The report includes a brief citation to our presentation during the American Society of Engineering Education in Austin, TX.

June 14-17, 2009 – Drexel Smart House and Drexel University’s Library presented a collaborative proposal for information-literacy development to the American Society of Engineering Education in Austin, TX.

See: Drexel Smart House Six Month Report and News and Interests from Drexel Green web site

Third place went to Jameson Detweiler and Tom Milewski, who are students in the Drexel College of Engineering. They will receive $4,000 in seed money, more than $6,500 in in-kind support, and space in the Baiada Center’s incubator. Detweiler and Milewski are the brains behind Konnect.me, which is developing Web communities for specific industries. Its first site is green.konnect.me and serves the green building industry.

Read the full article at: Baiada Incubator winners

Abstract:

The Library-Smart House partnership seeks to design and implement a sustainable, virtual
environment for collaboration that will seamlessly integrate project communication and
information access. This virtual environment will provide a means for increased collaboration
between students, faculty, librarians and outside contributors as well as ensure the sustainability
of the project in coming years.
The Smart House is a student-led, multidisciplinary project to retrofit an existing house to be a
living-laboratory. The house will be a platform for testing innovations in the areas of energy,
health, environment, interaction, and lifestyle. The ultimate goal of the organization is to
improve the quality of life for those living and working in an urban residential setting. The
Smart House is a collaborative design project not only across different disciplines, but also
across student year and domain knowledge levels. This collaboration produces a wide array of
student information needs and presents a unique opportunity for library collaboration.
The Library plans to study the effectiveness of information literacy instructional techniques
through the contextual setting of the Smart House. The Library seeks to improve the ability of
participants to access, evaluate, and use high quality research materials effectively through a
variety of instructional strategies. By developing and maintaining a virtual infrastructure for
information awareness and access using relevant technologies, the library will be able to assist
students at their point of need. More direct instruction will be provided through a series of active
learning workshops combined with specialized research consultation. We believe that this project
will promote the lifelong learning skills necessary for the Engineer of 20201 by providing
interdisciplinary collaboration paired with information literacy instruction within the framework
of Smart House design.

Library-Smart House Collaboration for Information Literacy Development:

See: Paper and Presentation

Source:  2009 ASEE Annual Conference – Engineering Libraries Division

he senior design team of Eric Eisele, Courtney Reid, Dan Pugh, Sarah Byrnes, and Charlie Woods was awarded a Phase II People, Prosperity, and Planet Award from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Competing against 43 university teams, the Drexel University Department of Materials Science and Engineering team received one of six Phase II awards on Monday, April 20, 2009 in Washington, D.C. at the National Sustainable Design Expo.

The award-winning senior design project, “Cool Roof Coatings Utilizing Glass Hollow Microspheres for Improved Solar Reflectance,” increases the reflectance of cool roof coatings while cutting raw material costs. Cool roof coatings save energy and mitigate the urban heat island effect. Previously, the team received a Phase I award in the amount of $10,000.  The Phase II awards provide $75,000 of funding for two years and will be used to develop the coating further and field test the technology by reaching out to the neighborhoods surrounding Drexel. The team will work in conjunction with the Drexel Smart House initiative.

See:  Senior Design Team Wins $75,000 Phase II EPA Funding

The Student Life Symposium on Sustainability and Social Justice hosted by the Division of Student Life Professional Development, Sustainability and Social Justice Committees will be held on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from 11:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. in Behrakis Grand Hall, Creese Student Center (32nd and Chestnut Streets).

See: Student Life Symposium on Sustainability and Social Justice

GREENING OF DREXEL LIBRARIES
Drexel Libraries has begun efforts to make our libraries more environmentally-friendly. In addition a physical archive of vegetable and flower seeds is being created. The Libraries’ Greening Blog is used track our progress, broadcast local environmental news and events, and provides regular tips for greener living. An online Environmental Research Guide offers direction on search strategies, books, databases, reliable websites and blogs offering information on environmental sustainability.

Click here to download the Greening of Drexel Libraries poster highlighting some of its initiatives.

Source: Drexel Green – Resources

Fact: If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, more than 25,000,000 trees would be saved each year.

Tip: Consider reading newspapers and magazines online or getting a digital subscription. Most publications offer digital content at no or reduced cost. Or visit the W.W. Hagerty Library (33rd and Chestnut Street) online at http://www.library.drexel.edu/ and see what publications it has to offer.

See: Find  e-Journal

Source: Drexel Daily Digest, April 2nd, 2009

This presentation by Kyle Kephart, Director of Quality Services attempts to answer questions such as:

What does Drexel recycle? Where can you recycle?
What is RecycleMania?
For answers to the above questions and more attend the workshop by Kyle Kephart (Director and Senior VP of Student Life and Administrative Services)

See Kyle’s presentation at:

kyle-recycling-presentation

Drexel Green site provides access to several webcasts/podcasts of presentations conducted at the Mitchell Auditorium, Bossone Research Enterprise Center,  on a variety of topics  including climate change, capitalism and sutainability, science of global warming, and Drexel and its waste.

See: Webcasts/podcasts