10/20 Sustainability in the Classroom: Ecological Footprints

Posted by Rhett Mcdaniel on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 in Events.

Time & Date: 4:10 – 5:30 p.m. , Wednesday, October 20
Facilitator: Joe Bandy, Assistant Director, CFT
Audience: Faculty

Panelists:
Beth Conklin, Anthropology;
Andrea George, Sustainability and Environmental Management Office; and
Michael Vanderbergh, Law

Across the landscape of higher education there is growing interest in addressing issues of environmental sustainability in the classroom.  To develop and complicate students’ environmental consciousness, and to encourage what David Orr has termed “ecological literacy,” many educators engage students with the calculation of “ecological footprints.”  Ecological footprints are broad measures of natural resource use that assess the environmental impacts of individuals, campus communities, cities, or entire nations.  They can be the basis for wide ranging discussions of ecological processes, environmental history, and the complexities of theory and method across the disciplines.  This session will explore these and other possible teaching moments afforded by ecological footprints, and will feature, among other panelists, Andrea George, Director of Vanderbilt’s Sustainability & Environmental Management Office, who will discuss Vanderbilt’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Survey.

Click here to register.

Tags: Sustainability