New Science Center Wins Sustainability Award

Our new Science Center isn’t just an awesome place to visit and learn–it’s also so environmentally friendly that it won an award!

The building won’t open until the end of the year, but it has already won the California Community Colleges Board of Governors Energy and Sustainability Award. The Sustainability Award recognizes projects that are drastically reducing their districts’ carbon footprint and saving taxpayer dollars through lower utility bills.

The three-story, 50,000-foot Science Center will features a rooftop astronomical observation deck, a 55-seat planetarium, expanded biology labs and classrooms, is set to be the first Zero Net Energy building in the district. The building has an all-electric heating and air conditioning system (which prevents the burning of fossil fuels) and will utilize existing campus solar Photovoltaic (PV) power to offset its energy use, promoting clean, green power.

According to Tracy Marcial, District Energy & Sustainability Manager, the CCC Science Center project has set the framework for formally adopting sustainability goals districtwide. During the project’s design phase, targets were developed to create a building that uses energy well below similar benchmark science buildings. “Designing and constructing buildings with sustainability features incorporated from the beginning is the most responsible use of bond funds and reduces the total cost of ownership to the college,” said Marcial.