No other college or university offers its incoming class of students an experience as memorable and exciting as Prescott College’s Wilderness Orientation. In small groups consisting of ten students and two advanced student leaders or alumni, Resident Degree Program students travel on an extended backpacking trip through beautiful and remote areas of Arizona.

http://www.prescott.edu/highlights/orientation.html

I’d never heard of anything like this before until this summer when I found out my cousin was one of the advanced leaders. It really sounds like an amazing experience and would love to do some backpacking someday. What better way to start college then out in the wilderness learning about nature and I’m sure much more. According to Prescott College’s website 90% of incoming freshman participate in this program.

Prescott College

This house being built in Bellemont, AZ is one of only four Leed platinum certified homes in the U.S. It will produce more energy then it consumes and gets 100% of it’s water from rain and snow melt.

The heart of this is an automated system that controls conditions inside the home. It monitors indoor and outdoor temperature and opens or closes windows to keep the inside comfortable. It monitors humidity and keeps it at comfortable levels as well. It keeps track of power production and use from it’s solar panels and wind turbine and can give the homeowner a rundown of their energy usage.

This house also is not connected to any public water or sewer lines. All of it’s water is collected from rain and snow melt and can store up to 35,000 gallons of water which should be enough to keep the house going for 2 years. Gray water is used to water a on site apple orchid.

Check out the many other features this house has at the link below.
http://www.aeapower.com/green-architecture/leed-pilot-home/

The project would be one of the largest solar movements of any university campus in the nation, said Jonathan Fink, director of the Sustainability Institute.

Researchers from the institute looked at many renewable energy sources and found that solar energy would be more economical for the energy needs of the Tempe campus, Fink said. The Institute collected proposals through Jan. 17.

“The price of energy is going up steadily and I think that it makes more sense economically now than it ever has,” he said.

Fink added that he thinks the solar panels would not only help to conserve energy and save money, but would also have a great effect in the campus’ educational forum, as well as in the world around it.

“From an educational standpoint, I think it will convey to the students and to faculty and staff and the community that ASU is very serious about addressing this global sustainability issue,” Fink said. “This is an important message that we feel needs to be conveyed.”

By placing the solar panels on the largest and flattest buildings, ASU hopes to generate 40 percent of Tempe campus’s electrical power.

Article at ASU’s Web Devil

Three years after the creation of the National Park Service, on this day in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law a bill establishing the Grand Canyon as one of the nation’s first national parks. Nearly 2 billion years of the Earth’s history are exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut through the sediment.

Here’s a brief article on how it began.

One big difference between Pima County’s proposed “green”-building rating system and those developed nationally is that Pima County’s gives you points for what you don’t do.
Don’t lay carpet? Get a point.
Don’t paint the walls? Another point.
No garage? No swimming pool? Two points each.

Arizona Daily Star article here.