Impact

Shaver’s Creek receives grant to install sustainable technologies

Grant is one of several efforts made to include eco-friendly elements during construction

Construction workers install structural insulated panels at Shaver's Creek Environmental Center Credit: Justin Raymond / Penn State. Creative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Shaver’s Creek’s commitment to include eco-friendly features while it undergoes major renovations and expansion has been helped with a grant from a local nonprofit organization.

Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center was awarded a $35,000 grant from the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund to install sustainable energy technologies in the center’s new construction. The grant will be used for variant refrigerant flow HVAC systems that will help Shaver’s Creek achieve LEED certification.

“Shaver's Creek strives to connect people to each other and the natural world in all of our programming and now with our facility design,” said Shaver’s Creek director Mark McLaughlin. “We feel it’s important for our center to model sustainable solutions for the thousands of school children, University students and community members who will visit our site now and for the generation to come.”

“WPPSEF is pleased that it could support the expansion and renovation of Penn State’s Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center,” said WPPSEF director Joel Morrison. “It represents a project that demonstrates new emerging energy efficient technologies within a LEED-certified building and complements Shaver’s Creek’s environmental education programs very well.”

Construction began at Shaver’s Creek, located in Petersburg, Huntingdon County, in March and is expected to be completed by January 2018. Penn State’s outdoor field lab and nature center is undergoing improvements and additions, including 3,200 square feet of new classroom space to better connect people to the outdoors, build community relationships and enhance educational opportunities for Penn State students, local school children and community members.

The grant is one of several efforts made by Shaver’s Creek to include sustainable elements during and after the construction process. Additional features include reducing the overall average water consumption by 20 percent through plumbing features, recycling or salvaging up to 75 percent of construction and demolition related waste, utilizing locally-sourced wood and other products from Shaver’s Creek and Stone Valley Forest, and improving efficiency through improved insulation and lighting and heating systems.

Shaver’s Creek reaches more than 70,000 Pennsylvanians each year through school programs and summer camps, team-building activities, festivals and public workshops, and traveling naturalist programs. The center also impacts more than 2,300 Penn State students through credit and non-credit programs, and works with six colleges at the University Park campus.

The West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that invests in the deployment of sustainable energy technologies that benefit West Penn Power ratepayers in Pennsylvania. WPPSEF investments are focused in three broad categories: deployment of sustainable and clean energy technologies; deployment of energy efficiency and conservation technologies; and facilitating economic development, environmental betterment and public education as they relate to sustainable energy deployment in the WPP service region.

Visit the Shaver’s Creek website for more information. 

Last Updated September 25, 2017

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