Frontier Project Field Trip

For our Environmental Science class we visited a place called the frontier project.  "The purpose of the Frontier Project is to educate resident consumers, commercial builders, and sustainable advocates about the latest methods and technologies in water, energy, and site conservation."  The building was created by the water district in Rancho Cucamanga because of over crowding. The investors of the frontier project hired architects that helped them reach a LEED platinum certification for their building from the green building council. Although the cost of building an environmentally safe building is triple the cost of a building, the results and benefits that come with a green building will out weigh the negatives. As we went on our tour around the building, I looked at all the benefits the building had, such as the 

-Green roofing to help cool down the building

-roof garden

- when it rains the water is captured and used to water plants or recycled back into ground water

-solar chimmeny's that help keep cool air inside the buildings and release all the heat from the building

-perillable concrete to help with flooding

-carpet tiles that can be recycled

-windows are automatic light tunnels

-the recepinist is a computer monitor 

-kitchen is made from bamboo since it is a renewable source

-bathrooms use low flush

-recycled napkins

Chicken Tostadas

For my biology class, My professor gave us one of my favorite subjects to do a little more research on--- Food!  I decided to bring and research on chicken tostadas since it is both easy to make and yummy to eat. 

For this simple recipe I use: 

1 whole cooked chicken 

5 tablespoons of mayonnaise 

2 cans of mixed vegtables 

1/2 of a lettuce

1/2 can of corn 

1 Pack of tostadas

First, I shred the whole chicken in a big bowl, then I  combine all the other ingredients (mixed vegetables, corn, lettuce, and mayonnaise), Adding as much mayonnaise as desired.

Then I put the chicken mix on top of a tostada. 

Chicken: As I searched the web to see where Stater Bros gets their meat, I was unable to come to a conclusion since there was not a reliable source of information. 

-Chicken is healthy for you to eat since it has less saturated fat than most red meat. 

-Chicken has a lot of protein 

Mayonnaise: Mayonnaise is made from: SOYBEAN OIL, WATER, WHOLE EGGS AND EGG YOLKS, VINEGAR, SALT, SUGAR, LEMON JUICE,CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA (USED TO PROTECT QUALITY), NATURAL FLAVORS.

-The mayonnaise that I decide to use is manufactured by Kraft. 

- I believe that mayonnaise is bad for you because it is said to have tons of fat. In one cup it contains 1440 calories, 160 grams of fat, and 24 grams of saturated fat. It contains an excellent amount of vitamins E and K, but it contains almost 50 percent of your daily recommended amount of sodium. 

-Mayonnaise may have negative side effects, such as, weight gain, clogged arteries, and possibly brain damage if consumed every day. 

Read more information at http://mayonnaisethefacts.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/the-negative-effects-of-mayonnaise/

Tostada: Tostadas are deep fried corn tortillas. corn tortillas are typically made from water, yellow corn flour, and wheat gluten. 

-I believe that tostadas are healthy for humans since they do not have high amounts of calories or fat. 

While I was researching I found that all my vegetables, corn, and lettuce came from the same manufacture, so I put all the research I found below. 

Vegetables: When I began researching the canned mixed vegetables, I came across a website http://www.delmonte.com/Products/ that helped me get a lot of my research from. Although the website does not give us alot of information it does tell us that, 

"Del Monte® picks all of your favorite vegetables at the height of ripeness, then packs them together to lock in their garden sweet taste and nutrients.

INGREDIENTS: Water, Carrots, Green Beans, Peas, Corn, Lima Beans, Salt (for flavor), Natural Flavorings

-Del Monte raises and picks its vegetables from their farm without the use of pesticides. They do use fertilizers but they have been doing research to see what is the right amount of fertilizers for the plants. 

Corn:

Del Monte claimed that, the corn was picked ripped and was packed with water and salt. 

The corn is grown and picked on Del Monte's farms, which has decided to not use any pesticides to get the best products. 

-Both canned corn and canned mixed vegetables can be good for you, in the research I found, I came to the conclusion that canned vegetables hold the same nutrients and vitamins as fresh vegetables. 

-Using and buying canned food is extremely beneficial because it is less expensive and because it last longer then fresh vegetables. 

Lettuce: Del Monte is a huge farm that grows all types of vegetables. It is now a partnership between farmers to grow different vegetables and fruits. 

"Some farmers have been growing Del Monte® fruits and vegetables for 40 years—and many farms have been with us for four, even five generations. "

Go Green !! :)

For My Environmental Science class this week, my professor, Mrs. Huff, assigned the class an assignment to   determine how "green" our college campus is; However, she did not give us a list to determine the causes. In fact, the first step in the process is to determine what we would assist to see how green our campus. As I walked through the campus hesitantly I realized that everything on the campus was a factor to our sustainability, so I did some research on the main issues on determining how green our campus was. The main issues and concerns were, waste management, recycling, water and electricity energy usage,  andcar/ transportion pollution.

Why should we consider these factors for our sustainability? 

Waste Managment

I believe waste management is an important factor when determining how green my college campus because the waste/trash humans create impact the environment. The waste becomes extremely hazardous when it is transported through farming and construction, which is both being done at Riverside City College. These harmful waste can harm humans, animals, and even plants. The effects it causes to our environment is pollution to our air. 

Recycling 

I believe recycling is another huge factor to our impact to our ecological footprint (the impact of a person or a community to the world); therefore, I believe schools should have not only trash cans but also recycling bens. Recycling is important because our trash impacts the environment, so the less trash we have is greater for our environment--- If we recycled more we would decrease the waste and improve the usage of our resources by re-using items; therefore saving more resources for future generations. 

Water and Electricity usage

Water and electricity usage at a college campus is very important to determine sustainability both these resources are limited resources that will eventually come to an end, so we must try our best to be generous with the usage. I tied together water and electricity usage together because the energy we use to create electricity is generated by thermoeletric power plants- fossil-fueled or nuclear -fueled facilities that use steam to turn turbines and generate electricity. These power plants use so much water, so we not only have to conserve water but also conserve electricity. 

Car/ Transportation Polltion

Car pollution is also a important factor in determining how green a college campus is. Thirty percent of the U.S. global warming emission are emitted into the world by cars or transportation. Global warming can disrupt climate, which enters our food.Therefore, I believe that car pollution is the most important factor in determining how green our college campus is.

What have other campus' done in regards to our ecological footprints? 

As I researched many different colleges and keywords, I finally came across a very interesting and incredible test college students did in order to re-use and recycle some of their schools' waste. From July 2005 to June 2006 Amherst College collected all the trash from the trash cans all over campus and sorted it out by things that can be recycled.  

	Tons Recycled	Lbs Recycled per student
Paper	108.77	135
Cardboard	55.95	69
Bottles & Cans	31.29	39
Routine Trash	517.27	642

To look up more information about the experiment visit, https://www.amherst.edu/offices/facilities/recycling/statistics

What Would I do? 

I am very curious as to how much pollution is being let out of Riverside City College, so I want to assist how much pollution is being let out by the vehicles of RCC. I would do this assessment by observing and monotering the cars that leave and drive around RCC. For my project I would need to find out how much pollution is typically let out by each car maker. I would also need to interview the students and staff who are struggling to find parking. For instance, this semester parking at RCC has been horrible, so it might take students anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour to park on some days. I would also need to interview and talk to the president of trustee Janet Green who i would be able to ask all my permission from, such as being able to watch the videos of all parking areas. I would not be able to do all this work alone, so I would need to hire someone who is good at math to measure the pollution from cars that let off to much pollution, students to interview other students to find out about parking issues. I would also talk with cooperation's and Janet Green to finance the schools with more parking because of the parking issues that ultimately harm our environment. 

Jeanette Torres3 weeks ago

I recently took a test testing how many world would it take if everyone lived like me, and the results were shockinggg.. First of all it would take 4.1 world just for the resources needed. it would take 18 global acres to support my rescources. The biggest dent in my footprint is services, which was 49%.

Taking this test really showed me my footprint really does make a diffrence to the world, so i should try my best to reduce the harm I cause to this world!

Check  out the damage you create to this world @ http://www.footprintnetwork.org/calculators/

Jeanette Torres3 weeks ago

Hey everyone! My name is Jeanette Torres, I am 20 years old. My birthday is feb.8th. I am currently a full time student at riverside city college. I plan to major in buisness, culinary arts, and english. I am also considering being a biology major depending on how long i wanna stick through school. however culinary arts is my true passion! My hobbies include working, studying, hiking, dancing, hanging out with friends and family. i do not have any kids, but my mother recently added another baby ,Jayce, to our family who i love with all my heart! Although I live in riverside, I was raised in Orange County, and I plan to move back one day. I aim interested in environmental science because I am very interested in seeing and actually uncovering what humans have done to this world. I wonder sometimes, are the humans destroying the world? How can we help better the planet? I would like to explore all the little changes I could make that would make extremely huge differences to the world!

Jeanette Torres
 October 1, 13
Enviornmental Science

Assignment #4

This week my professor, Ms. Huff  assigned the class a pretty amazing assignment--- the class had to go outside and observe a place. She was very open as to were we could go as long as it was a quiet area; However, Since I love hiking, My  best friend, Alexiz Ramos,and I decided to take a walk down to the nature center to observe a place where we always love to walk and a place where feel at ease with nature, Louis Rubidoux Nature Center, located in Rubidoux. We took a little hike along the river while we observed our surroundings. Once we found a quiet bench located near the river, we sat down for about 20 minutes and observed as many non-living and living things as we could.

Non-Living: Dirt, Dirt trails, rocks, dead grass, a building in between the huge rocks and river. We also seen wooden signs, little wooden bridges to get you across the river stream, river steams, broken off tree branches, trash from humans, air, wind. sun,




Living Things: Although i love nature, i seen many tress and plants that i did not know what they were called. So i just described them in my note book. There was a group of big trees that  all swayed over the river creating a closed habitat for all the animals and plants their leafs were little but spread out so they created a drupping effect. There was also ivory looking plants that had huge heart shaped leafs that seemed to wrap around certain trees and structures, such as the one you see when you first enter the nature center.  There was also a plant that looked like it was related to the palm tree family, but it was a little shorter and the leafs were alittle more spread out.
The first animals we seen of course were ants, but after a few seconds we seen a beetle that was in the middle of his aunt meal. we believe it was a stink bug because when it noticed us it raised it tail to warn us off.  We noticed that the beetle gave off a warning, and we believe its  because he had many competitions in its habitat such as humans. As we sat their observing the beetle, we got startled by a squirrel running around in the bushes. We got fascinated by the squirrel, so we got a little off track and took a detour.On our walk we seen a couple different types of  birds hiding in the trees, and a lizard. The most amazing thing we seen on our walk out the nature center was a baby toad making his way across the trail next to the river.