Running Head: CONSUMERISM AND POPULATION; THE INS AND OUTS OF YOLO HALL

Group 3 A and B:
Jacob DeVor, Todd Ristow, Amy Kingsbury, Zachary Merrifield, Cameron Giambastiani, Joshua
Bustamante, Kerry Minekheim, Gabriela Salas, Anthony Rocha, Kosuke Sunamara
University 105
Consumerism and Population: The Ins and Outs of Yolo Hall

Proposed research Topic

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Our proposed research topic for consumerism is to figure out who uses Yolo Hall and
what kind of things are bought and used in there. We will inspect Yolo Hall from the viewpoints
of population, sustainability, and excessiveness of the amount of goods as the comprehensive
perspective of them, as well as nutrition. These factors will provide us insight as to how we can
improve sustainability of Yolo Hall.
Purpose
We are conducting this research in order to determine who uses Yolo Hall and to
understand what items are bought and used in the building. The purpose of this information will
give us insight into understanding how the building is affected by consumerism. Our main goal
will be to assess the data collected and make educated inferences into making Yolo Hall more
sustainable. This research will help us find more ways in which we can work to improve its
sustainability based off of the population of its visitors.
Backround
Population
The population of Yolo Hall can be narrowed down into approximately six categories :
majors within the building, professors, other students, athletics, local children, and pedestrians.
These Chico State students and faculty are the population most affected by Yolo Hall. Yolo Hall
is home to the Kinesiology, Parks & Rec, Hospitality, and Management departments. According
to U.S News' Rankings for CSU Chico, Park, Rec, Leisure and Fitness Studies make up 8% of
Chico State Students Majors, therefore these students make up a significant amount of the
Chico State Population indicating the further importance of Yolo Hall in the community. These
majors all have the common goal of serving the community, while directly through personal
training, health, and exercise or working customer service in a hotel. Regardless of the end goal,

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the population in this major represents a sustainable career choice. The professors that interact
the most with the building include those who have an office in Yolo Hall or those who teach a
class in Yolo Hall. Other students, meaning students not included in the buildings major, include
those taking a recreation class or elective class, like yoga or dancing. Yolo Hall is home to the
camp adventures youth services program and an autism lab, which both serve as unique day
programs / afterschool programs for children in the Chico community. Yolo Hall is also located
in a common walkway and bike path for students transporting to and from their classes. The
route is common for first year students living on north campus and students living off campus on
Nord Ave. These students walk past Yolo Hall at least once a day, therefore the building has an
impact on their day to day life.
Consumerism
Yolo Hall has vending machines within it that can deal with consumerism . The people
that have to restock all of the items that they have. They have to keep the interest of the students
who buy them by sometimes rotating out the items that they have in the vending machines to
keep students buying them and maybe that might be just keeping the items that are already in the
machine but just restocking those ones. Another factor is all of the desks, computers, and other
equipment needed within the building. They have to make sure that they keep working and are
up to date. The maintenance on those certain objects may take a lot of time and a lot of effort to
keep them sustainable. It costs a lot of time and effort and money to keep the building running
and someone needs to do it. They have to keep the students interested in their majors and the
majors the building has and to do that they need to keep everything up to date and have the best
equipment for the students to keep their attention and pushing to strive for more than just the
usual, have them be different from the average person.

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Nutrition
College should be a time where young people focus on exercise and healthy eating habits,
however that is not always the case. Students in college are at a crucial state in their development
and as they merge into independence this can be a make or break period for their present and
future lifestyle choices. Studies have suggested that college students may have minimal
knowledge of healthy eating behaviors and nutritional requirements possibly due to lack of
formal education on the topic (Ciccazzo, M., Cousineau, T., Franko, D., Goldstein, M., &
Rosenthal, E.). Due to new technologies and knowledge there are many ways to promote
nutrition to college students, such as understanding the different nutritional benefits for both men
and women as well as using the internet and social media as a resource to inform (Ciccazzo, M.,
Cousineau, T., Franko, D., Goldstein, M., & Rosenthal, E.). Similar to any advertising advice, it
all boils down to appealing to ones audience. Other important ways to address nutrition to a
college audience is providing healthy options in on campus dining, on campus cafes, and
limitations on vending machines (which typically only offer junk offer). People will make their
own decisions about their food choices regardless, but the more promotion of better food choices
the more likely people will be to choose that option (Ciccazzo, M., Cousineau, T., Franko, D.,
Goldstein, M., & Rosenthal, E.). Luckily for Chico State, it does a fairly decent job of promoting
healthy food choices in places like the marketplace and their on campus cafes. Also, since Yolo
Hall is home to majors passionate about health, community, and the outdoors it has high
potential to set a high standard for nutrition in college.
Sustainability
When dealing with the sustainability of Yolo Hall we are talking about what has to be
done for the hall be stand on its own. In doing so we take into account the majors that yolo hall

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helps with. Most of the majors have to do with recreation. These majors can help the community
by promoting exercise and trying to keep the community healthy by trying to have people get out
and get active. The pictures within the building help to promote diversity by having many
different ethnic background of people throughout the hall. Since Yolo Hall is one the newer
buildings at CSU Chico I believe that they tried to make it more efficient than the other buildings
that are on campus. Also most of the fields are next to the the building which allows people to go
and perform certain activities on those fields and once again be active and better the community
by allowing people to use these facilities to better themselves as a person. Even though Yolo Hall
isnt the best building I still believe that it is one of the more sustainable buildings at chico state
and it still could be improved and that is our goal.
Scope
For this project we are going to be focusing on finding what kinds of products people buy
to use in this building and what kinds of products are available for purchase in this building. We
will also be measuring the amount of people that go in and out of the building as its population.
Nutrition will also be considered. This will include the vending machines and what healthy
options people have to choose from. All of these factors will be taken into consideration when
evaluating how sustainable Yolo Hall is.
Research
The increase of consumption of goods and services is getting higher every year. With this comes
more creation of other goods and services to please consumers; especially in big public buildings
used daily such as Yolo Hall. Graham Hill investigated the the differences between 2 apartments
with different square footage, By buying a space that was 420 sq. ft. instead of 600,
immediately Im saving 200 grand. Smaller space is going to make for smaller utilities - save

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some more money there but also a smaller footprint (Hill, 1:58, 2011). His idea is basically to
think smaller instead of bigger in terms of building size and what goes along inside of it. This
mind set saves money, keeps an organized and structured building and will keep consumers
satisfied.
Something else Hill says to focus on is space efficiency and consider the items we are buying for
ourselves or in any case for that matter. We want things that are designed for how theyre used
the vast majority or the time, not that rare event (Hill, 3:29, 2011). This meaning that we
shouldnt clutter our world and surroundings with meaningless stuff. We should always be
looking for the most sustainable solutions that are good quality, good for the planet and will last
a long time; instead of purchasing items that are constantly needing to be replaced or needing
maintenance.
Method
Through the research conducted for this project, its clear that it is important to use the space of a
building to its greatest potential. This can be applied to Yolo Hall in making sure that the space
of the building matches up with its purpose. Improving that balance can improve the building's
sustainability.
For part of our research project, we will need to conduct interviews of the individuals who work,
teach or attend classes in Yolo Hall. These interview will be simple, several of our group
members will come up with questions that apply to this topic and ask individuals that are in Yolo
Hall.With this information we will have a better understanding of everything that is consumed in
Yolo Hall. Once we can figure out the consumption of both energy and single use plastics, we
will have the ability to come up with a solution that will limit the usage of these products.
Also, our research will consist of observation. We will look at the population of the building,
especially focusing on whether or not this building attracts community members.We will observe

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the vending mentions, looking at the options available and which choices are the most popular.
Through this research, we hope to develop a deeper understanding of Yolo Hall and how its
sustainability can be improved.

Timeline:
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Cover Page - all

Proposed Research Topic - Kosuke
Purpose: Why are you doing this research?- Amy
Background: Anthony & Kerry
Scope (what part are you going to measure and why) - Jacob & Gaby
Research (What measurements have been done in the past...use citations) - Cameron &
Todd
7. Method (what method will you use, ground this in research) - Zachary & Josh
8. Timeline with group responsibilities (make sure everyone has a job) - Everyone
9. Reference Page (include your research for this.) - Everyone
Due by : Monday October 23, 2016
Gather measurements, pictures, and other data by Friday Oct. 28, 2016 (all group
members should participate)
Whole project due by Monday Oct. 31, 2016

References (apa citation, alphabetical order)

Ciccazzo, M., Cousineau, T., Franko, D., Goldstein, M., & Rosenthal, E. (Feb 2006). Web-based
nutrition education for college students : is is feasible? PMC National Library of

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Medicine. Article retrieved from :

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074521/
Hill, G (March 2011). Less Stuff, More Happiness. Video retrieved from:
https://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happiness/transcript?
language=en#t-47988
N/A, U.S News (2016). California state university, chico. Article retrieved
from:http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/csu-chico1146