Schedule

Course Texts:

Chambers, N., Simmons, C. and Wackernagel, M., Sharing Nature's Interest: Ecological footprints as an indicator of sustainability, Earthscan, 2000, $24.00; ISBN: 1853837393

Helena Norberg-Hodge, Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, Sierra Club Books, 1992, $16.95; ISBN: 0871566435

Allen-Gil and Thomas, Environmental Futures Course Reader, 2004.

We have designed the course to have considerable flexibility based on individual and collective student choices.   Students will be required to participate in two of the three tracks.  The first track is the analysis of the current impact of a given neighborhood (for example, Northside, Southside, or the second neighborhood at Ecovillage of Ithaca) using a combination of anthropological field methods and application of ecological footprinting software.  The second track is participation in community and campus discussions about sustainability, both in theoretical and highly practical contexts.  The third track is the design and installation of a demonstration project that conveys the concept of ecological footprinting to a public audience.

As time and interest permits, we will take field trips to Asustainability sites@ so as to better conceptualize possible environmental futures.

The objectives of Environmental Futures are (1) to become better informed of Athe state of the world,@ from exposure to human impact on the environment at both the micro- and macro-level, and (2) to become familiar enough with the concept and feasibility of ecological footprinting analyses to make more informed decisions as stewards of this small planet.

The course will be organized as a seminar for 3rd and 4th year environmental studies majors and minors, and will include a strong interdisciplinary focus, encompassing and synthesizing information on scientific principles, engineering and technology, anthropology, sociology, economics, politics and policy studies.  The course will be divided into several components, many of them experiential and hands-on, all interwoven and interdisciplinary, often operating parallel to one another.

One strand of the course will introduce as a case study a tradition-oriented people called the Ladakh, living in a northern province of India sometimes known as ALittle Tibet.@  The goal of this part of the course is to examine a Acultural baseline@ that existed in South Asia well into the late 20th Century, a baseline with which we might compare ourselves and our culture history.  This component will provide us with an opportunity to consider the Aecological footprint@ of a pre-industrial people, as well as understand the impact of change during two decades of increased culture contact and globalization.  The ethnographer living and working among the Ladakh during this period of change suggests that such an anthropological study holds a mirror up to our own cultural development, which raises questions about the costs of living in a globalized world for both the Ladakh and Americans and the emergence of a culture of consumption.  This reading also anticipates the possibility of an alternative environmental future, even an Aancient future,@ which is both more sustainable and more just than the future countenanced and rationalized by so much of the industrial world.

A second and major strand of Environmental Futures will be an applied research portion of the course, where students carry out field research, using quantitative and qualitative methodologies to assess various human impacts on this small planet.  The first of these is ecological footprinting, a quantitative tool developed in the last decade to measure (in land use units, specifically, acres or hectares and ultimately planet Earths), the amount of resources required to support various levels of consumption.  In addition to examining the literature, specifically on communities and nations whose footprint has been studied, we will apply the tool to local examples of footprints, including our own footprints, and the neighborhood footprints.   In order to collect footprinting data at the local level, we will use a second set of Atools,@ the qualitative research methods of the cultural anthropologist, especially participant-observation and ethnographic interviewing.

A third component of the course is participation in local and regional sustainability efforts.  We will be working with the Sustainable Tompkins County Initiative to gather existing information on sustainability indicators, efforts, achievements and future goals, and to participate in local Sustainability Circles and Salons.

A fourth emphasis of the course will be on presentation and implementation, the first in the form of a final written report, presented orally to the community, the latter in the form of an installation, as close to home as in the lobby of the Student Union or as removed from campus as at the Ithaca Science Center downtown.  Two possible directions for this demonstration project are the development of an interactive game or the development of more sophisticated and realistic software to measure participants= footprints.

Evaluation:
Course grades will be based on the following:
 

	Assignment, % of grade	Track 1: Neighborhoods	Track 2: Circles	Track 3: Demo Project
	1  15% (7.5% per track)	Research design statement	Gap analysis	Conceptual Design
	2  15% (7.5% per track)	Preliminary report	Circle Summaries	Installation
	3  40% (20 % per track)	Final Report and Executive Summary	Final Report and Executive Summary	Final Report and Executive Summary
	4  10%                                    Citizen Letter
	5  20%                             Term paper: Critiquing Futures
	6    10%                        Class Preparedness and Participation

Field Trip Ideas:

Urban Sprawl, lake source coolong, recycle processing, campus tour, Waterfront Trail, Greenstar, Art Studio, Wind Farm, Sustaianable agriculture, RPI, TCAT, SPCA green building, Liquid Solar, methane digesters, CSAs, hydroponics

GIS STYLE - MAP FOOTPRINTS SPATIALLY OF Tompkins county or state?

PRODUCTS DEMONSTRATION PROJECT FOR SCIENCE CENTER

BETTER MODELLING?  PV PANEL PROJECTS?
 
 
 

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