Urban Sustainability Program
Urban Sustainability Program
Take a walk through Carroll Gardens on Smith Street and as you glance down the side streets you will see the magnificent brownstones that speak to the wealth of the neighborhood today. Head up any one of these side streets and before long you are bound to reach the Gowanus Canal, a United States Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. This is the route you might walk if you followed one of the Pod Walks developed through the Brooklyn College Urban Sustainability Program. As you take the walk, or any of the three pod walks developed by the program, you will be continually reminded of the delicate balance between the built and natural environment that make up our borough, and have time to consider both the history and the future of this place many of us call home.
The history of the urban sustainability program at Brooklyn College goes back to the beginning of this decade. In 2010 the Provost's Task Force on Sustainability looked at its existing academic programs in an effort to enhance sustainability education on campus. The task force may have been inspired, in part, by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting double digit growth in jobs in the field. The work of the task force led to the program creation in 2012, under the directorship of professors Kenneth Gould and Tammy Lewis. As the program website states, it "provides students with the knowledge, power, and skills to promote sustainable policies and practices in their neighborhoods and beyond... [and] examines the dynamics between social and natural systems, as well as the trade-offs among environmental, social, and economic sustainability."
The Urban Sustainability Program taps into existing course work in a number of departments along with offering an introductory sequence designed specifically for the program. Students can concentrate in one of three areas: environmental science, environmental economics and business management, and environmental sociology. The curriculum also includes biology, philosophy, and chemistry courses, thus drawing on expertise from seven departments across three schools. Senior Alison Derevensky notes that the "classes focus on such a variety of issues and topics that we can relate to in real life."
In addition to building a program minor, the Urban Sustainability Program is exploring collaborations with other departments and programs including Health and Nutritional Sciences and Caribbean Studies. The current director of the program, Brett Branco, says, "It would be fantastic to build collaborations with arts programs as well. We have so many talented students that have proposed ideas for arts installations and other creative works that can help spread the message of the sustainability."
A steering committee of eight faculty representing six departments ensures both that the program curriculum remains aligned with curriculum changes in each department and that the curriculum remains current with advances in urban sustainability theory and practice across disciplines. The current steering committee includes Tammy Lewis and Emily Tumpson Molina from Sociology, Brett Branco and Rebecca Boger from Earth and Environmental Sciences, Nadia Doytch from Economics, Tomas Lopez-Pumarejo from Business Management, Mike Menser (deputy director) from Philosophy, and Tony Wilson from Biology. Faculty in the program have published on a wide array of topics in the field, ranging from "The Impact of Natuaral Disasters on Energy Consumption: An Analysis of Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy Demand in the Residential and Industrial Sectors" (Doytch and Klein, 2017) to "Preliminary Investigation into the Effects of Two Dietary Fatty Acids, 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3, on Mortality of Juvenile Mercenaria Mercenaria During the Approach to Winter" (Portilla, Branco and Tanacredi, 2015) to Green Gentrification: Urban Sustainability and the Struggle for Environmental Justice (Gould and Lewis, 2016).
Tony Wilson received an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) award called Brooklyn Urban Ecology and Environment (BUEE) Program (2017-2020). BUEE trains underrepresented undergraduate students in a
summer research program aimed at developing into mature and thoughtful environmental scientists. Authentic research experiences on human-coupled natural systems are complemented by a rigorous educational program aimed at developing practical experience in research integrity, scientific communication and quantitative literacy…. The program leverages the unique academic and research resources at the Brooklyn College Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center and the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay.
Students in the Urban Sustainability Program, like their faculty mentors, are making their own mark on the research and education landscape. Tori McGregor received a Rosen Fellowship to study sharks at the Bimini Shark Lab in the Bahamas, and Deborah Alves received a Rosen Fellowship to study a cooperative that is forming to protect bees and use their honey for sustainable economic development in Kasos, Greece. Capstone in Urban Sustainability student teams are creating a new generation of new and improved pod walks, including an update on the Gowanus Canal pod walk, and new pod walks for Greenwood Cemetery and the Brooklyn College campus.
Back to Critical Thinking — April 2018
