Kiitos - Thank you all!

It was a great experience! Big thanks to all who took part in our first SGT Summer School! Hope everyone went back home with new ideas, new thoughts and lots of good memories! This certainly was a learning experience for all of course staff too - hopefully we are able to organize this next year again.

Aalto University sustainable development and future campus plans can be followed online. Stay tuned and stay in touch! http://www.aalto.fi/en/about/sustainability/

Underground sustainability

60 metres to the bottom from here.

Last week after the course we visited a fairly interesting place with a few of the SGT course participants. Did you know that Helsinki has a vast network of man-made tunnels and caves housing much of the industrial infrastructure, including huge district heating and cooling systems? The city of Helsinki even has an underground master plan.
 
Part of this subterranean world was our destination. Located 30 meters below the Uspenski Cathedral is a data center owned by IT company Academica and developed in collaboration with energy company Helsingin Energia.

The cave in the bedrock.

The revolutionary thing about this data center is that it uses district cooling to cool down the computers, while the waste heat produced by the servers is piped via a heat pump into the district heating network. When the underground hall is full of computers it produces enough heat to heat up to 500 large single-family houses in Helsinki.
  

Each of the server rack units has its own control system.

 

Currently majority of the data centers in the world are putting the heat they generate into the atmosphere. Eco-efficient computer halls like this one can save significant amounts of energy by actually recycling it.

In 2010 Academica’s server center was chosen as the most energy efficient and it was given the Green Enterprise IT Award.

REPORTS and POSTERS for each work case

You can read and download all the reports and posters made by each work group here:
http://www.box.net/shared/2dz3uuckpm1bnx516s4t
They all look great, don't they? 

The time when course is coming to an end is always the time for reflections
about what the students have learned during the course. So lets see what have you sad after first week of course:

_Better planning group work
_I have learned about Aalto University
_About Aalto sustainability objectives and goals
_I learned that you can compost with a machine
_Good interpersonal skill to have for my career
_How to make a work plan
_Importance of sustainability
_I learned what is sustainable campus and some of its aspects
_Be more patient, Dutch are very direct :)
_A fresh view of sustainability, more awareness (during the course, way of thinking, tell about the course to other people...)
_I learned something different from China, specifically in discussing with group mates in how to make a work plan
_Working with the people and listen different point of view

Lectures could be helpful and inspiring, workshops could bring interaction and dynamics into work, although it hasn't to be like that, but group work is always interesting. So what have you learned from your group members?


_Everybody is different.
Different views could be better than mine.
_I learned to notice cultural differences,
before that I didn't care
_How to keep group work going and efficient while trying to create a common understanding.
_I learned that people from different countries/backgrounds can work together even though we don't really know each other.
_I have learned some new skills for Power point presentations and graphic design.
_The difference between us and possibility to work together.
_Different and valuable approaches how to organize work presentations. 

Workshop IV:
Publishing and spurring for the final presentation

Mid - Review day!

After one week of course each group presented results of its work to the clients.

A lot of new ideas, proposals, possible solutions...

A lot of questions and suggestions too...




And a lot of work still remains to be done!



Today:

10:30-11:30 Info break:Make It Fair (Eetti ry)
11:30-12:00 Aalto IT
12:00-12:15 Closing the week

12:15-13:15 Lunch

14:00-15:00 visit to Reuse Center

Here are two lectures from HSL:

1.HSL Helsinki Region Transport

2.Public transport planning guidelines for HSL's transport services