School of Sustainability Graduate Culminating Experiences
Student capstone and applied projects from ASU's School of Sustainability.
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Description
People everywhere should be doing everything they can to be more sustainable so that climate change can begin to be mitigated. We are already feeling the negative effects of climate change, and they are thoroughly documented. Despite this people are not changing to be more sustainable fast enough. Many either reject the idea of climate change, do not know what they could do, or are unaware of how climate change affects them. Sustainability also impacts more than just climate change. Living more sustainably can have positive impacts economically as well as positive impacts on human health. In a world that is so connected and with such a wealth of information, we can no longer afford to have communities in the dark. Leaders need to rise on a community level to make a difference. Leadership is an aspect of an organization or a project that can elevate it to new heights. A leader is not everything, but the difference a good leader makes is universal. In this paper I will teach you about organizing a sustainability fair that educates and engages marginalized communities that typically are not included in the conversation on how to save our world.
ContributorsSalinas, Jorge (Author)
Created2018-11-10
Description
Before the rise in renewable energy, few people considered the consequences of adding large amounts of intermittent power onto the grid. As renewable energy has become more prevalent, utility companies must adapt their business practices to accommodate these unique sources of power. This is leading to challenges on how best to manage a grid with large amounts of renewable power. Arizona Public Service (APS), the largest electricity provider in the state of Arizona, has more than 70,000 distributed solar customers on their grid and the number of solar customers increases every day. With this increase in distributed solar customers comes the solar duck curve—the phenomenon whereby solar produces energy during times of low demand. However, with the use of storage, the duck curve problem may be mitigated. This project examines the sustainability of three storage options: pumped hydro energy storage, compressed air energy storage, and lithium-ion batteries. Using several sustainability indicators, this project makes a policy recommendation to APS on the most sustainable choice for large-scale energy storage. This project found that compressed air energy storage was the most sustainable option for APS. This considered the impacts of compressed air on the environment, communities, and the costs of this storage option. One important aspect to acknowledge regarding this technology is that in its current form, it does emit some carbon emissions. However, the carbon emissions may have less of an impact if this storage facility can allow APS to use its renewable energy assets most efficiently and continue to use energy from Palo Verde, the nuclear facility in Arizona.
ContributorsRood, Devon (Author) / Romito, Marc (Contributor)
Created2018-04-25
Description
Strategies and interventions have promoted the sustainability of urban communities, but effective communication of these solutions is lacking. Documentation of current solutions tends to be dense and difficult for non-academics to understand. Sustainability scientists and practitioners need ways to meaningfully and intelligibly communicate their experiences to the lay public. This project sought to visually present sustainable community development solutions to address this communication barrier. Members of urban/community gardens in Phoenix and Tempe, Arizona, and Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark, were photographed, interviewed. Their feedback was then examined to assess the degree to which photographs can tell a holistic sustainability story.
The photographs focused on aspects of life and behaviors that have contributed to happiness in local communities. A website was created and a gallery event was mounted for public review and discussion. Gallery attendees and website visitors were asked to complete a survey to assess (1) gained knowledge of sustainability solutions, and (2) how effective a tool photography is as a means of sustainability solutions communication.
This visual medium allowed people think about how to incorporate sustainable community solutions into their own lives and may have changed people’s interest in, and thoughts about, overall sustainability and sustainable solutions. The survey results demonstrated that photographs can successfully communicate sustainability ideas. Specifically, viewers gained an increased awareness of how community and urban gardening can increase happiness, well-being, and sense of community. This visual approach can continue to be used to more successfully communicate additional sustainability solutions ideas and methods to the public.
The photographs focused on aspects of life and behaviors that have contributed to happiness in local communities. A website was created and a gallery event was mounted for public review and discussion. Gallery attendees and website visitors were asked to complete a survey to assess (1) gained knowledge of sustainability solutions, and (2) how effective a tool photography is as a means of sustainability solutions communication.
This visual medium allowed people think about how to incorporate sustainable community solutions into their own lives and may have changed people’s interest in, and thoughts about, overall sustainability and sustainable solutions. The survey results demonstrated that photographs can successfully communicate sustainability ideas. Specifically, viewers gained an increased awareness of how community and urban gardening can increase happiness, well-being, and sense of community. This visual approach can continue to be used to more successfully communicate additional sustainability solutions ideas and methods to the public.
ContributorsRosenstein, Rachael (Author) / Cloutier, Scott (Contributor) / Prosser, Paul (Contributor)
Created2017-11-15
Description
This document contains a feasibility study that explores the necessity, collaborations, and
possible methods of installing a 1 megawatt lithium-ion battery storage facility at San Diego Gas
& Electric’s Century Park campus located in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood in central San
Diego, California. The battery will serve purposes of adding renewable energy to the energy mix,
reducing operations costs via peak shaving, an educational component for the region, and
meeting stringent State of California and California Public Utilities Commission mandates for
both renewable energy and battery storage capacity.
possible methods of installing a 1 megawatt lithium-ion battery storage facility at San Diego Gas
& Electric’s Century Park campus located in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood in central San
Diego, California. The battery will serve purposes of adding renewable energy to the energy mix,
reducing operations costs via peak shaving, an educational component for the region, and
meeting stringent State of California and California Public Utilities Commission mandates for
both renewable energy and battery storage capacity.
ContributorsShamblin, Sandra M. (Writer of accompanying material)
Created2020-05-15
Description
COVID-19 brought so much uncertainty into the world and has molded this project into what it is today. The first project journey that was chosen was meant to show the impact of how much plastic waste was being produced at Starbucks. Then due to COVID-19 yet again, it changed into how much paper waste there was within the State of Washington Department of Licensing (DOL) Business and Professions Division (BPD). DOL BPD is a state agency division that licenses over forty plus professional and business licenses to the residents of Washington state. Due to the pandemic, the project transformed into how the three pillars of sustainability impacts remote work within BPD. BPD is in this new and unique paradigm where the deliverable that was brought forth as this project completed are, “The 9 Benefits of Sustainability through Remote Work” (Appendix D) where this specifically showed DOL why remote work is sustainable and how it should be implemented even further throughout the agency. This list was put together with the benefits that best fit DOL BPD.
ContributorsReynolds, Jordan (Writer of accompanying material)
Created2021-02-11