Right now the UC Extension website has open enrollment for Winter Quarter 2010. A particular highlight is a course being offered on energy and its future within the State of California. It continues the Environmental Studies x489 series, which began this past fall quarter with a course on sustainability and green building concepts. It was headed by Lindsey Taggart, an energy specialist with the Community Environmental Council (CEC), and I had the pleasure of taking it. This new course covers a broad range of topics related to both energy and energy consumption and is held on the UCSB campus.

I wanted to say a little bit about the course that recently finished and why I recommend this next class. The lecture presentations are general in order to provide an overview with students. Through site visits and guest speakers the topics covered in class are explored in more depth. This past quarter was concerned with green building and specifically the LEED rating system. However there were one to two guest speakers a week that spoke on a variety of topics: building, waste management, sustainable sites, water efficiency, and green materials to name a few. It was this speaker series that really made the class worth it to me, not to mention the group project I was assigned which got me into contact with an interior designer, environmental scientist, and fellow UCSB student. That's another aspect of the class I like, in that individuals from a variety of fields took the course to learn and engage in positive discussion.

This next course will be structured the same as the fall offering with nine classes total. If interested that means a three-hour session once a week at night, in this case Wednesdays, and a field trip every other Saturday. The fee is $275 and there is a textbook, which is a bit of money, but the information presented and contacts you make really help these courses stand out. I know i'll be there, and if you ever decide to sign up let me know.

Link: http://www.unex.els.ucsb.edu/cgi-bin/get_data.pl?function=cls_d&quarter=093&dept=SCIEN&prog=&crs=ENV S X4891