Between the solar panels dotting the college’s parking lots, free student bicycle rentals, the wildly popular Eco Pass, electric vehicle charging stations and the completion of the Mediated Learning Center, De Anza College can’t get enough environmental sustainability.
First, the birthday celebrations. Marking one lap around the sun, De Anza’s Eco Pass turns one this quarter. Happy Birthday!
The Eco Pass, which allows De Anza students to ride all Valley Transit Authority buses and light-rails for free has already been hailed by La Voz as “wild success” and the additional students traveling on VTA buses has encouraged the VTA to start running a Limited 323 bus starting in October, supplementing the overcrowded Line 23.
The Limited 323 will have 28 stops compared to the 94 stops of the Line 23 and will shuttle riders from downtown San Jose to De Anza.
The Media and Learning Center, which has been under construction since 2007, opened this quarter.
The building was designed to receive a platinum rating in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by using as much on-site energy production as possible while creating the smallest carbon footprint, said Donna Jones-Dulin, Associate Vice President of Finance and Educational Resources.
Located on the roof of the center are photovoltac panels and solar-water-panels which create electricity and heat the building’s water using sunlight, primarily lighting provided naturally through skylights and large windows.
The interior of the building is ventilated by a buoyancy system which removes the need for expensive heating and air conditioning.
As Green Building and Design Magazine reported, “The outside air enters the building through an exterior cooling tower, which uses coils to cool the air to about 65 degrees before letting it drop into the building. The cool air sinks, hits the raised floors in the main-floor classrooms, and then escapes through passive openings in the warm, two-story central atrium’s glass ceiling as it heats and rises.”