Student Employment Opportunities

StevensForward Carbon Neutral Assistant

Center for Small Towns

Position Description:

Work in conjunction with Stevens Forward! on Driver #8:
By 2015 Stevens County will be the first carbon neutral county in the world, demonstrating viable models for green housing, neighborhoods, and public buildings.

Serve as a research assistant with Don Reicosky:
 Find, analyze, and cite sources found on-line which discuss carbon neutral initiatives. Focus on quantifying the carbon footprint of Stevens County through calculating carbon emissions from household energy use, travel, food, and waste. We hope to identify the footprint at a variety of levels including individual, household, public and private buildings in the county, farming, up to the cities’ and towns’ footprints in the county. The student position will focus on Stevens County with a special emphasis on Morris.
*Distribute a survey for local residents to complete to calculate household and travel carbon emissions, receive and analyze responses so we can get a Stevens County-specific household average. Work with Don Reicosky to acquire and analyze local energy provider data for Stevens County (Ottertail, Agralite, Centerpoint Energy, other fuel providers).
*Incorporate new data as it becomes available to recognize carbon off-setting techniques being utilized throughout the county – publicize these efforts to encourage others to do the same and use this data when analyzing home energy surveys.
*Work on other carbon neutral initiatives as assigned.

Qualifications/Additional Comments:

Required skills and duties
Applicant must:
*Generate ideas and follow-through to education the Stevens County population about carbon neutral efforts and encourage carbon reduction efforts. This may include presentations in the community, writing newspaper articles, and other outreach efforts.
*Be familiar with Microsoft Office including proficiency in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
*Have strong writing skills.
*Perform internet searches and analyze results for reliability and content, summarize article key points, and record results.
*Be able to perform simple data analysis.

Hours Per Week:

10 hrs wk - Spring Semester

• Arrangement of Hours: 8-4:30
• Preferred Application Procedure(s): on line

Number of Positions Available