ENVIR 480: Sustainability Studio
Don't just learn about sustainability - be engaged in it, here and now.
This course develops students as change agents for environmental sustainability at the University of Washington. In Sustainability Studio, students partner with faculty and staff in applied, campus-based projects. In addition, the course instructor provides students with regular and in-depth mentoring and advising. The specific topic of Sustainability Studio changes every quarter, reflecting student interest and campus partnership opportunities.
Experiential Learning
Get out of the classroom and onto the UW campus.
Sustainability Studio engages students in the basic steps of experiential learning: experience, reflect, and apply.
Experience
Class tour of the UW Power Plant
Students learn about the specific sustainability topic, hear from campus and community experts, and engage in relevant field-based activities. In this stage, we build on what students already know and feel, to develop a more sophisticated collective understanding of campus sustainability and the specific topic. Sometimes we also include personal experiments, such as committing to a personal week of zero waste.
Reflect
At this stage, the focus is on sharing and processing. Students reflect on their reactions and observations, sometimes in a journal or essay form, and process their thoughts via class discussion and analysis. Students then share these reflections with the broader community, via a memo, newspaper op-ed, or blog post.
Apply
After reflecting on the topic, students propose innovative and flexible solutions (in the shape of applied projects). They get feedback on those solutions from expert guest critics, project partners and clients, classmates, and faculty. Past projects have included case studies, pilot projects, experiments, research, data analysis, development of communication materials, and more. As part of their project-based work, students create professional deliverables that contribute to UW sustainability and gain new skills and experiences relevant to a career path in sustainability work.
The course culminates in a final community presentation
The instructor for the 2012-2013 academic year is Megan Horst. Her e-mail is horstm@uw.edu.
Upcoming Topic
Autumn 2013: Green Athletics |
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Course details coming soon |
Potential projects: Coming soon. |
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Past Projects
Spring 2013: Greening up UW's investments |
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Students will partner with high-level financial administrators at the UW to explore potential green investing strategies, and their social and economic implications for the University of Washington. |
Final Report |
Teams: Educational outreach, disclosure, stakeholder activism, divestment, green revolving funds. |
 Final Presentation | |
Winter 2013: Zero Waste - From You to UW |
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Exploring what it will take to reach the UW goal of 70% waste diversion by 2020. |
Final Report |
Teams: Education, inventory, reusables, biodiesel soap, sourcing. |
Final Presentation |
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Autumn 2012: Greening UW Labs |
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Improving the sustainability of campus labs by reducing waste, sharing best practices, and improving incentive programs. |
Final Report |
Teams: Sink aerators & grow Lights, green purchasing, waste streams, energy consumption. |
Final Presentation |
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Spring 2012: Carbon and Climate Change |
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Projects that are directly related to the decrease of carbon emissions into the environment. |
Final Report |
Teams: Sign campaign for active transportation, barriers in more sustainable transportation, building case studies: Poplar and Hansee residence halls, incentivizing behavior change in the residence halls, Grin Panda Project: a short film competition |
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Winter 2012: Water |
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Examination of the ways the UW uses water on campus within the theoretical framework of sustainability. |
Final Report |
Teams: Implementing rain gardens at the UW, permeable pavements, rainwater harvesting at the UW Farm and Botany Greenhouse |
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Autumn 2011: Transportation |
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By exploring the various barriers to sustainable transportation through the dynamic relationship of both individual behavior and infrastructure impediments, our class addressed specific but fundamental issues to sustainability on campus. |
Final Report |
Teams: Barriers for biking to school, barriers for using public transit, from behavior to infrastructure, infrastructure projects, greenways |
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Winter 2011: Behavior Change in Residence Halls |
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Promoting sustainable behavior change in the UW residence halls. |
Final Report |
Teams: Composting, bring your own mug, electricity use |
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Autumn 2010: Habitat |
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Increasing campus biodiversity through the creation of wildlife habitat. |
Final Report |
Teams: Barn owl boxes, re-wilding, best practices |
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Spring 2010: Food |
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In this course, the most recent theme for student research was the "wedge of food". Becoming sustainable with respect to food is obviously important in its own right, but food is also a key to solving other vexing social, environmental, and economic problems. |
Final Report |
Teams: Fish, compost, protein, student knowledge |
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Winter 2010: Green Buildings |
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Students looked at the sustainability of the newly renovated space of the UW's Program on the Environment in Wallace Hall. |
Final Report |
Teams: Wood, furniture, wall materials, lighting, floor & ceiling |
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Autumn 2009: Energy |
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Examining how electricity could be conserved on campus. |
Final Report |
Teams: Patterns of energy use, daylight harvesting, computers and conservation, vampire energy awareness, lighting technology |
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Spring 2009: Water |
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The use of multiple scales and dimensions allowed for our teams to identify the way in which water enters our campus and leaves our campus. |
Final Report |
Teams: Green roofs, stormwater, toxic vanity, showing at the IMA, think outside the bottle |
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