PSC320 Projects Winter 2018

Projects can have 3-5 students. They must be interdisciplinary – that is at least one technical student and at least one arts student. Please propose a project. Please put your name and contact information (if you like) by the project.

The project presentation is intentionally ill defined to allow maximum freedom for you to explore. However, some of the deliverables include:

  • One calculation related to the class material
  • One environmental concern, effect, benefit, or insight
  • One issue of societal transformation
  • One policy argument
  • One economic insight, calculation, or impact
  • One concept of equity, developing country, or environmental justice.
  • A short summary (~ one page with pictures) of your project to post on this website

What’s the reasonable outlook for Nuclear. This group can project the pros and cons of nuclear and what might be foreseeable for our future… different technologies? Politics, etc.? Please start by going to this meeting.
It’s Wednesday, Jan 17… at 6 PM, immediately after class! Please see this announcement and RSVP. Names: Chance Spencer, Lisa Swartz liswartz@calpoly.edu

Are you interested in SLO environmental activism? Then consider this meeting Jan 17, at the Guild Hall, immediately after class… free pizza. Names:

Solar Suitcase. The background for working on this project to electrify rural poor areas and educate secondary school kids is presently underway, and you can join. Please see the background so far, here. Names: (Sydney Mohr, samohr@calpoly.edu)

San Luis Obispo CCE (community choice energy) – Our group will be connecting with Eric Veium. Through him we will be working to both educate ourselves and others on the topic of Community Choice Energy in general and for SLO specifically. Based on our meeting with Eric Veium, we will either be helping him with a project or creating our own. Through our own project we would be creating a flyer or pamphlet and talking to students and/or classes about this important topic.
Joelle Saute 805-559-0795
Zachary Rife 209-627-7971
Olivia Mann 650-426-8386

Urban energy technology and infrastructure – project the pros, cons, and feasibility of different urban environmental solutions from urban farming to solar panel windows.
Names: Frank Fabela 619-415-1586 rfabela@calpoly.edu , Andrea Hernandez ahern274@calpoly.edu, Jordan Weeks jrweeks@calpoly.edu

Sun-free sustainability?
Imagine for some reason (a.k.a. the sun is stolen by aliens) humans need to build a sustainable environment underground, say a metal dome under a mountain. What would be the energy source to power this civilization? What would efficient food sources be? (Algae grown by lightbulbs for food and biofuel?) What physical size, population, plants, animals and technologies would be needed to survive inside? Is there a real life location this could be built? Could it be done in a time crunch before we all die on the surface? This might be more of a novel than a project… ~Sam Rudman