Group 3---katie lau, katherien chu, joanna ng

The most important thing in the garden is the soil; if without good soil there will be no good products. There are 3 main types of soil: clay, sandy and loam. Clay soils have small particles that hold moisture and nutrients. They warm up and cool down slowly. Sandy soils have larger particles. They change temperature, are light in texture, and drain water and nutrients quickly. Adding compost to sandy soil helps it hold moisture and conserve nutrients. Loam is a soil type that is the combination of sandy and clay soil therefore it is also an organic soil. It holds nutrients and moisture, and yet drains well. Most likely we will want to work with loam soil. We can get this soil in Home depot or wal mart.

There are some plant that is easy to take care of, like Boston ivy and Morning glory. We are planning to put a fence onto the wall and plant them on the ground, and they will grow very healthy. They are both perennial plants, which means they can live more then two years. Then the OCADer can enjoy the beautiful view that ivy and morning glory created.

Organic Fertilizers VS Lab-made Fertilizers

Organic fertilizers are by products or the remains of natural things. These by products range from manure, to animal blood. These products may sound scary or disgusting but they are a part of the cycle of life. Some of these organic fertilizers can be found at home, something we would throw out, one of which is egg shells. We can sprinkle egg shells onto the soil of our plants to help fertilize them. Organic fertilizers can be used as nutrients for the plants and can help them grow. When we use Organic Fertilizers we improve the amount of minerals that are in the soil, making the soil more capable of holding water for the plants. The organic fertilizers provides more places for micro organisms to grow, so they help break down the nutrients in the soil, thus increasing soil quality. The organic fertilizers make for stronger soil structures, resulting in more oxygen getting into the soil. The organic fertilizers also are slow to have their nutrients leached away.

Lab-made fertilizers may have higher concentrations of nutrients, but that’s all they have. They also costly.The Lab-made fertilizers usually cannot provide all the things that Organic fertilizers do. The worst of the things that Lab-made fertilizers do is they do not prevent leaching as much as Organic fertilizers. When nutrients are leached away into the water supply they have many adverse effects on the amphibious creatures. The chemicals in plant fertilizers also help algae grow.. When algae grows uncontrollably it takes up a lot of oxygen in the water, because plants need to breath too. When this happens, the fish in the water end up dying because they don’t have enough oxygen. When there is too much algae it blocks out the sun and other amphibious creatures die too.

Organic Pesticides VS Lab-made Pesticides

When we use pesticides to kill bugs we affect the natural cycle of life. When we use Lab-made pesticides we are killing all the bugs in the area. These pesticides kill all of the bugs all right, but they are killing the bugs that help our plants grow. Insects help stimulate plant growth by drinking nectar or by pollinating the plants. Lab-made pesticides also seep into the soil and cause pollute the drinking water. Pesticides also are harmful to pets and animals so it is not good to use Lab-made pesticides. Organic Pesticides wont affect other organisms and they wont pollute the environment.

We can make organic pesticides easily many ways. We can use exhausted ground coffee beans by leaving it out in the sun and stirring it everyday for ten days, after that we can use it to kill insects by sprinkling it into the soil. The coffee beans can also be left in the sun for 3 or 4 days, then mixed with soil to produce pest repelling soil. This is because the caffeine in coffee beans destroys the insects nervous systems, so the insects will stay away from it. This is evident in coffee farms, coffee farms have very little insects because of the effect caffeine has on them. Another thing that can be used to kill pests are garlic, pepper, onion, and ginger. One or some of these can be added to a small amount of soap water to kill germs and fungus.

We are also planning to form a club name Green Club. Students in OCAD can join this group. In this group, you will learn some knowledge of environment, how to plant flowers and vegetables, learn how to make organic fertilizer and pesticide. Moreover, we will create some events, for example, in Christmas, students could plant ever-green, Christmas trees, and decorate them. The knowledge that students learn not only apply for OCAD but also their house, or even the community. It is because through the learning process, they might interest in planting stuff, so they would willing to plant stuff maybe in their front yard or backyard.

Improve OCAD

how to improve the sidewalk and crosswalk at OCAD?

Issues:
the sidewalk is a little too much stuff, like the bike racks and sometime there will be a lots of smoker standing there to smoke.

crosswalk, is working quite well at OCAD, however the crosswalk sign is a little bit too high. Driver sometimes does not pay attention if the sign is flashing or not, it will be dangerous cause if the driver didnt see the light and pedestrian cross the road without knowing it.

Solution:
to make people interact with the sidewalk not just standing there and making a "traffic jam". maybe we can ask school to find a better place to place the bike racks, so that we may have some sidewalk art sale at OCAD. and interact with each other and the sidewalk

for the crosswalk if the crosswalk light is too high for the driver, maybe can try to put the light on the side.

Katherine Chu- Exterior: Garden & Ambience

The area that my group is doing is the exterior environments. The area that I am going to discuss are the gardens and ambiance.

Due to the reality of climate change people want to have a greener environment and cities to live in, as well as slow down global warming. One of the world's greenest cities is Chicago. Fifteen years ago, Chicago had started transforming themselves into a environmentally friendly city. In order to achieve the goal, Chicago has created a Green Building Agenda that carries out a new direction to the design, construction, and operation of public buildings that help to create healthy, high quality structures, which is environmentally responsible. This action will help improve occupants' health and lower the number of resources being used to build and maintain the building. In order to build up an ambience of‘green’ in the city, they have moved the garden from the ground to the roof. A green roof is a veneer landscape over the traditional roof, it contains plants and soil and other medium to helps insulate, reduce heat and retain storm water.

Here is the link that show how the Chicago green roof look likes.

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=u4i4woSrYIY

Other than the green roof used create the atmosphere of ‘green’, the café also helps to create a greener city. Most of cafés in Chicago have open eating areas that are called sidewalk cafes, it makes the street have a more cordial ambience. People on the street can see people having wonderful meals and carrying casual conversations, while on the flip side the people who are eating are not embarrass to let people see them having meals. This creates a feeling of being at home while you are on the street, it is because you wouldn't mind your family seeing the way you eat or sit, since you have a special relationship with them. So neither the people on the street or in the café, will mind seeing each other, this is because the open area creates a borderless ambience where every person on the street is treated as family. In addition, many of the sidewalk cafés have no parking spaces beside them, since the cars are off the street it forces people to walk and drive less.

I am doing the research on exterior environments, and the parts that I have to research are paving, sidewalk and cross walk. I do the research on the city of chicago, the greenest city in North America. In Chicago, the government provide a very nice environment for people to get out and use the public space. Such as they will have a program called sidewalk cafe, which is to let the restaurant to extend their place outside to the sidewalk, to let costumer sit outside the restaurant and enjoy the weather. Therefore it will make a great use of the sidewalk. And for the cross walk, I find in Japan there is a very smart way to save up people time. I found a video on youtube that shows how smart the cross walk works for people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGKnGthGK4M