So...we had the introduction of all the group projects today! It was an exciting thing leading up to it because we don't know what group project ideas will be picked until this presentation by the student on the committee give it. I was hoping for a "wow" factor from one of the projects and I never got it from 18 accepted ideas. It's kind of a bummer...You hope that your group project is something you're really interested in since you're stuck with it for a year and it consumes your life, but at least there were none that really went "ugh, definitely don't want that one."
The one I'm feeling the strongest about I have a feeling might be pretty popular. There weren't many water/marine related projects. There were really 2 strictly marine ones (I don't count invasive species on the Channel Islands as marine!): one about aquaculture in La Paz, Mexico and the other about whale ship strikes in the Santa Barbara Channel. Oh, there is another one about heritage rights to marine resources and trying to come up with a model and impact that cultural heritages have on resources and this uses the MLPA. That was kind of interesting, but I'm not jazzed about the faculty advisor. LoL Anyway, I have a feeling the aquaculture one might be popular because it's in La Paz. :P For me, of all the topics, it relates the most to the marine environment and is something I'm actually interested in. Whale strikes deals with migratory patterns and shipping lanes and that just doesn't interest me all that much. Also, there was really only one water resources project (looking at mercury and other substances in the Cache Creek Basin). So the water/marine people are pretty much out of luck. There were some other ones like life cycle assessment on clothing, solar power technology, invasive plants, sustainability of Gills Onions, and some on carbon emissions and greening practices (high-rise buildings, senior community, food service, etc). There are also three Eco-E projects. So they're basically entrepreneurship projects that are also green related.
There was one that was pretty interesting. There's an organization called the Environmental Coalition of Faith Communities (Eco-faith) and it is basically looking at mobilizing churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other religious communities to mitigate local causes of global warming in their buildings and practices. So the project would be to look at ways that religious groups can mitigate, implement, and educate about green behavior and be a driving force since faith-based communities influence human behaviors. It's definitely out of the box. It'll be interesting to see if the project actually goes forward or not.
Anyway, I need to pick my top 4 by next Monday. Might pair up with a friend to try and get onto the same project, but we'll see. Our scores for our top 4 get put through an optimization program like Solver. I still don't know how to use Solver and I went through a 4 hour workshop on it. Well, that's not true. I know what Solver is SUPPOSED to do and I might be able to jimmy my way through it, but it'd take a LONG time. LoL
With that...Time for me to get back to writing my papers. I have 3 papers due next Friday...
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