My undergraduate degree is in environmental studies. I've always wanted to save the world and environment. For a long time I thought about a career as an environmental engineer, but somehow fell in love with my current career of city planning. People told me it wasn't surprising that I got married on Earth Day (April 22) even though I don't "technically" work in the environmental field. (Although for the record, city planners have a lot of influence when it comes to the environment...more than you probably think!).

I am involved with a leadership class through the local chamber of commerce and today our topic of discuss was energy and environment. I had been looking forward to this topic as I really enjoy learning about this sort of stuff. We had two tours today. The first was to Great River Energy in Maple Grove, Minnesota. This new building is the first LEED platinum commercial building in Minnesota. They have a wind turbine, partial solar roof, partial green roof, geothermal heating/cooling, and many other really cool things. The second tour was of a factory that makes peanuts (no...not the ones you eat...packing peanuts). These peanuts are made of starch and thus completely dissolve when put into water. How cool is that?! Now, every time someone sends me a package with non-biodegradable packing peanuts I am going to refer them to this company.

I had such a fun day today and now want to go out and save the environment!