

Shoes to Surfaces

 

Bear SAAC will collect these shoes and donate them to a variety of charities, including the Nike Grind program, which grinds the shoes up and uses them to make playing surfaces --- playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, and even soccer and football fields -- all across the world. Nike started its Reuse-A-Shoe program in 1990 and has already collected more than 21 million pairs of shoes!  According to Nike, 300 sport and playground surfaces have been created from recycled shoes provided by the Nike Grind program.

 

Why Do It?

 

By turning old athletic shoes into new places to play, the need for new materials, like virgin rubber used to build courts, tracks, fields, and playgrounds decreases. Scraps can become new places to play – instead of landfill waste.  Now that's playing green!

 

How many shoes does it take? 

 

Playground: 2,500

Outdoor Basketball Court: 2,500

Soccer/Football Field: 50,000

Running Track: 75,000

 

RSF Installs Hydration Stations

To encourage use of reuseable water bottles, Rec Sports has installed two new Hydration Stations in the RSF. The stations dispense chilled and filtered water at .8 gallons per minute -- twice as fast as the flow from a standard water fountain. And it's a clean system too: the water flow is activated by an electric sensor that allows for touch-free hygenic operation -- no more worries about picking up germs from a sweaty water fountain lever. The Berkeleyan reports that in 2005-06, some 850,000 plastic water bottles were sold on campus, contributing to the 1.5 million tons of plastic that go into producing plastic bottles in the US each year. We hope the new stations will put a dent in that number -- and keep you hydrated. Read the Berkeleyan article.

RSF Gets Low Flow Shower Heads

 

 

You just finished your workout and hit the RSF locker room showers for a quick rinse off.  Notice anything different?  We're part way through the installation of 70 new low flow shower heads. Your showers are now using 1/3 less water, yet maintain the feel of a high water flow shower.  In fact, our research indicates that these heads produce a much improved showering experience. Think gentle rain. Not only is this saving water, but also energy, as we need to warm up less water to soothe those achy post workout muscles. 

 

We have heard members make comments like “These have a really nice spray,” and "no way can this be a low flow, it feels so strong.”  Check it out after your next workout and let us know what you think.

Rec Sports Cleans Up Well!

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, September 20, a group of 170 Cal Rec Sports volunteers gathered at the Berkeley Marina to take part in the International Coastal Cleanup Day -- an event that takes place one day a year across the globe.  The goal is to collect as much garbage and recycling as possible between 9AM and Noon. Last year, 378,000 volunteers from 76 countries and 45 states cleared six million pounds of trash from oceans and waterways around the world. 

 

This year’s world numbers aren’t in yet, but the Rec Sports crew collected a whopping 480 pounds of garbage and 270 pounds of recycling! What’s more, our group received the additional honor of fielding the biggest volunteer group at the Berkeley Marina!  Data collected at the clean-up is now being sent to Washington DC and will be compiled for research to support further legislation to preserve and protect our oceans and waterways.  Photos of the clean-up effort are now available on the Rec Sports website.

Caltopia Live Album: A Green Solution

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, every month in the United States around 100,000 pounds of CDs become outdated, useless or unwanted.  This creates an environmental problem because CDs are generally made from materials including polycarbonate plastic, petroleum-based lacquer and paints, with the jewel cases typically containing, polyvinyl chloride (PVC).  That makes recycling difficult and depositing in landfills hazardous because the materials can end up contaminating soil and water. The EPA estimates that less than one percent of post-consumer PVC is recovered or reprocessed.  This means the remaining 99% either ends up in landfills or is incinerated!

In an effort to avoid creating more waste, we took another route for our Caltopia Live Album --  a compilation of 14 tracks from Bay Area artists. Rather than producing 20,000 CDs and cases, the album is only available via online download. If you think that sounds good, you should hear the album. Click here to visit the Caltopia Live Album webpage, complete with a link to download the entire album.

What You Can Do

If you have any CD’s or DVD’s that you are no longer using or are ready for the trash, check out this website http://recycleyourdiscs.com and learn how you can recycle your old discs for free!