Saturday, December 09, 2006

Light to Unite

Follow the link to light a candle.














Bristol-Myers Squibb is donating a dollar to fight AIDS every time someone goes to their website and moves the match to the candle and lights it. This site is functional and well designed, and contains memories and stories from AIDS health care workers, family, friends and survivors.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

This is great

Paul, the BIO website looks great -- love the link to the big.ideas@ocad blog!

Can we put a note on the site that people should e-mail me if they'd like to be invited to join the blog, i.e. be able to post as well as comment?

As a class, we should make sure all our posters, flyers, hand-outs, etc. show links for both the website and the blog:

http://www.student.ocad.on.ca/~pwilcken/index.html
http://bigideasatocad.blogspot.com/

Mary

Monday, November 20, 2006

Check out the new Bio website!


Your colleague Paul Wilcken has pulled together a site for our Bio Projects. It contains a section with templates for all of your Bio branding efforts, and links to the Bio blog. I will be asking all of you to post your final BIG IDEA assignments to our class blog and to the Bio blog. You can also access the Bio website and blog from the links on our class blog. Well done Paul and the branding team! Go Bio!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Green Computing

Someone is listening! I received this email today from Alastair Maclead, Director of IT Services at OCAD:

"It is a good idea to shutdown your computer daily in the interest of energy conservation." with the following info:

If 250 OCAD computers were set up to enter sleep mode after a brief period of inactivity, AND turned off during non-work hours, OCAD's electricity consumption would drop significantly, resulting in the following benefits:

annual reduction of 120,000 kWh electricity consumption
annual reduction of 36.25 tonnes of CO2 emissions
annual savings of $12,000

He also submitted a good resource on green computing from Trent U, which I have linked to the title of this post!

Student Forum -- Presentation Update!!

Just heard back from one of the organizers of the Student Forum next week.

She has given Paul and me permission to present on the evening of Wednesday, 15 Nov. Come to support us, if you can!

Our presentation will be considered for inclusion in the Student Forum's submission to the Administration.

Apparently, OCAD Admin has held off on preparing its Strategic Plan, so that the results of the Student Forums can be taken into account in their planning.

So if we get into the Student Forum submission, that puts our Big Ideas in front of the bureaucrats even sooner than we thought! Good, eh?

big.ideas @ ocad BLOG IS UP

Hi, guys!

I've re-branded our team's blog with Paul's wordmark, so that we can all put our big ideas up there, and solicit comments from the OCAD community at large.

The idea is that we can print the blog posts & comments at the end of term, and present it to OCAD Administrators as a type of petition.

Go have a look, at

http://bigideasatocad.blogspot.com/

and post your Big Idea!!!!

Cheers,
Mary

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Our Big Idea -- Green OCAD

Here's the Green OCAD Proposal, developed by Chas, Do-Hyung, Rachel & Mary:

Proposal
The College needs more greenery, inside and out, to make a healthy, sustainable Campus. We would like OCAD to install plantings around the Campus building interiors, and planted roof(s) on at least one of the OCAD buildings. Since these are expensive projects to institute on a Campus-wide basis, we propose that the Administration execute two pilot projects: a planting in a prominent interior space –- the 100 McCaul Street lobby -- and a small ‘green’ roof on either 100 McCaul Street or 52 McCaul Street.

Our Goal
We want to convince the OCAD Administration to act on our proposal, and to realize the two pilot projects mentioned above. As part of that initiative, we also want the Administration to continue the student fundraising campaign that we will launch, and to use the funds raised from students, together with funds from the College’s operating budget, to realize the pilot projects.

How We'll Do It
We will solicit student opinion by distributing a Postcard explaining the Green OCAD idea, hosting a Blog, making a presentation at the upcoming Student Forum, and installing a cool (hopefully) interactive donations box in the 100 McCaul St lobby. We'll gather information from engineers and planting systems suppliers, to understand what is involved in installing and maintaining the 2 pilot projects.

At the end of Week 14, we will present to our proposal V-P Peter Caldwell, based on the info we've gathered. We will be able to demonstrate student support for the Green OCAD idea: a print out of student comments from the blog, and a cheque for monies collected from the donation box. We hope that our proposal, plus this demonstration of student will, convinces the OCAD administration to act on our proposal.

Our Field Trip Next Week to the Distillery District!



We will be meeting at 9:00 at Balzac's cafe. After fueling up with some excellent caffeine, we will be touring the historic site, a former distillery that is beautifully preserved and has been repurposed and revitalized as an artist's community, with galleries, retail and restaurant locations. We will be visiting a number of galleries including Corkin Shopland, Artcore, Monte Clarke and also an innovative retail space called Lileo. Come with a bit of money in your pocket for a coffee, a warm coat and comfortable shoes for walking.

Directions to the Distillery District: via Toronto Transit (TTC)
• Subway. Take Subway to Castle Frank station on the Bloor line. Connect to Bus 65A Parliament. Ride bus straight down Parliament. Exit at Front St. and walk one block south to Mill St.
• King streetcar. Take 504 King street car. Exit at King and Parliament. Walk 2 blocks south on Parliament to Mill St.

This is Balzac's where we will meet.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

One Big Idea- Exterior


For our big idea, me and vicky were planning on helping in progressing the plan between the community and the AGO about the fence that separates Butterfield Park from the parking lot behind it. Our ultimate goal, and at this point we are unsure if it is possible, is to have the fence removed and have the space turned into a green exterior space. We will do this by raising awareness about the fence and letting people of the community know about it.

Earth Day Footprint

CATEGORY
GLOBAL HECTARES
FOOD
2.2
MOBILITY
1.3
SHELTER
0.4
GOODS/SERVICES
1.7
TOTAL FOOTPRINT
5.6
IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 8.8 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.1 PLANETS.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Feets leaving prints

having gone through the questions, I covered about 4.5 hectares.
Requiring that we need to create 2.5 planets in order for survival.

Better get digging, it's gonna take a lot of dirt.

*hands you shovel

My ecological footprint

Did the quiz, found out that I occupy 8.4 global hectares (compared w/the Canadian avg of 8.8) and need 4.7 planets to supply me.

I also tried it as me 20 years ago: sharing a house w/3 other people, no money to fly anywhere, eating more starch & less meat (because broke, not because ethical). Then, I was apparently consuming 6.3 planets. Huh???

Guess I can ditch the middle class guilt :D