Posts Tagged ‘Dr. James Cooke’

By Emily Seidel More »

Students and members of the Abilene community clean up a dumpsite for the Cedar Creek Waterway project. (Optimist photo by Brittany Jackson)

By Micah Hermsdorf
Posted on February 4, 2014 More »

Dr. Cooke in front of a truck load of tires.
Photo by Dr. Nicodemus

On Saturday September 14, Dr. Cooke and Dr. Nicodemus organized a day to clean up the Cedar Creek Waterway here in Abilene. This was the second such project, the first was on March 2, 2013. The Cedar Creek Waterway runs from Kirby Lake to Lake Fort Phantom. It is approximately a 15 mile trail and most of the other creeks in Abilene feed into it at some point. More »

A group students and faculty at ACU’s chemistry department are researching ways to simplify the process of converting vegetable oil into bio-diesel, a cost-effective renewable source of energy that can be made out of recycled products like vegetable oils. Dr. Jim Cooke, Professor of Environmental Science, has been using the bio-diesel in his truck for several months as part of the study.

“We are trying to make bio-diesel safer for the average person to use,” said Dr. Cooke. “It does involve chemistry, but it is not impossible to do.” More »

Contrary to popular belief that professors spend their summer leisurely laying by the pool, the A&E professors have been attending classes, plenaries and conferences to better prepare themselves to educate the students of this department. More »

Dr. Jim Cooke, professor of Environmental Science, attended the Lilly Regional Conference entitled Faith, Science, and Stewardship: Pedagogy on the Environment.  The conference was held on April 16 at Benedictine University in Lisle, Ill.

At the conference, Dr. Cooke presented a PowerPoint about a writing assignment taught in his Environmental Thought course.  The assignment involves choosing a place and breaking it down according to its anthropocentric, biocentric and ecocentric elements. More »

A new water catchment project has been completed at the Rhoden farm.  Compared to A&E’s past water catchment project, this tank is much bigger and will provide water for a much broader area.  While not for human consumption, this 16,000 gallon tank will be used to water several raised bed gardens in the surrounding area.

 “We can use the collected water instead of using city water in order to conserve,” said Dr. Nicodemus, assistant professor of environmental science.  “We will be able to use natural rain water rather than using treated water.” More »