Afternoon concurrent track 3: Green curricula at UNLV

AFTERNOON CONCURRENT TRACK 3: GREEN CURRICULA AT UNLV Moderator Carolyn Yucha Student Union Room 213 Tom Jones, Ken Teeters – Incorporating Sustainability into a Hospitality Management Curriculum Abstract: For the past 15 years, faculty members in the Harrah College of Hotel Administration who teach Facilities Management (HMD 395) have incorporated a sustainability management component in this required course. The concepts of sustainability and global climate change are introduced through readings and multi-media. The concept of Triple Bottom Line is presented and is applied to almost every component in the course. Students are assigned a variety of semester-long service-learning projects that incorporate these concerns. This session will feature slides from past activities and will show how to establish similar sustainability components in other hospitality management programs. There will also be a short discussion on how the Harrah Hotel College is currently expanding and coordinating sustainability throughout its curricular and extracurricular activities. Barbara St. Pierre Schneider, Nancy Menzel, Lori Candela, Yu Xu, Sally Miller – Integrating Urban Sustainability into a Doctoral Nursing Program Abstract: According to the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), people “are the ultimate resource” of sustainability, but to be effective people must be physically and mentally healthy. However, threats to health are of a major concern with global urban population growth and natural and man-made environmental hazards. The most economical and successful approach to counteract these threats is to promote and protect the health of people residing in the urban environment. Nurses have a rich history of working with groups and individuals in diverse urban environments on a wide range of health issues and are well positioned to play a critical role by discovering actions that promote health, minimizing the risk for and consequences of disease and illness, and communicating these efforts to citizens, employers, and policy makers. To accomplish this end, urban sustainability needs to be integrated into nursing education at the doctoral level. This presentation will consist of four parts: an overview of the evidence supporting nursing as a key discipline in urban sustainability; a description of the initial steps to integrate sustainability into the doctoral nursing curriculum; a presentation of the curriculum; and a discussion of the barriers encountered in developing this curriculum along with solutions to overcoming the barriers. Scott Nowicki – Commuting to UNLV: The Daily Lesson and Action in Sustainability Abstract: There are a number of programs operating in Las Vegas that have the look and feel of community efforts aimed at making life and business more sustainable, such as recycling, alternative energy, and trip reduction programs, but a serious effort is needed to gauge their effectiveness and plan for further development of these programs. The transportation system is an example of a potential significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, decrease in overall system costs, and increase in quality of life for residents. The Regional Transportation Commission’s plans for development of a comprehensive bike network, transit, and alternative mode integration are only likely to be successful if travel habits are viewed against the backdrop of the complex social/physical layout of the city. Participants in UNLV’s 400/600 GIS course are taking a systematic look at the way we use the transportation system in Las Vegas, as well as the physical layout and limitations of the bike and pedestrian network. Sociology students are focusing on the economic and social characteristics of the bike and public transportation system, while Geoscience students are mapping discrepancies between the publicly available map and the streets network. Using student researchers, these components are being brought together to discern what factors are limiting the Las Vegas metropolitan area from providing a sustainable way for people to get around

Measurement Techniques for Estimating Local and Total Duct Leakages in Residential Buildings

The paper proposes two measurement techniques for estimating the duct leakage in residential buildings. The first technique determines the “local” leakages using commercially available zone bags and it is called the zone bag-based measurement technique. Zone bags are used to block the flow of air in ducts so that portions of the duct can be isolated and pressurized separately to measure the respective leakages. The thrust of this technique is to locate where these potential leaks are in the duct system and try to provide more cost effective ways to remedy those leaks than what is available currently. The other technique determines the “total” supply and return leakages using a simple model and it is called the model-based measurement technique. The model is based on pressure drop measurements between the return and supply sides. The proposed techniques were evaluated and validated at the air duct leakage laboratory which has two different air duct configurations and a wide range of leakage levels controlled by holes created at several locations of duct work. Experimental results indicate that the zone bag-based measurement technique estimates the local leakage accurately with a mean absolute difference of 0.26% of total air-handler flow compared to the baseline. It can be inferred that this method gives a better estimate of the total leakage based on the location of the leak than the duct pressurization method that uses the half plenum pressure technique. The results also show that the model-based measurement technique is a good alternative when one cannot use a physical barrier between the return and supply sides. It was found that the total supply or return side leakage was estimated with a mean absolute difference of 0.6% compared to the baseline technique. The future research step is field testing techniques to examine how one can more efficiently sample the duct system by judicially sectioning off the duct at a few points to obtain localized leakage information and obtain enough information to correct leak problems

Preliminary Commissioning and Energy Audit of a UNLV Building

A partial commissioning and energy audit were performed on a recently constructed building at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Although the building is relatively new and has passed all building code requirements, it has not undergone a formal commissioning process to check that the mechanical systems, such as the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), were performing at optimally designed conditions. The building is approximately 35,000 ft2 spread over three floors. Thefollowing components and systems were inspected, tested, and/or analyzed during the project: rooftop units, ducting flow rates, VAV units, room supply air flows, thermostats, temperature control sensors, some preliminary aspects of IAQ, some aspects of lighting, hot water heating, occupancy and occupant perceptions, and operating parameters. The building chosen has an energy management system (EMS), and hence its data can be reasonably evaluated. In addition to the inspections of the above items in the above areas, an energy use simulation was conducted using RESHEAT to test the effects of changing thermostat and hours of operation settings on the predicted energy savings in the building. The simulation showed that with the proposed changes, as much as 16.0 percent reduction of energy use could be achieved. The proposed changes resulting from this study were deemed to minimally impact the interior environment and occupants