All levels of education embrace creation care as a central theme impacting all disciplines. Students of all ages are guided in reconnecting to the natural world. Youth are instructed and counseled in value, lifestyle, and career choices that demonstrate stewardship of the earth. Schools practice sustainable building design and transportation patterns.
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Eastern Mennonite University Offers Course on Green Buildings
While many professors hope their courses will transform
their students, Doug Graber Neufeld and Jim Yoder, both associate
professors of biology at Eastern Mennonite University, have even higher
goals. They hope their students can transform their campus.
During the 2007-2008 school year, Graber Neufeld and Yoder offered a course entitled "Green Design," using the planned addition and renovation of Suter Science Center as an
opportunity for hands-on learning. Students studied the U.S. Green
Building Council's LEEDTM
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system and
researched green building strategies in areas such as water usage,
energy efficiency and recycled materials. Fifty percent of the grade for the course
came from a semester-long research project culminating in
recommendations for the new Science Center.
Students met with members of the EMU administration and with Troyer
Group, the architectural firm that is designing the science building.
They visited a living machine that processes wastewater in
Charlottesville, VA, and a local hospital that is a registered LEED
project.
Below is an excerpt from Neufeld's and Yoder's syllabus:
Your job in
this course is to help us decide what green technologies will be
incorporated in the new science center. The overall goal of the course
is broad: How can a building be successfully designed that is
environmentally friendly and that serves the functional and aesthetic
needs of the people that use it? Our route to that goal passes through
the new science center--we will use this as a case study that
drives our learning...
...This course is as much about learning process as it is about learning
technology. You will be learning about science, but also about
economics, about education, and about how to resolve competing demands
and differing opinions about a project. We will spend
significant time in conversation with representatives from all of the
stakeholders for this project.
For more information, visit Eastern Mennonite University's "Be Green"
page at http://www.emu.edu/begreen/ Dr. Doug Graber Neufeld can be
reached at neufelddemu.edu. Dr. Jim Yoder can be reached at yoderjmemu.edu.
Action Step:
Design a course based on an environmental challenge that faces your campus.
Send Us Your Stories!
This web page is intended to be a resource for schools,
colleges, univerisities and seminaries. As a network, we seek
inspiration from Mennonite educational institutions that are
practicing environmental stewardship.
Stories of actions your educational institution has taken on behalf of creation should be sent to
. Selected examples will be published on this website to encourage
other schools to engage more deeply in caring for creation.
