For the sixth year in a row, the Education for Sustainable Living Program offers students a way to learn outside the classroom.
The program is a two-unit weekly seminar that is primarily put on by the California Student Sustainability Coalition and the Campus Center for the Environment, which showcases different environmental activists each week.
“This is a good chance to see real life solutions and examples of people like ourselves who are doing innovative things to address a lot of issues we have in the world today,” said Will Klein, senior nature and culture major and one of the program’s coordinators.
Some of the speakers include Marcela Oliva, a professor of architecture and environmental design at Los Angeles Trade Tech Community College, Micah Posner, the founder of People Power – a community bike organization in Santa Cruz, Calif., Erica Fernandez, a Stanford undergraduate and winner of the 2007 Brower Youth Award and Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Mars Trilogy who will speak on post-capitalism.
Lauren Jabusch, senior biological systems engineering major and co-chair of the California Student Sustainability Coalition, said the overall goal of the seminar is to expose students to a variety of topics and connect them to speakers who are in a career field of their interest. The project also allows students the opportunity to get involved with projects that are innovative and beneficial to the community.
For an additional two units, students can choose to lead an Action Research Team (ART).
“ARTs allow students to do really amazing projects that benefit the UC Davis community,” Jabusch said.
ART includes projects such as creating a documentary on community biking from Davis to Sacramento or researching the percentage of humanely and economically grown food produced.
Katherine Bolte, first-year agriculture and sustainability major, said ART projects are a beautiful way for students to take their education into their own hands and hone in on topics most important to them.
“We’re still looking for ART facilitators, if you have a project or specific area of interest that you’d like to explore with a group of like-minded students,” Bolte said.
To get involved with ART contact Bolte at khbolte@ucdavis.edu or Klein at wpklein@ucdavis.edu, or to sign up for the seminar visit cce.ucdavis.edu/environmental-news/action-research-team/.
JASPREET BAHIA can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
