Clark College’s new STEM Building has a LEED Silver certification. Here are a few environmentally friendly aspects of the building and its construction:

• The building is cooled by water pumped from the local wellfield through a campuswide hydronics (water-based heating and cooling) system. This same water is used to heat the building with help from high-efficiency gas boilers, then is circulated back to irrigate the campus landscaping. This creates a “closed circuit,” where the water is continually pumped from, and then returned to, the land—a system that eliminates waste and reduces energy costs.
• Bike lockers on the lower level and a shower on the first floor encourage bike commuting.
• Bottle-filling stations on each floor allow students and visitors to eschew single-use bottled beverages in favor of reusable drink containers.
• The windows of south wall are made of double-paned glass filled with Argon gas and coated with a low-E value film to reduce the light and heat load. Additionally, metal sunshades block the higher sun during the hotter days of summer, but allow the lowered sun in winter to strike the glass directly and increase available natural lighting and heat. The sunshades also reflect light up into the corridors to reduce the need for artificial lighting during the day.
• Almost 99 percent of the construction waste was recycled.

Photo: Clark College/Hannah Erickson

A crowd applauds the ribbon cutting of the new Firstenberg Family Dental Hygiene Education and Care Center.

The Firstenburg Family Dental Hygiene Education and Care Center officially opened with the cutting of a ribbon during a ceremony on June 17, 2014. About 75 guests joined President Robert K. Knight, dental faculty and students, Clark College trustees and Clark College Foundation board of directors to thank individuals, foundations and groups that provided funding for upgrades and new equipment.

Knight thanked the dental faculty, staff and students for doubling up on lab time and dedicating themselves to the refurbishing process. He noted that schedules were extra demanding—some classes ran from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.—because of space restrictions.

At $1.5 million, The Firstenburg Foundation provided the lead gift for the care center. Knight noted how The Firstenburg Foundation is an example of partnerships that make Clark County and Southwest Washington a better place to live and work.

“The Firstenburg Foundation is supporting enhancements to a facility that helps our students get the experience of working in a modern dental setting. Our students, in turn, are sought-after to fill dental hygiene jobs in the region and beyond. The Firstenburg Foundation, therefore, has a direct impact on the health and welfare of our region and on Clark’s ability to maximize student learning,” he said.

Bill Firstenburg said his father was a stalwart supporter of Clark College and would have been proud of the new facility.

“Some would have called him conservative, but he didn’t mind spending money if he got value out of it. You’ve got value here to the community. The Dental Hygiene program in particular, gives support and care to those who can’t afford it,” he said.

Dental student and All-Washington Academic nominee Amelia Longbons ’14 said an important lesson she learned was the overall health effects proper dental care has on society. “Dental hygiene is about prevention and attaining and keeping good health. This facility helps students learn so we can help improve the health of the community.”

Blake Bowers, the dean of Business and Health Sciences, said Clark’s Dental Hygiene department and its Clark County partners offer $600,000 worth of free dental services to children during its annual Children’s Dental Health Day, in addition to other outreach efforts.

“There is a lot of caring and compassion that occurs within our program at all levels,” he said.

The renovations included adding six more patient chairs, new equipment and technology, paperless charting and an advanced radiology suite. The clinic now complies with federal patient privacy and confidentially requirements so that they can continue to serve thousands of community members.

Nearly $3.3 million in donations from a variety of entities—including The Firstenburg Foundation, Roy and Virginia Andersen Endowment, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, John A. and Helen M. Cartales Foundation and many others—made the renovations possible.

Upgrades were necessary in order for Clark to keep pace with the demand for workforce readiness and federal patient privacy rules in the dental hygiene field.

The Oregon-based company, A-dec, built custom-made work stations including modular chairs, cabinets, lights and computer monitor mounts for the space.

Clark’s Dental Hygiene program provides education and access to oral health care to low-income residents. The clinic fills 3,200 appointments for 2,000 patients annually. Students serve the community by participating in oral health programs in area schools and caring for patients at the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington, Clark County Skills Center, and Share, a Vancouver-based homeless service.

See more photos on Flickr

A version of this story originally appeared on the Clark College Foundation website.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

Environmental Biology students take a break before planting a Chinese Pistache in Scarpelli Circle to smile with Instructional and Classroom Support Technician Tim Carper, who organizes the annual tree planting at Clark.

As Kermit the Frog once sang, it’s not easy being green. Admittedly, Kermit probably wasn’t talking about shoveling dirt in a cold, quintessentially Pacific Northwest drizzle. But members of the Clark College and greater Vancouver community banded together on November 6 to do just that during the college’s annual tree planting. These plantings help maintain the main campus’s arboretum, as well as its status as a Tree Campus USA.

The group that gathered under rainy skies to plant trees included students from Clark’s Environmental Biology class; members of the Clark College Environmental Club; participants in the Washington Conservation Corps; members of the college’s Tree Advisory Committee; and representatives from Vancouver’s Urban Forestry. Staff from Clark College Facilities Services also assisted in the project.

Volunteers clear Scarpelli Circle of non-native plants and prepare it for having a new tree planted in its center.

The group planted four trees. Two of them–an American Yellowwood and a Chinese Pistache–were donated by Urban Forestry and are new species to the arboretum. The group also planted a Knobcone Pine; this tree was actually an offshoot from an older tree on campus that died and was removed. “So technically, it is a new tree to campus as well, because the parent tree had died and been removed from the inventory,” said Instructional and Classroom Support Technician Tim Carper, who has organized the tree planting and Tree Campus USA activities at Clark for the past four years.

Carper noted that the Yellowwood and Pistache weren’t just new species to the campus–they were entirely new genera. “We are very close to having trees representing every genus that will reasonably grow in our climate and is available to us,” he said. “That has been kind of the guideline for adding to the arboretum.”

The fourth tree, a Snake-Bark Maple with colorful leaves and bark, was appropriately enough planted near Frost Arts Center.

 Photos: Clark College/Hannah Erickson