Sustainability Course Design

1. Sustainability Course Design Professor John C. Ayers Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences

2. Student Projects • EES 115 Term Paper Assignment: http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/page/h5dg6A • Aquaculture: http://www.ehow.com/how-did_101410_home-aquaculture.html • Greywaterrecycling: http://www.ehow.com/how-did_101136_building-recycling-unit-household-appliances.html • Biogas digestor: http://www.ehow.com/how-did_101037_biogas-methane-generation.html • Solar still and ovens: http://www.ehow.com/how-did_101677_made-solar-oven_-solar-still.html

3. Features of OAK site • Streaming videos about sustainability • Syllabi

4. Suggestions for Interdisciplinary Courses • I recommend assigning “The Transition Handbook” and The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy: http://www.sustainability-literacy.org/

5. "Sustainability: Reducing Risk and Living Well in a World of Shrinking Resources” • There are physical limits to human population • Fossil fuels temporarily relieved these limits by allowing us to produce more food, leading to a rapid increase in population • Population has exceeded sustainable limits, leading to the sixth great mass extinction and global climate change • Our unsustainable lifestyles are made possible by cheap fossil fuels, but we are running out: Peak Oil • We must change to a sustainable lifestyle.

12. Sustainability: Solutions for Individuals and Communities

15. Sample Questions Based on recent eventsto spur debate • Based on what you’ve learned in this class, speculate on the cause(s) of the strange rash of copycat crimes that occurred in China beginning in March 2010, when a man stabbed eight children to death while they waited for a bus outside their elementary school in the southeastern city of Nanping. At his trial the man said he was angry because he was jilted by a woman and treated badly by her wealthy family. On April 28 he was put to death, and on the same day the second attack occurred: a man in the southern city of Leizhou wounded 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack. The third attack occurred the next day in the eastern city of Taixing when a man slashed 28 children, two teachers and a security guard with an 8” knife. The following day a fourth attack occurred in Beijing, where a farmer attacked kindergarten students with a hammer, then burned himself to death. What social changes led to these events? • Speculate on the consequences of the current oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The drill rig was an investment in what type of capital? The leak is at the expense of what type(s) of capital? Given that this situation will become more common as oil becomes scarcer and we undertake increasingly risky and expensive drilling operations, what will be the net effect on capital (summing all three types)?

16. Tips • Be objective and balanced. Environmentalists are not always right (nuclear power, waste incineration, etc.) – can’t solve problems by saying no to everything • Look at what other countries do better • Present the facts and let students draw their own conclusions (teach them how to think, not what to think) • Talk the talk and walk the walk