Take your pick. With 10 breakout sessions to choose from on Thursday, you’re sure to find a great learning experience. Here’s a run down of what you’ll learn in each session. We’ve simplified the descriptions dow to the three or four learning objectives each will deliver.
2010 Thursday Morning Concurrent Breakout Sessions (11:25a-12:10p)
Building With Bales with Joyce Coppinger
You will learn what professionals involved in designing projects using alternative materials and methods of construction want and need to know about these options, what professionals’ perspectives and concepts of sustainability are and how do they relate them to projects they are developing, what types of projects are or have been developed in the region that truly demonstrate sustainability, and the best ways to reach out to professionals through publications, web sites, blogs, one-on-one contact.
Greening Existing Buildings and Green Audits with Mike Twedt
The presentation will detail what greening is and why, how and how much the greening process can impact existing buildings. First, the status of typical existing buildings will examined to demonstrate the typical greening potential which can be achieved. Then, a step by step process for performing a green audit will be summarized to inform the audience how to identify greening measures, with specific examples on greening potential. Finally, measures will be grouped by the relative ease of implementation in order to provide the audience examples ranging from simple low/no cost alternatives to complex, maximum greening value alternatives.
Communicating Green with Nathan Schock
People who attend Nathan’s presentation can be expected to learn these things: how to communicate their company’s sustainability initiatives, how to avoid charges of greenwashing, the role that social media plays in sustainability communications, and why green marketing must be done differently than traditional corporate marketing.
Xeriscaping and Harvesting Rain Water with Paul Clinton
The presentation will discuss: How to determine the amount of water that can be harvested from impervious surfaces, different water storage options, the definition and history of Xeriscaping, the seven fundamentals of Xeriscape, and basic design elements for a landscape.
Global Warming: What Can Old Ice from Antarctica Tell Us? with Jihong Cole-Dai
Questions this session with Antarctic researcher Jihong Cole-Dai will help you answer: What is climate change? What is global warming? Is the earth getting warmer? Why? How do we know? What do we learn from old Antarctica ice?
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Thursday Afternoon Concurrent Breakout Sessions (1:35p-2:20p)
Special Session: ASHRAE Standard 189.1: High Performance Green Buildings with Doug Zentz
This session will help to answer the following questions: Why should there be a standard for “Green” high performance commercial buildings? Why would ASHRAE be involved with the development of a standard for “Green” high performance commercial buildings? What is the relationship of this new standard to other existing standards used in building codes? What are the details of the new ASHRAE Standard 189.1 on “Green” high performance commercial buildings?
The Future of Renewable Energy with Dusty Johnson, Doug Berven and Michael Ropp
This session will ask industry leaders what the future of bio, solar and wind energy will look like in the Northern Plains, and how we can effect change. We will also field questions from attendees via Twitter.
Urban Agriculture as a Tool for Community Change with Tim Olsen
This session will explore basic asset-based community development principles that are catalysts for local environmental sustainability projects, identify local food production initiatives, such as urban agriculture, that encourage neighborhood and community sustainability, observe, through story, the modeling of environmental sustainability within a low-resourced neighborhood, and appreciate the priority of empowering local leaders for enduring, and reproducible, sustainability practices.
So, You Get to Where the EPA Hat… with DJ Mittan
This session will offer you an introduction to the EPA and some of the laws that may apply to your company. You’ll learn about the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act… just to name a few! Further, you’ll learn what all this means for you and your business, and get a few resources on where to go from here.
Environmental Stewardship and the World’s Poor with Mitchell Hescox
Eating fast food and driving your pick-up truck have direct impact on the poor in developing countries. We will examine our lifestyles and our not so sustainable living in regard to their current affects on people in other lands, and how these current impacts in the developing world affect our future
