A Sustainability Analysis of Team Orange County’s Home Life Events During the U.S. Department of Energy: 2015 Solar Decathlon

This project will look at the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2015 Solar Decathlon and examine Chapman University’s involvement in Team Orange County. This project will further examine the Home Life sub-competition by studying the sustainability of the components of the two Home Life dinners, the movie night party, and the energy budget associated with each of the three events. Reviewing team documents and collecting data from affiliated team members will give us a wholesome overview of the efforts taken to achieve sustainability for the dinners and movie night. We found various practices were incorporated in the menu-concepts for the three nights, during which these events were hosted, which integrated sustainable practices to embody the goal of the U.S. DOE’s Solar Decathlon. Finally, the overall sustainability of these three hosted events will be correlated to the net-zero nature of the home, Casa del Sol, and state the impacts of these dinners in regards to the average meal and movie night to understand the sustainability of this sub-competition

Chapman University 2016 Environmental Audit: Residence Life Dining Services Equipment

Chapman University accommodates over 1700 student meal plans per day through the on-campus dining services provided by Sodexo Restaurant Services. The commercial-grade kitchens found in the Randall Dining Commons (RDC) of Sandhu Conference Center are frequently used to prepare food for students for every meal, seven days a week. The RDC kitchen facility has staff working around the clock and high consumption electrical, water, and gas appliances constantly running to parallel the high demand. The frequent use of commercial kitchen appliances results in an enormous consumption of energy and water resources leading to comparably high utility bills. Measuring the energy and water usage is a crucial component for this audit and for future audits to take into consideration, in terms of the responsible and sustainable use of finite resources. This portion of the 2016 Environmental Audit quantifies areas of mechanical and operational inefficiencies and provides recommendations for mitigation of wasted energy and water resources from the RDC commercial kitchen. kWh meters, water volume meters, and thermal meters were placed on refrigeration, heating, and sanitation equipment to understand the resource consumption patterns and were further analyzed for operational improvements, retrofits, and environmentally friendly upgrades. Recommendations on new appliance purchases include Simple-Payback and Return on Investment financial calculations to examine the cost deferred through lowered utility bills and acquired rebates. Additionally, 2016 Environmental Audit survey data was collected from kitchen staff to provide insight on behavioral practices and future educational opportunities to aid in improving sustainable workplace habits

Ocean Acidification and Predator-Prey Relations: Correlating Disruption of Predator Avoidance with Chemosensory Deficits

One of the most destructive effects of global climate change is the increased carbon sequestering and consequential acidification of our world’s oceans. The impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms are still relatively unknown, especially effects on behavioral ecology. Avoiding predation has emerged from recent behavioral ecology literature as a critical feature in the life history of a wide array of animal species; experiments on marine fishes suggest acidic water compromises their predator-avoidance abilities. Recent assays in our lab suggest predator-induced behavior is reduced by weakly acidic water. These experiments do not address the potential factor of generalized malaise caused by acidic water. To test this malaise hypothesis, I examined whether predator-induced reduction in feeding, previously documented by the Wright lab, is eliminated by acidic water using the following treatments: ambient artificial seawater (ASW) acidic ASW ambient predator-scented ASW acidic predator-scented ASW The malaise hypothesis predicts predator odor in acidic water would decrease feeding furthermore because the acidic water would sicken the subject. By contrast, if acidic water has a more subtle effect on hermit crab’s ability to detect its predator, the hermit crabs’ feeding in the presence of acidified water and predator odor should increase feeding rates to be comparable to ambient predator-free water. Preliminary experiments confirm slightly acidic water compromises predator detection, resulting in significantly more food consumption; these results discredit the generalized malaise hypothesis. This trend indicates global climate change could have significant and previously unanticipated impacts on predator-prey relations in marine communities