Engineers Without Borders

2-13-07 General Meeting

February 13, 2008 at 8:52 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

Feburary 13th, 2008, 7:00pm

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I.Travel Team Selection – Jessica

The team is as follows:

Alfonso Jimenez-Pedro

Malia Kupillas

Nick Moses

Kelly Kibler

Michelle Adlong

Araceli Carlos

Janice Keeley

II. Officer Elections

Scheduled for the 2nd meeting of spring term. We are planning on doing online voting. You must be a paid member, so make sure that you register with birdie or nick.

III. The biodiesel Partnership initiative

The partnership was approved. There is currently a group preparing to go back to Washington DC to apply for an EPA grant.

IV. Other Projects

• Wind Project
  They have an idea for the wind turbines that they would like to mount and the buildings they would like to use. They have annemometers ready to be rented.

V. Julie Clark from the Organic Growers Club.

What is Organic Agriculture? The main point is that is puts equal amounts of energy into the system as it would get out. Current conventional agriculture emphasizes the marketing and business behind the farming.

What does the Organic Growers Club do? They are a volunteer student-run farm that grows over 40-crops, totally drip-irrigation system, that believe you should love what you eat. They make all their money from proceeds made from their vegetables. They generally have an acre out of their 3.5 acres in production. They have Thursday work parties during the work season to have people weed, harvest etc.

They have special training available for volutneers (tractors, tillers, seeders, etc). They have farm tours. They have ground available for special projects.

Annually they develop plant bed plans so to keep track of where they plant things each year. THey rotate their crops so that the plants are feeding the soil. They have 6 types of plants that run in rotation; Legumes, brassicas, heavy feeders, light feeders, solanaceous, and alliums.

Some interesting systems they have on hand. THey have an aquacultura irrigation system that lets fish add their “fertilizer” to the water. Their “chicken tractor” is where they put up a fence and loose a few chickens to fertilize the soil.