On Monday, students at Ohlone College's Newark campus will learn more ways to become green beyond fashionable tote bags or fancy metal water bottles.

Ohlone College is offering a new class that explores texts, publications and events that have affected the environment’s identity. The class, Urbanization: Green Community, reviews various sustainable communities and how to construct them.

“You can have solar energy, you can have wind energy, but until you can have a more secure building, a more energy-efficient building, it doesn’t make any sense,” said Professor Narinder Bansal, who teaches the course. 

His class is one of the five courses required to receive the Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Certificate of Accomplishment at Ohlone. It is an open course, so students who are curious about environmental studies and who are not pursuing the certificate are able to join the class. 

“I want to intertwine the value of being green not only in the area of energy and agriculture, but also with buildings,” Bansal said.

In California and especially the Bay Area, many people are already deeply invested in sustainable lifestyles. But in recent months, this concern has been in the national spotlight.

Last May, President Barack Obama visited the solar company Solyndra in Fremont, an indication that his administration will likely encourage less dependence on foreign oil and investigate more uses of alternative energy sources.

Bansal is part of the Energy Faculty Forum, a group that strives to educate people about being green. He supports moving toward more significant reliance on alternative energy but, as his course will reveal, he thinks this is only part of a complex equation.

“It is wise to switch to alterative energies, but you have to look at the bigger picture, as well. And it includes our buildings,” he said.

Bansal says more efficient buildings translate into a greener environment.

The goal, he said, is to employ a hybrid system of renewables with more sustainable construction and landscape materials, along with different kinds of technology.

Ohlone kept these ideas in mind when constructing its campus on Cherry Avenue. In 2008, Ohlone’s Newark campus was LEED (Leadership in Energy and Design) Platinum certified, the highest grade given by the U.S. Green Building Council. The award acknowledges environmentally sustainable construction and building operation. 

Bansal said that as a community we must scrutinize our lifestyle choices and their global impact.

“I understand that there are natural cycles in the universe," Bansal said. "There are natural cycles in everything the world. But more likely than not, a lot of what’s going on is man-made.” 

A recent Pew Research Center poll reveals that 59 percent of Americans believe there is evidence of global warming. But only about a third of these Americans believe that burning fossil fuels and other human activities attribute to warming temperatures.

The three-unit class is a mix of online and classroom instruction. It meets on the first Monday and Wednesday of each month from 9:45 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. Course work will be completed using WebCT. Ohlone College students may enroll for the class here, as long as there still room for new students.