Ithaca College

The Partnership for Sustainability Education (PSE), an educational collaboration between Ithaca College and the EcoVillage at Ithaca, is pleased to announce five mini-grant awards to members of the IC and EcoVillage communities. These grants will support summer and fall 2009 initiatives that incorporate economic, environmental, and/or social sustainability into curriculum development. 

This year’s recipients:

Mara Alper (Department of Television-Radio, Ithaca College) will implement an online course, called Water = Life, in May and June. Regional, national, and international guest experts will share their perspectives on critical issues relating to water and sustainability.

Nancy Jacobson (Department of Biology, Ithaca College) will incorporate sustainability more fully into Fundamentals of Biology by developing a series of case studies that will encourage students to apply scientific, systems, and critical thinking to investigations of the social and economic aspects of biological science topics.

Vera Wishman (women's studies program, Ithaca College) will add an experiential learning component focusing on "slow food" to her course, Green Grrls, Earth Mothers: Women and Sustainability.

Catherine Becker (EcoVillage) will integrate communication with sustainability through an online teaching module that examines how state-of-the-art communications concepts and theories can be used to build a sustainable culture. 

Kurt Pipa (EcoVillage) will develop and film a dance/music performance event that is intended to help enhance awareness of the role that nonverbal communication plays in interpersonal dynamics and relationships within a sustainable community. 

These mini-grants are an annual component of the PSE partnership, which uses EcoVillage as a "living laboratory" to promote education and research through community outreach programs and experiential learning opportunities for IC students.