University of Idaho

Hello Folks,

As you might have read earlier today from Karl's blog post, we had a full week at the 7/8 PPSEL CREW. The week started off with some service. We had the chance on Monday to help the Kindergartner's with their alphabet books, and on Tuesday we helped out the 1/2 crews with their Me as a Baby, Me Now writing assignment.

A large part of our week was taking our expedition knowledge and creating energy information pamphlets/ brochures. There were three targets:

• I can explain how we turn this energy source (ex. coal) into an usable energy (electricity).
• I can identify the positive and negative impacts of this source of energy.
• I can explain how the U.S. utilizes this energy source.

On Thursday Chelsea, a Natural Resource Management Master student from U of I, came into our classroom and lead a lesson on sustainability, nonrenewable and renewable energy sources. It was very interesting and leads us into our second case study. Energy Sustainability, Conservation and Efficiency.

This week we also had Carly, an U of I freshman and aspiring art teacher, come in and give us a lesson on graphic design. We created recycling ad posters.

Today we walked down to the University of Idaho Steam Plant for a tour. Scott the plant manager helped us answer our three guiding questions for the fieldwork.

• How is steam energy transfered?
• How is steam based heating more effecient than electricity?
• How could we use this technology to heat cities?

It was pretty amazing! First we toured the area where local scrap wood from local mills is brought into the plant. The wood is taken out of the waste stream, which means that it was headed for the landfill. The wood is burned to heat boilers full of water. The water is turned into steams which heats all 86 buildings on campus. The steam is also used to heat all of the 86 building's water. Its effecient for three main reasons:

• It centralizes the steam production in one facility, instead of individual boilers in each building.
• Its costs $1.5 million to purchase the wood necessary to run the plant, and it would cost between $10-15 million to heat the buildings using electricity.
• Its carbon neutral: The carbon dioxide generated equals the amount of carbon dioxide necessary to grow the same amount of trees.

Overall it was a super week, and we are excited to learn about composting and recycling next week with a visit the recycling center and U of I's composting area.

Stay Tuned!

Mr. E