Page 603 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

570 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

FIGURE 29.5 OWU Faculty member Nathan Amador (left) and Amy Wok (OWU 2004, right)
and various assistants hone in on a drone during an OWU Travel Learning trip to Costa Rica. Photo
Credit: John Krygier.

on ecotourism, community members in Bahia Ballena, Uvita, are interested in
understanding their natural environment and the potential impacts of global
environmental change. Amy has been working with her community members
to collect and map environmental information (including garbage, water
quality, and whales) for several years, providing a solid basis in practice. OWU
students learn the practice of data collection and mapping, but also, impor-
tantly, develop an understanding of the theories and concepts required to
analyze and understand collected data (Fig. 29.5). Theories and concepts are
put into practice in Costa Rica, the collaboration designed so that students and
community members in Bahia Ballena, Uvita, will come to understand both
the theory and practice of environmental change at a range of scales.

A NEW MODEL FOR SUSTAINABILITY?
The aforementioned examples illustrate the idea of grassroots, distributed (but
not too grassroots and too distributed) kind of sustainability: students, staff,
and faculty figure out how to make sustainability happen on campus with no
full time staff and limited, devoted funds. Sustainability is not going to happen
otherwise, at least in the short term. Upon reflection, there are some benefits to
this approach to sustainability.
Most, if not all of these projects have required substantive collaboration
between students, staff, and faculty. Creative and viable solutions arise from
the cooperation of a diverse set of minds, all of whom can contribute some
specific kind of expertise to the effort. In a way, this approach lends itself to
more integration of sustainability across campus, and more active engagement,
without depending on (or deferring to) one individual (a sustainability coor-
dinator) for guidance and leadership. The engagement of an increasing number