COMS 463, Fall 2008

Chi Chan, a former CSL student, researched the eBIKE for her community service-learning project in fall 2008 for Communications Studies (COMS) 463. In studying its benefits and downfalls, he also documented the ways in which pollution affects the city of Calgary. 

Even though the eBike doesn’t ride very fast (it’s only able to go about 50km/hour), Chi Chan implies that the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to the eBike.

Firstly it does not require gasoline as it runs on an electric motor, and secondly, it runs on a rechargeable battery. "By substituting the use of gasoline driven vehicles with eBIKES," suggests Chan in his report, "the environment would benefit from reduction of greenhouse gases, use of natural resources, and less noise pollution."  

Chan, throughout the report, highlights a certain urgency in addressing the current environmental problems plaguing our globe. His passion for his study of the eBIKE for his CSL project is evident. 

My team member, Ann Pham, was actually the one who first discovered Chi's assignment in the folder of documents our team inherited from former CSL students.  She chose Chi's assignment to profile, edit and publish on her COMS 463 blog assignment in Winter 2010. 

In response to the eBIKE CSL project, Ann wrote, "one very empowering feature of CSL is that the work we produce throughout the process never gets discarded – unlike that paper you wrote for your history class. The documents we write stick around and are often used as tools to help the next generation of CSL students learn. That’s how I learned about this innovative, fun, and environmentally friendly way to travel: the eBIKE."

Through this article, Chi's hopes are now realized.

COMS 463, Fall 2008

Joelle Despins, a former CSL student, researched transportation and the environment for her community service-learning project in fall 2008 for Communications (COMS) 463. She similarly looked at many different modes of eco-friendly transportation for her CSL project.

In speaking specifically to U of C students, she writes in her final report, "we all have to get to school somehow. Whatever way we get there, we can choose our mode of transportation. Most often, people choose the easiest and quickest way to get to school. And for the majority of people, this means driving in a car."

Diving into the importance of preserving the environment, she highlights six benefits for students commuting to and from school in eco-friendly ways. Available means are carpooling, walking, taking the C-train, and biking, among others. 

Benefit #1) It saves money (and who wouldn’t
want to save on gas and parking?)

Benefit #2) It helps to sustain the life of your
vehicle (you’ll likely not need to take
it in for maintenance as often)

Benefit #3) It helps you feel good about yourself
(you’ll know that you’re doing your
part to reduce global warming!)

Benefit #4) It can prolong your life (you can get
healthy and avoid one of the leading
causes of death in Canada: car accidents)

Benefit #5) Its for your kids (you don’t want
future generation(s) to bear the brunt of this accumulating environmental problem)

Benefit #6) It should be done because you can
(you [U of C students] have a U-Pass, use it!)

Joelle goes into much more detail than this--you can read more in the attached document.

She concludes her report with writing about the need for these incentives to hit individuals close to home. If they are "personally beneficial," people will "want to behave sustainably," she affirms.