These “matches” are part of an ongoing exhibit on Dexter Lawn this week. Each match represents one British thermal unit (BTU). 100 BTUs are required to make a piece of toast.
From Left to right: Sydney Boman, Emily Mattevi, Daniel Rakers, Mark Friedman and Riley Carey. All part of the Marketing Communications Team for Central Coast Creative.
Suha Saya
[follow id=”suhasaya”]
A world-wide energy movement is reaching out to Cal Poly this November to educate students, faculty and staff on ways to find a rational middle for sustainable energy for the future.
Rational Middle — a web video series sponsored by Shell Oil Company — is working with a group of Cal Poly students on their senior project, Central Coast Creative, to bring attention to the issue of clean energy for the future.
Gregory Kallenberg, the director and producer who has produced two seasons worth of 7-10 minute long episodes, holds tours across the country consisting of discussion panels, town hall meetings and screenings in hopes of getting people to talk about energy and how the world consumes it.
Kallenberg began the web series in hopes to find a rational middle between the ideal world of zero fossil fuels and zero emissions and our modern fossil-fuel, oil-based society, business administration senior and Central Coast Creative marketing team member Riley Carey said.
“Kallenberg’s goal is all about arriving at a literal rational middle,” Carey said. “It’s where both parties can meet and decide on a realistic compromise to arrive at and pursue as a middle ground for our energy future.”
But before a compromise can be made, Rational Middle hopes to educate all those who are unaware of current energy consumption and encourages them to join the conversation.
“Our goal is to spark an energy discussion within our campus and the Cal Poly community so people are more aware of where they are getting their energy from and are encouraged to be more fuel conscious,” Carey said.
“We want people to really kind of investigate for themselves on how to be more sustainable … and we hope they can educate themselves through the Rational Middle energy series,” he said.
Central Coast Creative — the senior project marketing industry formed by 30 students within the Orfalea College of Business — hopes to spread on-campus awareness of Rational Middle for the next ten weeks. With a separate department for promotions, events, data collection, data analysis and strategy management, Central Coast Creative is helping promote Rational Middle’s events on Dexter Lawn, at the Farmer’s Market and the on-campus screening. Central Coast Creative has also done survey research and analyzed how students consume energy, business administration senior and Central Coast Creative Marketing Communications Coordinator Mark Friedman said.
One of the biggest things they’re trying to do on campus is tap into the engineering department at Cal Poly, Friedman said.
“With environmental engineering and electrical engineering majors, we have a lot of engineering power here … they’re going to be policy leaders of the future, and they’re going to be the people discussing how to conserve energy in the future.”
Rational Middle will host their first informational session at a booth on Dexter Lawn on Thursday, Nov. 7 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. They will be promoting their screening and sharing information on how to sign up, how to get involved and will be giving away free items such as T-shirts and water bottles to people who like their Facebook page.
Rational Middle will also have a booth at Farmer’s Market downtown to raise awareness on the screening. The screening of Rational Middle on campus will include a panel discussion with director and producer Kallenberg and a discussion about the film moderated by a Shell representative.
The event will be held Nov. 19 in Business (building 3), room 111. Since Rational Middle only has space for 65 people at the event, Central Coast Creative encourages people to come to Dexter Lawn on Thursday to find out information on how to sign up for the screening beforehand.
“It’s one thing for us to say go visit the website, join our social media site, but it’s another to be in a room with all the people on this panel who are discussing these topics that Rational Middle is presenting to the public,” business administration senior and Central Coast Creative Marketing Team and Communications member Emily Mattevi said.
“To watch these videos with Gregory and all these other speakers is going to create a whole new atmosphere and really get the point across about meeting ‘in the middle’ — this idea that Rational Middle is really trying to promote,” Mattevi said
Carey hopes Cal Poly students attend the events and information sessions to realize the significance in finding a compromise for sustainable energy with modern day fossil fuel and oil-based energy.
“There’s never going to be any progress made in energy unless we reach that middle ground,” Carey said. “Students should care because Rational Middle is evidence-based and presents where we can actually, realistically head with our energy future.”