Through three previous rounds of sustainability curriculum development mini-grants, 43 proposals from faculty at Ithaca College and residents at EcoVillage at Ithaca were approved. Each recipient was awarded $1,000 to create new courses or to adapt existing course content to incorporate sustainability themes.
The eight recipients of awards through this year’s proposal round brings the total of summer curriculum development awards to more than 50. The funded proposals for this summer include:
Lisa Paciulli, Ithaca College Department of Anthropology, will develop a new course called “Global Change: A Biological Anthropological Approach for Understanding Homo sapiens’ Relationship with Earth.” This new interdisciplinary course would focus on how various aspects of the planet evolved and existed before and after our ancestors began evolving 7-6 million years ago.
Paula Turkon, Ithaca College Department of Anthropology, will further develop her archaeology course, “Human Environmental Impact,” to bridge the existing prehistoric, data-focused approach with modern issues of sustainability to make the course more relevant to the students’ own life experiences and actions.
Anne Stork, Ithaca College Department of Biology, is developing a new biology course for non-majors, “Examining the World through Evolutionary Biology,” for Fall 2007. Her mini-grant award will assist in the development a section of the course where students will explore how an evolutionary biology perspective helps them to understand current sustainability issues/problems in areas such as ecology, conservation biology, agriculture, and human health and medicine.
In a definite first for this mini-grant program, Sara Brylinsky, an Ithaca College undergraduate student, will work with faculty to develop a class called “Strategic Sustainability: Intersections and Immersions,” which will be a collaborative effort between learners and faculty to address the unique challenges posed by the task of communicating and implementing sustainability into organizations, and institutions. The faculty partners for this new course development include Cory Young and Tammy Shapiro from Strategic Communication, David Saiia from the School of Business, Michael Smith from the department of History, and Rene Borgella from the department of Biology. This course will focus on the students’ ability to become ethical problem-solvers and innovative leaders through their ability to implement sustainable communication campaigns, and service-oriented thinking. Students will be pushed to recognize the necessity of facilitating both attitude and behavior transformations, in order to move beyond linear belief systems and into modes of thought and action which enable multifaceted responsibility, re-orientation of goals, and fresh institutional progress.
Jim Hodges, EcoVillage at Ithaca resident, will develop a module entitled “Assessing and Enhancing Native Plant Biodiversity in the Schoolyard.” Hodges will work with several IC students within the context of his middle school science curriculum to study, document and enhance the biodiversity of the native plants growing in the Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca schoolyard. This project comes at an interesting time in the Montessori School’s history as it works to realize aspects of the “natural learning environment” designed by Robin Moore of the Natural Learning Initiative of the College of Design, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.
Tina Nilsen-Hodges, EcoVillage at Ithaca resident, will continue to work to develop her “Education for Sustainability” course curriculum. This Spring 2007 semester, students in her course are drawing on sustainability education theory and practice to envision and design a high school. For Fall 2008, Tina proposes to work with environmental studies and education students who are interested in developing an application for the school to be considered for a New York State charter.
Karyn Olsen-Ramanujan, EcoVillage at Ithaca resident, will develop a program titled “Exploring the Connection Between Core Values and Sustainability Education,” featuring interactive and experiential explorations of “core values.” Karyn plans to organize many of the activities around topics otherwise considered environmental education or sustainability themes. For example, teaching about soil and the creatures in it is a great way to teach humility. She notes that Ecovillage will be launching its “Year of Land Partnership” with many activities geared towards connecting people with the land, so that will provide lots of opportunities for discussing values and/or embedding character education into the activities.
William Goodman, EcoVillage at Ithaca resident, will explore the feasibility of starting a paw-paw orchard on land owned by EcoVillage. Students will research the growing conditions required by paw-paws, perform site analysis and site preparation techniques. In addition, students will work on some of the social/economic aspects of developing an orchard at EcoVillage, including designing a process for obtaining site approval from the EcoVillage Big Picture Committee and Board, calculating the possible income and expenses of an orchard and planning how the labor and management required could be organized.
