DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Paper 3: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Sustainable Skidmore

On Thursday, 23 October Levi Rogers, Coordinator of Sustainable Skidmore, will take us on a Sustainability Tour of Skidmore College.   During the tour, we will visit sites of sustainable activities such as geothermal heating and cooling, bike sharing, zero-stream recycling, and locally sourced food in the D-hall.  All of these activities occur under the banner of sustainability at Skidmore.  What happens to sustainability when we shift our focus from large-scale and conceptual to local and practical?  What does sustainability look like then?

Our first two papers were structured assignments; however, paper 3 is open ended:  you are to design your own paper topic as well as write the corresponding paper.   The aim of your paper is to examine critically a site of sustainability on campus.   To start, based on the information you get from the Sustainability Tour, select an area of  “Sustainable Skidmore” that interests you.  Then brainstorm a list of questions that this areas raises to you when examined under the lens of sustainability (as we have been defining it in class).   From these questions, you’ll select a topic and decide how to best examine this topic in writing.  For example, you could
  • analyze geothermal heating from the perspective of environment and economics:  is it really sustainable?
  • propose how the school could more effectively make visible the invisible of geothemal heating (or any other sustainability practice) and why such publicity would be beneficial
  • interview Emily Durante, the leader of the bike sharing program at Skidmore, to argue whether a bike sharing program really contributes to sustainable behavior
  • thinking more broadly (and deductively), draw from all of the activities we will observe on the Sustainability Tour to describe and define what sustainability looks like at the college level
  • describe how students can live more sustainably at Skidmore
  • recommend a new sustainable practice that the College should adopt, explaining why and how

Your final paper should be approximately five pages, formatted according to the conventions of an academic paper.  Think visually and consider whether photographs or diagrams would enhance your paper.  The working draft of paper 3 is due in class and posted on our discussion board on Thursday, 6 November.   The final version of your paper is due on Tuesday, 18 November.

I welcome the opportunity to meet with you while you are working your paper.  If you have any questions about the assignment, do not wait for a conference; please raise them in class so that others may benefit from the answer as well.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.