Overview of Services for Education & Outreach
Sustainability for all the places between the buildings.
Standards & Document Review & Creation
Fact Sheets: I have excellent writing and interpretive skills and can either custom create a fact sheet or help you customize your message to your audience. I have a reputation for being able to break down complex ideas into more simple, understandable material and will bring a unique perspective to your outreach efforts. Publications I have collaborated on are available on my Publications & Downloads page.

Modeling Examples & Tools: I can provide you with modeling examples or create tools for you. Here's an example of a modeling tool in Excel for OSU Extension to model rain gardens and stormwater planters in Western Oregon that I worked on. (I wrote the narrative on this page, too, so that the web designer could make it pretty.)

Green Building & Green Site Certifications: I can provide feedback on what practices are cost-effective to implement and will have the most synergies for sustainability. I commented on Earth Advantage's "Commercial Building Program" update to help them set standards for Silver, Gold, and Platinum certification.
Trainings

I've presented and taught many times in the last 6 years to developers, planners, scientists, architects, landscape architects, engineers, contractors, maintenance staff, college students, and homeowners at governmental agencies and non-profit trainings, engineering and environmental conferences, colleges and universities, professional membership organizations, and more.

In choosing topics and approaches, I've made an effort to fill the gap that other classes out there in the world have left. All classes can be offered as a 1-hour overview, but the most benefit from them comes when more time is available for in-depth explanations, discussions, and to put the ideas into practice with learning activities. The focus of these trainings is to weave inter-related practices together in meaningful ways so that participants can move forward with more sustainable choices and fewer unintended consequences.

Here's the short list. Click on each on to navigate immediately to the one that interests or... scroll away and browse them all or... download a pdf of Class Offerings.

General sustainable site classes:

Classes specifically geared towards rain gardens, stormwater planters, swales, and green streets:

Sustainable Principles for Land Development
Duration: 1 – 2 hours

This is an introduction on strategies to incorporate sustainability in land development projects. Understanding how air, water, soil, and vegetation and how current practices impact their benefit to us will help designers and decision makers choose better

alternatives. We will answer the question, “What is sustainable stormwater?” and discuss asmattering of best management practices and their synergistic benefit in meeting other sustainable goals. This class can be, and often is, used as the introduction for the rest of the following classes.

Sustainable Site Master Planning
Duration: 1 – 8 hours

Sustainable planning is a process of optimizing opportunities and constraints through a collaborative process. Learning to identify who should be involved, when, and what they have to offer depending on natural conditions is key to a successful project. Organized around a

site inventory checklist, attendees will understand how to narrow or expand their choice of best practices to apply on a site during the design, construction, and operations and maintenance phases.

Class duration varies based on the desired depth of learning. For instance, the all-day session incorporates a robust list of best management practices. Attendees create their own master plan from a case study and spend the bulk of the rest of the day in activities geared to refine their master plan based on how design, construction, and maintenance considerations may come into play.

Site Strategies to Reduce Energy Demand
Duration: 1 – 3 hours

This training provides information on best management practices outdoors that can reduce demand for energy indoors through sustainable landscape design, construction, and operations and maintenance. Students will be able to employ various vegetated (shading and wind blocks) and non-vegetated strategies (cool pavements and roofs) to reduce energy demand inside the building considering macro- and microclimates.

Class duration varies based on the desired depth of learning. More time means a greater variety of exercises with different design criteria. Practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, independent of energy savings for the building owner, can also be incorporated.

Best Practices for Sustainable Sites under Construction
Duration: 1 – 3 hours

Students will apply best management practices to protect natural resources during construction. Specifically, students will learn how and when to prevent erosion, control sediment, and preserve and restore soil during wet and dry weather conditions.

nVegetated Stormwater Facilities Overview
Duration: 1 – 8 hours

This class serves as an introduction to choosing between the many variations of vegetated stormwater facilities including rain gardens, stormwater planters, swales, and vegetated filter strips. In relative terms, we will explore how the sizing and facility type affect water quality and volume disposal. We’ll also touch on plant choices and some basic design considerations for promoting improved water quality and ease of maintenance.

Vegetated Stormwater Facilities for Challenging Sites
Duration: 1.5 - 2 hour

This class was developed to enhance longer classes on rain gardens. Attendees learn how to safely and sustainability site, design, and construct rain gardens on sites constrained by high groundwater tables, steep slopes, and clay soils. Variations on rain garden designs and details reinforce concepts.

Sustainable Materials Choices for Vegetated Stormwater Facilities
Duration: 1 hour

This class was developed to enhance longer classes on rain gardens. Attendees learn what materials are toxic, non-toxic, or questionable and why, as well as alternatives that function similarly but are non- or less toxic.

Vegetated Stormwater Facilities Technical Field Class
(aka Rain Gardens 201)
Duration: 2-5 hours

In this outdoor class, we visit different vegetated stormwater facilities and students learn to critically analyze them. They learn how small changes in design can affect the long-term functioning and maintenance needs of a facility. Students will also understand how siting, design, construction, and O&M choices relate to sustainability and cost. In cities without many low impact development facilities to visit, we will also spend some time looking at how public and private sites might be retrofitted.

Making Bioretention Work
Duration: 1.5 to 3 hours

Bioretention (aka bioswales, rain gardens, planters, etc) have been in service in the Portland Metropolitan region and other places around the country successfully for over 15 years; however, due to choices during planning, design, and construction, some facilities are easier to maintain than others. Drawing on 14 years experience creating green sites for green buildings as well as visits to over 100 different bioretention facilities designed by others, Maria will discuss bioretention; what it is, how it works to cleanse stormwater, and how project teams can site, design, and implement construction practices that result in low maintenance, effective stormwater facilities anywhere in Oregon. Specific maintenance activities and how frequently they should be performed will be discussed throughout.

References

Teresa Huntsinger
Program Director, Clean Rivers
Oregon Environmental Council
(503) 222-1963 x112
TeresaH@oeconline.org

Derek Godwin
Watershed Management Specialist, Staff Chair at OSU Extension Service
Oregon State University
(503) 566-2909
derek.godwin@oregonstate.edu

Kim Smith
Portland Community College
Summer Sustainability Institute
(503) 977-3585
kdsmith@pcc.edu

Jarrod Hogue
Mt. Hood Community College
Community & Continuing Education
503-491-7312
Jarrod.Hogue@mhcc.edu
Green Web Hosting! This site hosted by DreamHost. This web site was designed with a black background and white text because a rumor was spread by Blackle that it reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but that turned out to be a big fat lie debunked by actual experimentation AND... people had trouble reading my website, so I changed it to white. It's still hosted by Dreamhost, a carbon neutral company. Please consider the environment when printing this or mailing me things or traveling to see me for a meeting or... ohhhh, just do your best and change your practices when you learn something new.

Updated 23 Nov 2010