Instructors:	Susan Allen-Gil Jason Hamilton Brent Katzmann Tina Nilsen-Hodges Greg Pitts Elan Shapiro
Location:	CNS 163 (Bio. Dept.Conference Room)
Time:	Tuesdays, 1:00-3:40 and weekly team sessions by arrangement.

Course Description:  This course allows participants to learn about sustainability first hand by being engaged as key players in projects that "make a difference" in local sustainable development - on campus, at EcoVillage, and in the Ithaca community. Research and projects in small teams, that partner with community mentors and groups and that also learn from each other, will form the major energy and time commitment of the course. Short readings (available online), discussions, and mini-trainings will provide a context and skill building to further the project work. In a sense, you will become an intern working with a team – and a team of teams! - to advance the work of regional sustainability. We will learn about sustainable communities in part by becoming a community of learners.

Class Meetings. Tuesday sessions will have two parts. They will introduce resources, concepts and skill building in sustainability education; ecological design principles; library, online and participatory action research; interviewing skills; teamwork and communication; and other topics, including ones that emerge from course participants. They will also be working sessions for the four projects teams to learn from each other and from project guides and local resource people about how to advance their work. The sessions will include field trips to project sites for each of the projects.

Each team will arrange regular weekly times to work together with project guides as well as on its own. The effectiveness of these sessions, including the reliability in keeping task agreements, will be as essential to the course as the Tuesday sessions.

Policies:

Attendance: Consistent class attendance is expected.  If you miss class, you are still responsible for any assignments announced and for all material presented during class.  It will be very difficult to get an A or B in the course without attending class regularly.

Accommodations: Students with physical and/or learning disabilities and differences should contact the Office of Academic Support Services for Students with Disabilities (ACSSD).  I will make any accommodations recommended through this Office to help students in need.

Plagiarism:  Please review the College’s definition of plagiarism is it appears in the Student Handbook.  The faculty team will search the web for material we believe to be plagiarized, and report offenders to Judicial Affairs.

Collaborative Projects: In a collaborative project, all students in a group may be held responsible for academic misconduct if they engage in plagiarism or are aware of plagiarism by others in their group and fail to report it. Students who participate in a collaborative project in which plagiarism has occurred will not be held accountable if they were not knowledgeable of the plagiarism.

Grading:  This course will operate as a highly interactive and participatory class and this emphasis is reflected in the grading.  Students must come to class prepared to discuss the appropriate material and follow through on their project tasks - in a timely way. There will be no standard exams, and no final. This is a real-world opportunity to do work in the sustainability field and you will be graded for how responsibly and well you do it.

Grades will be based on 4 evaluations of the quality of participants’ efforts, including the projects themselves, their team effort, as well as  presentations and short reports. The evaluations, which will count equally and will be roughly evenly spaced throughout the semester, will be based on input from faculty and project guides as well as from the participant and his/her team. The project summary, which will also be evaluated, will need to be in form that is directly useful to the community it serves and that future project teams can build upon.

Projects:

1) Root Cellaring at EVI: Agricultural season extension as a way of Building Sustainable Communities

Sustainable communities support and are supported by local, regional food systems.  EcoVillage at Ithaca residents would like to expand their access to locally grown produce year-round and reduce their ecological footprint by building a root cellar for winter vegetable storage.  Building on work performed in the Sustainable Communities Spring 2005 course, students will be involved in developing proposals for the siting, design and funding of the root cellar, designing community education resources, and launching a winter community-supported agriculture project.

Project guide: Tina Nilsen-Hodges, EcoVillage Educator, EcoVillage of Ithaca.

This project is a working internship in building local awareness about Green Building. Under the guidance of the Ithaca Green Building Alliance, participants will do hands-on work on a variety of green building projects; will help promote the 2005 Green Buildings Open House and Solar Tour in October; and will create comprehensive case studies of “green” homes throughout the Ithaca region documenting owner experiences, building design and performance data in order to further public education and understanding of sustainable building practices. Participants are further expected to attend monthly meetings of the Ithaca Green Building Alliance. Media and outreach skills will be helpful but not required.

Project guide: Brent Katzmann, Chair, Ithaca Green Building Alliance.

This is a unique, collaborative project to work with EcoVillage at Ithaca and Finger Lakes Renewables to design, construct and commission a fountain for the Chapel Pond powered by solar photovoltaic panels.  The college recently approved our proposal to put the fountain in the pond, and the Physical Plant personnel have agreed to work with us on putting it in. This will be an off-the-grid demonstration system that will be useful as an educational tool and an attractive visual display of the power being produced. The EcoVillage-led team is looking for motivated students wanting to learn and understand the real world challenges of photovoltaic solar systems, their design and implementation. Students will be exposed to the basics of solar PV, generate a design, select and purchase equipment, and help with its installation. As time allows, students will also get involved with improvements and experiments with two mobile solar-powered trailers previously constructed, as well as the installation of a solar-powered rainwater cachement pump and path lighting system at EcoVillage.

Project Guides: Greg Pitts and Susan Allen-Gil

4) Biodiversity Management on South Hill

Ithaca College has a new nature reserve system!  Last semester Ithaca College Natural Lands (ICNL) was established to oversee the management of our two reserves (South Hill and Newfield).  South hill is not only the backyard playground of I.C. students, but also home to endangered species of plants and rare ecosystems.  In this project we will develop and implement on-the-ground management plans that preserve the rare and endangered biological resources and allow for the traditional uses by college community members (courses, running, hiking, observatory, etc.).  You will work with local botanists, foresters, and ecologists learning the principles of land management and actually getting your hands dirty applying them.

Project guide: Jason Hamilton