Student Loan Blog : green

Princeton Review to Rate Colleges on Eco-Friendly Initiatives

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:53:00 GMT

In addition to categories like tuition and fees, and campus life, colleges and universities are now being rated on just how green they are, according to an article in The Christian Science Monitor (“Now, ‘Green’ Report Cards for U.S. Colleges,” July 8, 2008).

Sustainability has become such an important issue for college students that six out of 10 college applicants and parents say the environmental factor would affect their decision to apply to or attend a school, according to a survey this year by Princeton Review.

The for-profit test preparation company will include a “Green Rating” of 600 colleges in several of its popular college guides this summer in an effort to help students find environmentally-friendly schools. Colleges and universities will be rated on their building and transportation policies, food sources, recycling, and the availability of environmental courses, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

Julian Dautremont-Smith, associate director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, said her organization is seeing more schools “look at sustainability as a strategic priority and a way of distinguishing themselves.”

“There are many schools that are striving to be … the ‘greenest’ campus,” she added.

Students can check out whether their campus is eco-conscious by looking at the College Sustainability Report Card, which gives letter grades to at least 200 public and private schools with the largest endowments.

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LEGO Turns 50

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:49:00 GMT

LEGOs have entertained millions of children and adults, spawned tons of knock-off brands, and even inspired a series of LEGOLAND theme parks. And now, LEGO just celebrated its 50^th birthday on January 28, 2008.

The LEGO brick, which was honored with the “Toy of the Century” award by Fortune Magazine and the British Association of Toy Retailers, stands as a symbol of creativity and the power of simplicity.

Play Well: A LEGO History

The LEGO legacy has its unassuming beginnings in 1932, when Ole Kirk Christiansen opened a tiny wooden-toy factory in a small town in southern Denmark. Christiansen invited all his employees to enter a competition to find a name for his company, only to come up with the winning name himself: LEGO, coming from the Danish words leg (“play”) and godt (“well”).

Fifteen years later, Christiansen bought the country’s first injection molding machine to begin manufacturing plastic toys. Two years after that, in 1949, Christiansen developed the brick design that would become the LEGO prototype.

There have been slight tweaks and adjustments over the years, but the basic LEGO brick of today still fits the bricks of 1958.

Now with over 2,400 brick varieties, LEGOs are sold in more than 130 countries.

The company maintains a commitment to environmental responsibility, melting down unsold LEGO products to create new bricks.

The Michelangelos of LEGO

As a tribute to 50 years of LEGO ingenuity, here are some truly impressive LEGO brick creations.

LEGO Volvo XC90
Constructed by LEGO Master Model Builders, the elite team that designs, creates, and maintains the thousands of LEGO brick models at LEGOLAND California, this LEGO replica of Volvo’s award-winning SUV is the official vehicle of LEGOLAND California.

LEGO Harpsichord
Built by Henry Lim, this 150-pound, 6–by-3-foot harpsichord, with the exception of the strings, is made entirely out of LEGOs — more than 100,000 of them.

LEGO Difference Engine
Charles Babbage’s 19th century difference engine was the first computer. This LEGO replica built by Andrew Carol can solve second- and third-order polynomials and may possibly be smarter than you.

LEGO Pinball
After spending 300 hours building it and using over 20,000 LEGO bricks, Gerrit Bronsveld and Martijn Boogaarts unveiled this fully functional pinball game at the 2005 LegoWorld exhibition in Zwolle, Netherlands.

The next three LEGO sculptures have been created by Nathan Sawaya.

LEGO Man Opening Himself Up

LEGO Man with Reflection in Mirror

LEGO Replica of the Iwo Jima Memorial

Sawaya was commissioned to build this replica for permanent installation at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The sculpture uses over 100,000 LEGO bricks.

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“Reduce, Re-Use, Re-Ride”: Sell and Trade Your Surfboards, Skateboards and Snowboards Online

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:40:00 GMT

ReRip may not show you how to transform your old boards into something completely unboard-like, the way IKEA Hacker overhauls furniture, but ReRip does share with IKEA Hacker the goal of making the stale new again, giving old boards a second chance at life with different owners.

“Reduce. Re-use. Re-ride.” It’s ReRip’s official slogan.

ReRip, as the company explains on its website, “wants to pull used but rideable surfboards, skateboards and skis out of people’s garages and put them under the feet of those looking for a ‘new’ ride.” ReRip’s founders hope their venture will translate into fewer boards made, fewer toxins emitted and fewer materials discarded.

The company, started four months ago by Meghan Dambacher and Lisa Randall of Solana Beach, Calif., hopes to capitalize on the current trend that has consumers going green. In addition to hosting its used board network, ReRip wants to promote eco-friendly boarding businesses for those customers looking for new equipment, according to a story by David Berlin that appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune (“New Life for Old Gear,” Aug. 26, 2007).

Start Small Until You’re Ready for the Big Leagues

Dambacher and Randall, as the ReRip homepage says, aim at “raising awareness one board at a time,” developing their business plan that can appeal to both eco-conscious and cost-conscious consumers.

“The idea is to make it easy for people to recycle equipment instead of throwing it away or buying something brand new,” writes Berlin. Dambacher and Randall acknowledge that “[i]t might not save the polar ice caps all by itself, but it could help.”

Much like frugal parents who start their musically inclined children on pawn shop instruments, or money-strapped college students who troll garage sales, eBay and online classifieds for affordable finds, wannabe extreme sportsters can turn to ReRip to find secondhand starter boards or trade up once they master new tricks—all while saving money and the environment.

ReRip, as Berlin explains “is essentially a Craigslist.com for action-sports items.”

You can get a 6-foot-4-inch epoxy Retro Fish surfboard for $320 from a seller in Oceanside, Calif. Or learn new moves on a Birdhouse skateboard autographed by professional skateboarder Brian Sumner, available for $165. Or grab a $150 M3 snowboard that’s seen a couple of seasons and is now too small for its owner.

Brian Sumner “Liverpool Tone” skateboard.

But the ReRip interchange doesn’t stop at just boards. Find skis, ski boots and other gear to hit the slope; helmets, longboards and wheels to shred up the park, and wetsuits and fins to ride the waves.

Taking Eco-Boarding to the Next Level

Eventually, Dambacher, a child development counselor, and Randall, a fitness manager, want to expand ReRip from a used product intermediary into a forum where action-sports enthusiasts can also buy new equipment that, in keeping with the company’s green outlook, is made with environmentally friendly products like Biofoam^™.

Homeblown US, which manufactures Biofoam, incorporates the material in its surfboards. These Biofoam surfblanks are made from a mix that consists of 50 percent agricultural products and replace traditional polyurethane surfblanks. Homeblown claims that using Biofoam produces 36 percent less global warming emissions and reduces non-renewable energy use by 61 percent.

Homeblown US Biofoam surfboard (left) and Biofoam surfblanks (right).

By promoting eco-minded companies like Homeblown, which is generating press for its Biofoam boards, ReRip hopes to attract boarders who support green initiatives but may not necessarily want to confine themselves to used equipment.

As Dambacher says in Berlin’s article, “We understand people want new things, but we want to say, ‘OK, if you’re going to buy it new, buy it from this company because they’re doing X, Y and Z, and it’s easier on the planet.”

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Clap Your Hands and Say Green

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:46:00 GMT

“Green” for college students doesn’t mean what it used to. The phrase that once only conjured images of leafy substances now signifies recycling bins and fuel-efficient cars.

The “Go Green” campaign geared up into craze mode following Al Gore’s widely successful documentary of 2006, An Inconvenient Truth. And the trend has spread across the country, from individuals changing their daily living patterns at home, to entire communities, like those on college campuses, making massive strides toward large-scale lifestyle and operation alterations.

Home to over 17 million college students throughout the United States, campuses are ideal locations for change, and some schools believe it’s their “moral responsibility to be at the forefront of the green movement,” according to an article that appeared on eSchool News Online (“Colleges Make Commitment to Go ‘Green,’ ” June 14, 2007).

College Campuses Strive for Carbon Neutrality

On June 12, leaders of more than 280 colleges and universities signed an agreement to reduce their campuses’ carbon consumption. Although each school’s rate of reduction will vary based on the campus’s size, location and population, the overall goal of the American College University Presidents Climate Commitment is to cut down greenhouse gas emissions and conserve resources.

The committed schools represent only 15 percent of U.S. college students, but their pledges are substantial, including a commitment to implement green building codes, use alternative forms of transportation and purchase energy from renewable sources.

As part of their pledge, colleges are encouraged to commit to a carbon neutral target date. Some campuses don’t foresee carbon neutrality for 20 or 30 years, with limited public transportation one of the major obstacles facing schools in rural and some suburban areas, which experience a stubborn and pervasive use of student cars. On the other hand, Middlebury College in Vermont, one of the schools furthest along in its climate-conserving efforts, has committed to carbon neutrality by 2016.

Paint the Town Green

But in order for colleges to become eco-friendly, it will take more than just reducing carbon emissions. Practicing sustainability on a college campus requires broad-spectrum changes, backed by a shift in the students’ mindset and the institution’s mission.

Taking this sweeping climate-change mission to heart, the eco-conscious administrators at Arizona State University are making noteworthy changes. ASU’s Biodesign Institute was recently named as of the state’s most environmentally friendly structures, according to an article by Ryan Radazzo that appeared in The Arizona Republic (“ASU Biodesign Named as One of Country’s Top ‘Green’ Buildings,” Aug. 3, 2007).

Inside and out, the entire building boasts green accents, and we’re not talking painted walls, decorated light fixtures or designer carpeting. But structural elements—like rubber flooring and aluminum ceilings—made of recycled materials, low-flow faucets, waterless urinals, sunlight-reflecting parking lots and natural light atriums are enough to make all the other campus buildings green with envy.

Other innovations at the award-winning Biodesign Institute include a 5,000-gallon cistern that collects air conditioning condensation to use for watering the landscaping, and solar panels to reduce the energy needed to power the facility.

The Biodesign Institute consists of two adjoining buildings, with building B, completed in 2006, as only one of 40 structures nationwide to receive platinum-level certification for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Building A, which opened in 2004, received gold-level certification.

Radazzo reports that USGBC, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., consisting of more than 10,000 organizations committed to sustainability in the building marketplace, has certified 19 other buildings in Arizona. The state has 174 other projects waiting certification.

“That's a number that has jumped 44 percent in the last year,” Radazzo writes. “It's a faster growth rate than enviro-conscious California.”

ASU serves as just one example of a university committed to enacting environmentally conscious changes. Colleges and students across the country have been and will continue to wrestle with balancing an appealing campus that accommodates students’ needs against stricter sustainability practices.

For more information on how to join in the fight to “go green” visit the Inconvenient Truth Web site.

Talk to the education finance advisors at NextStudent. They have all the information and advice you need on student loans. Check out www.nextstudent.com.

Student Loan Girl

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