"Campus Ecology" as a Means to
Urban Environmental Literacy.

Bruce W. Grant, Widener University, Chester, PA

Poster presentation at the 8th Cary Conference, 27-29 April 1999,
Institute of Ecosystem, Studies, Millbrook, NY.

"Knowledge of a place - where you are and where you come from - is intertwined with knowledge of who you are.

Landscape, in other words, shapes mindscape."

- David Orr

Overview

This poster will describe the use of the human ecosystem of the University as curriculum to teach institutional citizenship and thereby engage students in meaningful discourse toward ecologically sound urban ecosystem design. I will show how the various topics that constitute a "campus ecology" curriculum (energy and mass flow, landscaping, dining services, student projects, etc.) educe in students a set of learning outcomes that match key components of urban ecological literacy.

I implore that "campus ecology" curriculum constitutes an essential and largely untapped resource to teach principles of urban ecological design for sustainability. These "campus ecology" projects are more than just efficient ways to cut university operations costs - this curriculum provides students with meaningful experiences in ecological stewardship and teaches that ecological problems can be solved if approached at the right scale and with sufficient commitment. In addition, an important sub-text is that institutions of higher learning should play a higher profile role in leading the efforts to rethink the ecological design of human institutions across society to attain sustainability. "Campus ecology" is an effective pedagogy of ecological literacy since it leads to personal empowerment at problem solving and enables students to become agents of change for urban environmental sustainability.

Contents:

Poster Overview.

Why and How to Teach Campus Ecology.

Campus Ecology Curriculum.

Representative Specific Activities.

Greening Our Lighting.

Greening the Paper Trail.

Greening the Grounds.

Green Food.

Additional Green Topics.

Green Initiative Projects by Students.

Conclusion.

What is Urban Environmental Literacy?

Urban Ecosystem Science.

Urban Social Ecology.

Science Educational Literacy.

Urban "Land Ethic".

Acknowledgements.

Why and How to Teach Campus Ecology.

I offer the following quotes by Tom Kelly and David Orr to motivate the study of "campus ecology." Following these, I describe specifics of a "campus ecology" curriculum that I have designed and implemented at Widener University (www.science.widener.edu/~grant/courses/campus.html), which is based on numerous other models (notably Kurt Teichert's and Steve Hamburg's "Brown Is Green" program (www.brown.edu/Departments/Brown_Is_Green)).

"Our campuses are overflowing with examples of ecologically irrational practices that are often economically and socially unsound as well..."

"while our attention focuses on formal curricula... our students are learning a great deal from the way our institutions are structured, their patterns of consumption and production of waste, and the relationships they have with the local, regional, and international community. This shadow curriculum is a constant, repetitive, and often unconscious educational force... in many cases working against the very principles of environmental literacy that we seek to engender in our students..."

"By identifying and analyzing those examples, formulating responses, and participating in their implementation, students are empowered and emboldened to take on issues of institutional change."

- Tom Kelly, Director, Secretariat of University Presidents for a Sustainable Future

"creative and ecologically smart management can:

reduce institutional operating costs;
improve the quality of services ranging from food... to lighting;
reduce waste and ecological impacts;
rejuvenate local economies..."

"the fact that it is also the right thing to do is either an added bonus or the heart of the matter depending on your point of view..."

- David W. Orr (Ecodemia, p. xi)

Campus Ecology Curriculum.

Activities: demonstrations, discussions, and guided inquiries that explore the ecological design of our institutions of academia.

students will understand...

...the physical, biological, economic, and social processes that determine the structure and function of the campus ecosystem and its interaction with the natural world within which it is embedded. This is "campus ecological literacy."
...how to use methods of scientific inquiry (observation, literature manipulation, hypothesis formation, experimental design, and data collection, analysis, and presentation) to construct the knowledge of the processes in (1),
...why and how to engage in the process of institutional change to move one's campus toward an ecologically just and sustainable ecosystem design.

Representative Specific Activities follow:

Greening Our Lighting

Activity: compare 15W compact fluorescent and 15W & 75W incandescent light bulbs.

students will understand...

...how each bulb makes light (why only one is very hot!),
...how to read an electric utility bill and calculate "green" investment payback time,
...that one CAN reduce environmental costs AND save money at the same time,
...campus-wide energy flow,
...fossil fuel carbon emissions, the global carbon cycle, and and the greenhouse effect,
...the nuclear energy fuel cycle and radioactive waste issues,
...the causes and consequences of acid rain, and other airshed pollution management issues,
...the science and ecological economics of "alternative" renewable energy sources,
...that our energy "shortages" must be ultimately solved by engineering finite energy demand NOT by perpetual increases in energy supply.

Greening the Paper Trail

Activity: compare new paper from pine tree pulp with recycled paper and paper from alternative pulp sources.

students will understand...

...how much paper is used on campus per year for various purposes,
...where we obtain our paper (purchasing costs), and where our paper goes once used, (disposal costs),
...campus-wide mass flow systems and our methods of solid waste removal,
...how paper is made and recycled, and what production wastes are typically generated, (environmental costs),
...economics of consumer pricing (such as internal costs vs. costs of market "externalities"), product life cycle analysis, and closed loop paper flow,
...forestry management issues of pulp production (biodiversity loss and endangered species, economic subsidies to forest industry, etc.),
...socio-toxicology/ environmental justice of paper & ink waste stream,
...alternative pulp sources (kenaf, hemp, etc.) and their economics.

Greening the Grounds

Activity: mostly outdoor study of the campus landscape and "schoolyard ecology" inquiries of campus wildlife.

students will understand...

...campus wildlife ecology and biodiversity,
...dominance of exotic species and connections to ecological "disturbance" phenomena,
...uses, costs, and ecological impacts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers,
...water, energy, and other inputs to campus landscape "management,"
...soil chemistry and biophysics (especially effects of compaction on hydrology, runoff, and below-ground processes),
...soil decomposer (animal, fungal, and microbiological) biodiversity and community structure and function,
...regional watershed impacts and justice issues since others always live downstream.

Green Food

Activity: study of campus food services (main dining hall & satellites).

students will understand...

...where we get our food, and food transport and processing costs,
...food preparation processes and costs,
...agricultural practices to produce food (organic vs. non-organic food) and urban agriculture,
...ecological footprint analysis and global ecological consequences of food item choices,
...biotechnology in food production (genetically engineered crops, BGH in milk, cloning, etc.),
...how diet affects health,
...food service hygiene and public health,
...interconnections with solid waste stream (waste food and food packaging) and liquid waste stream (waste food and issues in food service cleaning).

ADDITIONAL GREEN TOPICS

Hazardous Waste Issues

Activity: students perform an "environmental audit" of the hazardous waste stream (document sources and sinks, human health risks, and analyze reduction initiatives).

Greening Transportation

Activity: determine how students get to school and from where they come. What are the alternative modes to travel (on foot, bicycles, public transport., ride-sharing, etc.)?

Green Building Design

Activity: "to create not just a place for classes but rather a building that would help to redefine the relationship between humankind and the environment - one that would expand our sense of ecological possibilities."

- David Orr (http://www.oberlin.edu/newserv/esc/esc.html)

(http://www.oberlin.edu/newserv/esc/escabout.html)

Green Initiative Projects

Activity: students design and conduct their original research projects in campus ecosystem design. They collect and analyze data, draw conclusions, design recommendations, and work with campus administrators, faculty, and other students toward implementing their green initiatives.

students will understand...

...the use of the scientific method to pose questions, collect and analyze data (from their own studies and/or obtained from campus operations officers), and draw conclusions,
...the process of generating policy based on scientific data,
...the process of implementing policy as constrained by economic and social reality (especially including an appreciation of the diversity of stakeholder concerns!)

Some projects my students have done:

Greening our exit signs. Andrew Tyson.
Wasted Night Lighting. Jesse Tyson.
A study of soda waste in Widener's cafeteria: Narrow tray racks cause the many small glasses dilemma. Stephanie Pallas.
Reusable drinking mugs at Widener. Caroline Phalan.
Single Pane, Budget Pain: A Study of Energy Waste from Kirkbride Windows. Thomas Rothermel.
Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot Water. Michele Loretto.

Conclusion:

Campus ecology curriculum teaches urban ecosystem ecology in microcosm and thereby enables students to attain urban environmental literacy.

Each of the components of "Urban Environmental Literacy" identified below are either directly () or indirectly () educed in students through studies of Campus Ecology.

Urban Environmental Literacy Is:

	(1) Urban Ecosystem Science: people need to understand:
	...how materials flow to, cycle throughout, and are exported from the urban ecosystem (such as water, nutrients, wastes, toxins, etc., moving through and transforming in air, water, soil, & living organisms).
	...how energy flows to, throughout, and from an urban ecosystem,
	...how different types of materials and energy interact as they move through the urban ecosystem,
	...how to engineer ecosystem mass and energy flow to serve human needs (and prevent human distress),
	...urban wildlife ecology (individual, population [evolutionary], and community), urban forestry science, urban biological conservation and management, etc.,
	...agriculture in urban environments,
	...ecology of disturbance, fragmentation, and the roles of exotic species,
	...urban disease epidemiology (human toxicology, urban ecotoxicology, and the dynamics of human pathogenic epidemics),
	{note: the above concerns one's understanding of urban ecosystem structure and function, whereas, below concerns the skills needed to understand the knowledge of urban ecosystem structure and function above.}
	...systems thinking necessary to understand how ecological systems are modeled,
	...the importance of temporal and spatial scales in modeling ecosystem processes.

	(2) Urban Social Ecology: people need to understand:
	...how people form and prioritize their resource and service needs, and then act upon them through patterns of consumption, investment, resource use, waste production, and disposal decisions - which in turn affect ecosystem energy & mass flow to, through, and from urban ecosystems,
	...the effects of the biophysical component of the urban ecosystem upon the personal decisions above,
	...the effects of local and global economics (especially pricing and marketing), public policy, and law upon the above,
	...the diversity of stakeholder perspectives and abilities to control access and affect the decisions above,
	...the transformation of materials through industry into goods and services (complexly linking energy & labor with mass flows, as well as complexly linking local & distant markets),
	...human demography (including occupation and other epidemiological effects) and the consequences of demography on resource use needs and decisions,
	...the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of domestic, service, and industrial development, and the resulting challenges to personal and commercial transportation, utility infrastructure, and residual "greenspace" management,
	...the causes and consequences of social inequity - inequitable investment in ecological quality and unjust occupational & domestic exposure to human health risks,
	...the operative social constraints on the process of inter-and cross-disciplinary problem solving in improving human ecosystem design. How to build consensus and devise a viable "pedagogy for change" ?

(3) Science Educational Literacy:

people need to understand:

...how to use the methods of scientific inquiry (observation, literature manipulation, hypothesis formation, experimental design, and data collection, analysis, and presentation) to construct an understanding of urban ecosystems,
i.e., understand what scientists do.

...how to use the urban environment to teach about ecology (immersion experiences in city parks and preserves, wildlife observations [e.g. bird feeders], stream studies, urban gardening, etc.) and engender in urban dwellers a sense of place in the natural world beyond the myopia of the built world.

(child picking bugs from a stream kick net)

	(4) Urban "Land Ethic": people need to understand:
	...that "a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic [i.e. urban biosocial] community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." after Leopold (1949),
	...that at present we live in an ecologically unsustainable society based upon deeply flawed ecological assumptions, and we have a seriously degrading global environment in result - especially in urban areas,
	...that each of us has a profound obligation to act responsibly to re-write our legacy, redesign the principal human ecosystem networks through which we interact with each other and with the natural world, and reduce our ecological "bootprint",
	...that transforming our urban environments into sustainable, safe, just, and desirable places to live is key to the flourishing of humanity in the next millenium.

Acknowledgements

Alan Berkowitz, Institute for Ecosystem Studies
David Eagan, University of Wisconsin
R. Edward Grumbine, Sierra Institute, UC Santa Cruz
Kurt Teichert & Steven Hamburg, Brown University
Thomas Kelly, University Leaders for a Sustainable Future
David Orr, Oberlin College

Itzick Vatnick, Biology, Widener University
Barbara Grove, Science Teaching Center, Widener University
Students in ENVR 210, spring 1999

Grove and Burch (1997) Urban Ecosystems, 1: 259–275.

This page was last revised 24 May 1999. This page was created by Bruce W. Grant, Department of Biology, Widener University, Chester, PA, 19013, 610-499-4017, fax: 610-499-4496, email: grant@pop1.science.widener.edu.

I thank Dr. Lawrence Panek, Widener Unversity, and Marty Schultz for technical support.

"Campus Ecology" as a Means to Urban Environmental Literacy.

"Campus Ecology" as a Means to
Urban Environmental Literacy.