Special Extended Sessions
Special extended interactive two hour sessions held immediately after lunch. Sign up for these sessions at the greeter's table when you arrive.
THURSDAY SESSIONS
A River Reborn: Educational Resource Guides
A River Reborn: The Restoration of Fossil Creek: This award-winning educational documentary about our own Fossil Creek was completed in January of 2007 by an Emmy Award-winning crew. It is narrated by Ted Danson and is now showing on PBS stations across the country. Following a screening of the one-hour documentary, Dr. Stefan Sommer, Executive Producer of A River Reborn, will discuss the key social, ecological, and communications elements of this ground breaking restoration epic. Dr. Sommer will bring examples of the three educational resource guides being developed to accompany the DVD. One guide is being developed for non-formal education, one for high school, and one for college classroom education across the many appropriate disciplines. For more information please visit: www.RiverReborn.org
Dr. Stefan Sommer is Executive Producer of A River Reborn, www.RiverReborn.org <http://www.RiverReborn.org> as well as Director of Education at the Merriam-Powell Center, www.mpcer.nau.edu <http://www.mpcer.nau.edu> . Dr. Sommer is Director of the Colorado Plateau Biodiversity Center and Vice President, Association of College and University Museums and Galleries as well as a Research Professor in the Dept. of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University.
Thursday 1:30 to 3:30 pm Room 514
Sustainability and Oral HIstories
This interactive panel will discuss the many ways in which oral histories and ethnographic interviews can be used to address sustainanability and a sense of place.
- Tucson's Solar Village: Examining Sustainable Community Development Through Oral History
In Fall 1986, a group of University of Arizona staff and members of the Tucson-Pima Metropolitan Energy Commission created a joint proposal for planning a “solar village” to be built on State Land near Tucson, Arizona. This proposal was in response to a request for proposals for energy conservation projects by the administration of Governor Bruce Babbitt. The proposal was accepted in the outgoing months of the Babbitt administration, and the ensuing 20 years of history of the transformation of proposal to reality involved many players and many lessons in sustainable community development. A small pilot project was started in Spring 2007 to interview people involved in the project at various stages using an oral history approach. This discussion will provide an overview of the development of the Tucson solar village and use information from the oral history interviews to point out critical decision points in the project and make suggestions for research and teaching. Al Nichols (read by Jason Laros), “Tucson, Civano, and the Sustainable Energy Standard”
- Ecologogical Oral HIstories
Ilse Asplund, Justin Blendell, and Norm Lowe will discuss their experiences collecting ecological histories through a Northern Arizona University Cline Library Project. Ecological histories and their role in connecting people and place will be discussed along with images and slides provided by Peter Friederici
Jason Laros received his Bachelor's of Science in Regional Development from the University of Arizona and is currently attending Colorado Technical University to attain a Masters in Project Management. He spent several years working as a carpenter and journeyman installer in the residential building trades in Boulder, Colorado and then in Moscow, Idaho. In Idaho he eventually opened a public forum called "Retro-Fit Gallery" where thesynergy of cultures, technology and the environment were collaboratively explored by the community through performance, art and cooperative information sharing.Before returning to Tucson he was Superintendent of 360,000 square feet of family apartment housing at University of Idaho. Now Jason worksfor Al Nichols Engineering, Inc. (located in Civano) where the Sustainable Energy Standard is put to the test annually via anenergy and water audit under the guidance of Mr. Nichols.
Norm Lowe has a BS in Rangeland Management from the University of Arizona in 1978. He has had a federal career working with ranchers in Utah and Arizona with the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation. Norm has been a leader for 14 years with the local Diablo Trust land sustainability group and a leader with the Coconino County Sustainable Building Program group for five years. He is currently working on a Masters of Liberal Studies degree at NAU with a focus on sustainable design and development. He conducted ecological oral history interviews with NAU Cline Library’s oral history program in 2005 and 2006.
James Sell received a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1983, and followed that with post doctoral research in Landscape Architecture at UA during 1986-88. In 1989 he was appointed to the faculty in the UA Geography Department from 1989-2002. In 2002-2003 he was a senior researcher for the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, doing oral history interviews of offshore oil workers in southern Louisiana. In January 2004 he was appointed to a faculty position in the Geography, Planning, and Recreation Department at Northern Arizona University. He has served as a director in the Arizona Solar Energy Association and was on the Tucson-Pima Metropolitan Energy Commission. He has been involved with the Tucson Solar Village (Civano) project since the first proposal was written in 1986.
Justin Bendell earned a BS in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000. After myriad odd jobs and several years devoted to radical activism in Wisconsin and Arizona, he enrolled in the Masters of Liberal Studies program at NAU. For his thesis, Justin is writing creative nonfiction essays on the history and ecology of the Mogollon forest bioregion. He took an Ecological Oral Histories course in Fall 2005 and has since been less wary of carrying around a tape recorder, just in case someone has a story to share.
Ilse Asplund has a B.A. Biology from Prescott College. and was the HIV Program Manager for the Yavapai County Health Department. She designed and developed Public Health Services based on matching federal criteria with community needs. Ilse is the founding Director of Northland Cares and HIV Free Clinic and is an adjunct instructor forYavapai College and Prescott College. Believe that communities can best develop solutions when all voices, especially those of the marginalized, are included. Presently completing a thesis in the Master of Liberal Studies Program exploring the marginalization of “radical” environmentalists through narrative and analysis of property rights. In Fall 1986, a group of University of Arizona staff and members of the Tucson-Pima Metropolitan Energy Commission created a joint proposal for planning a “”solar village” to be built on State Land near Tucson, Arizona. This proposal was in response to a request for proposals for energy conservation projects by the administration of Governor Bruce Babbitt. The proposal was accepted in the outgoing months of the Babbitt administration, and the ensuing 20 years of history of the transformation of proposal to reality involved many players and many lessons in sustainable community development. A small pilot project was started in Spring 2007 to interview people involved in the project at various stages using an oral history approach. This discussion will provide an overview of the development of the Tucson solar village and use information from the oral history interviews to point out critical decision points in the project and make suggestions for research and teaching.
Thursday 1:30 to 3:30 pm Room 510
Campus Sustainabilty: A Mighty WInd
This extended session explores sustainability efforts on campus. Northern Arizona University representatives will present some of the programs and research implemented on campus as well as student organizations on sustainability that have networked with other colleges and universities. The second part of this session will look at the donation by Southwest Windpower of a full size wind turbine to Coconino Community College. An explanation of how Airstream wind turbines work, integration of the wind turbine onto campus grounds, analyzing the best location for a wind turbine, and the impact of its installation on the existing Photovolatics and Wind Power Curriculum are some of the topics that will be explored in this session. Additional discussion will also be extended to how CCC students in the Photovoltaic Windpower program would begin to do low cost installations of solar panels and wind turbines out in the Northern Arizona community under the oversight of liscenced professionals.
Heather Farley is the Senior Office Specialist at the Center for Sustainable Environments (CSE) at Northern Arizona University. As an undergraduate student, Heather studied Biology which sparked her interest in environmental studies and sustainability leading her to study Environmental Policy in NAU’s Masters of Public Administration Program. At the CSE, Heather has been instrumental in initiating several on-campus sustainability efforts including the creation of the NAU “Green Practices Guide” and the Sustainability Ambassadors Network. Heather is passionate about perpetuating a culture of sustainability at NAU, in Flagstaff, and ultimately on a global scale. Through education and outreach at NAU, she has begun to instill that culture and hopes that sustainability will become a way of life at NAU rather than a concept
Mike Madigan recently graduated with an Environmental Economics degree from Northern Arizona University. As a student worker at the Center for Sustainable Environments he drafted NAU's first Campus Sustainability Report, was the first president of the NAU chapter of the Campus Climate Challenge, and strives to create a Culture of Sustainability on campus. Mike was recently nominated for the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education Student Leadership Award for his campus sustainability efforts. As part of NAU's Interdisciplinary Climate Mitigation Class, Mike presented the classes findings of NAU's greenhouse gas emissions inventory to University President John Haeger and made suggestions how to best mitigate those emissions, in hopes of making NAU carbon neutral. Mike now holds positions at the Center for Sustainable Environments and the National Institute for Climatic Change Research, where he continues to work as a sustainability ambassador for the university and the Flagstaff community
Joe Costion has been the Industrial/Construction Technology Program Coordinator at Coconino Community College since 1999. Joe earned his B.S. in Industrial Supervision in 1980 and his master’s degree in Vocational Education in 1984, both from Northern Arizona University. He started his own business, Vocational Building Skills, Inc., a non-profit educational corporation, in 1989. Paul Thomas of Southwest Windpower and Mark Easton, Director of CCC Facilities will join Joe in this interactive discussion on CCC's new wind turbine
Paul Thomas is an Electrical Design Engineer for Southwest Windpower. He has worked on the development of the Skystream wind turbine as well as other Southwest Windpower products. He also teaches the Photovoltaic and Wind Power class at CCC.
Mark has been the Director for Facilities at Coconino Community College for over 14 years. He has been in the Facilities Management and building construction field for over 30 years. He brings to this program hands-on experience in a broad spectrum of areas within commercial building energy management projects. Mark has attended seminars in Certification for Energy Management and Creating a Sustainable Energy Program through the Association of Energy Engineers, as well as classes on indoor air quality and waste management. Mark has worked with numerous architectural firms and assisted in the design of energy efficient educational facilities.
Thursday 1:30 to 3:30 pm Room 514
FRIDAY SESSIONS
Wild Edibles: A Plant Walk
Need to get outside? As a prelude to Friday evening's Luscious Local Foods Feast, take a walk out in our beautiful Northern Arizona landscape with master forager and ethnoecologist Patty West. In this session you will learn to identify wild edible plants, various methods of gathering, what parts of the plants are useable and how to process these foods, as well as what ethics and values to keep in mind while gathering wild plants.
Patty West has a B.A. in Parks and Recreation Mangement as well as Botany. She received her M.A. from University of Arzona in Renewable Natural Resources. She is the founding member of the Community Supported Foraging Program. Patty served as an ethnoecologist and lab manager for the Center for Sustainable Environments for both international and local projects. Patty has been to coordinator of all of the past Foraged Feasts and continues to carry out numerous free lance projects and has been leading plant walks for fifteen years.
Friday 1:30 to 3:30 pm Meet in the Commons
Walking the Talk: Sustainable Architecture in Education
This session looks at educational institutions that have made the architecture and design of their structures working models of sustainability. First we will travel to Willow Bend Environmental Educational Center and tour their facility as well as review their programs. Then we will travel on to the brand new LEED Platinum certified Applied Research and Development Facility at Northern Arizona University.
Willow Bend Einvornmental Center was built in 2003 with the help of many wonderful community volunteers. The design of our education center incorporates passive solar features such as trombe walls and south-facing windows, which allow the sun to warm up the colored, scored and grouted concrete floors. Because of these features, we are able to heat our building without auxiliary heat.Straw Bale walls provide R-33 insulation (conventional walls = R-12). The ceilings have blown-in insulation that provide R-50 insulation (conventional = R-30 to R-38) and floors at R10 (conventional = none).
The building has wood frame construction with straw bale walls on the West, North, East, and three trombe walls on the South. Trombe walls are 12” sandblock filled with grout, mortared, and painted black on the outside. The glass pane above the wall helps to trap heat which will be transferred to the interior of the building at night. The floors are 5 ' thick solid concrete, gridded and grouted to look like tile. The concrete was dyed red and then sprinkled with a yellowish powdered dye while still damp. The floor is insulated around the perimeter with 4 feet of foam insulation. The result is an eco-friendly, low-cost building that functions as both a comfortable workplace and useful education facility! Come visit our center and see first-hand how beautiful green can be.
The Applied Research and Development Facility at Northerd Arizona University is one of a handful of buildings in the world that has been designed to the LEED Platinum standard, the highest level of certification for the United States Green Building Council.
Designed by the renowned environmental design firm Hopkins Architects from England and the European engineering group ARUP, this innovative building features several cutting edge techniques:
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The narrow building shape allows all spaces to be lighted with natural light or daylighting. Integrated controls allow the high performance skin to open and close, maximizing passive solar heating and cooling.
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The building uses an energy efficient, low pressure, HVAC system that employs a raised-floor system as ductwork
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To reduce energy consumption, air handling units feature “enthalpy” wheels that pull heat and moisture from exhausted air and return it to the fresh air entering the building.
- The building incorporates materials that normally end up in a landfill, including recycled steel and recycled flooring materials. It also uses flooring developed from a sustainable bamboo forest in Arizona and wood from a certified sustainable forest of the White Mountain Apache tribe.
- The building generates more than 20 percent of its own energy through a unique solar tracker supplied by the Arizona Public Service Company.
The ARD building is sited in an existing retention basin that handles storm water runoff for an existing retail facility. The basin has been re-configured to provide a demonstration facility for wetland and xeriscaping research on campus.
Friday 1:30 to 3:30 pm Meet in the Commons
Mountain Meadow Farms Tour and Local Food Networks
In this session, you can choose between an interactive panel discussion on building local plant networks and as well as the political, economic, social and personal implications of growing food and supporting local farming., or you can travel to Mountain Meadow Farm and take a tour of a demonstration site on high elevation gardening.
- Our local food panel consists of four individuals heavily involved in the building of local farming networks here in the Northern Arizona including the Flagstaff Farmer's Market, Community Sposored Agriculture, permaculture experts, the Urban Lifeways Project and the building of resource guides and networking local food organizations.
- At 6,900 feet on 3 acres in Flagstaff, Arizona, Mountain Meadow Farm produces food and other agricultural products using sustainable practices, plus it serves as a demonstration site for our community. We intend to satisfy our needs for a variety of nutritious, delicious foods produced without the use of petrochemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Our farm demonstrates permaculture design principles and strategies; through tours, presentations, workshops, and the media, we share with others what we do and have learned. Chuck McDougal, Mountain Meadow Farm’s owner, designer, and farmer, operates this facility with the help of others who also passionately advocate sustainable agriculture and the pleasure of homegrown food.
Brett Ramey is Baxoje from the Missouri River region of Kansas. Currently he is the coordinator for the Urban Lifeways Project, an initiative of Native Movement based in Flagstaff, Arizona. The Urban Lifeways Project works with local youth to integrate urban agriculture, art, dance, and zero-waste initiatives to reclaim a place-based, culturally relevant, and ecologically sound learning environment. They maintain two gardens near downtown Flagstaff, operate a bicycle-powered compost pickup from downtown restaurants and host community events and workshops at the gardens.
Ben Williams fell in love with homegrown food at an early age. For as many years as he can remember, his mother would spend the early months of spring transforming the mess of dead weeds and plants bordering our house into the beautiful vegetable garden that he came to take for granted. When he left home to begin college, he began to notice how broken our nation’s food system was. He missed the simplicity of our family garden and wondered why a much more complex system offered so much less. Over the past several years, while working at the Center for Sustainable Environments, Ben has organized cooking demonstrations for the Flagstaff Community Farmers’ Market, helped to coordinate community food events, and compiled and edited a wonderful local foods directory for the Four Corners region, which he will make available to all conference partcipants. He is currently working with Northern Arizona University dining services to introduce organic and local foods to the dining halls on campus.
Josh Robinson has a Master's degree in Ecological Landscape Design. He is a co-founder of Eden on Earth, LLC where he works teaching, designing, and installing sustainable and edible landscapes irrigated with rainwater and greywater.
Josh Robinson will discuss permaculture practices in Flagstaff.
Andrea Meronuck has lived in Flagstaff for ten monsoons. She is co-coordinator of the Flagstaff Community Supported Agriculture, a Master Gardener, and a graduate student in the Community Counseling and Women's Studies programs at NAU. Her undergraduate degree was in liberal studies with a focus on feminist and ecological theory and activism. She has facilitated numerous programs aimed at connecting young people to the land, home grown food, "home economics" and their feelings. Through that work she has grown immensely. She also loves quilting, listening to electronic music and hauling buckets of greywater around the garden with her friends.
Applied Learning Room 513
Applied programs and experiential education for teachers and students including partnerships with community organizations and service learning.
THURSDAY SESSIONS
Experiential Education: An Ethnographic Service Learning Field School Among the Hopi, Navajo and Rarámuri
This presentation describes a service learning ethnographic field school in which undergraduate anthropology majors worked side by side with indigenous peoples from several tribes in 2 countries on sustainable development projects designed by the communities themselves. The participating institutions were Western State College (Gunnison CO) and Native Seed Search (Tucson AZ), as well as Hopi and Navajo families. The field school took place in 2003 and 2004, and serves as a model for a similar fieldschool experience now being developed at NAU. Students irrigated fields, planted corn, and mudded a hogan in Canyon de Chelly; helped to build a solar cobb and straw bale house at Hopi; and built check dams for sotol gardens in a remote Rarámuri village in the Sierra Madre of northern Mexico. Students not only learned physical skills related to sustainable development, but did so in an intellectual context which fostered cross cultural communication and understanding. They participated in community-generated projects and saw first hand the benefits, and complexities, of sustainable development as carried out in partnership between indigenous peoples and students.
Janneli F. Miller teaches anthropology at NAU. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona and is also a licensed midwife with over 20 years of experience in homebirth. She has extensive experience teaching in applied learning contexts and working with indigenous peoples, usually with a focus on health.
Thursday 9:30 to 9:50 am Room 513
Service Learning Projects Completed by Electrical Engineering Students at Northern Arizona University
Engineering students at Northern Arizona University participate in a program called Design4Practice, where students work in teams to complete advanced technical projects. The Design4Practice program emphasizes the engineering design process, teamwork, project management, oral presentation and writing skills, rather than a particular technical subject. The Electrical Engineering department at NAU recently decided to promote service learning projects in its junior-level Design4Practice course. In the Spring 2007 semester, two teams of five students elected to perform service learning projects. One team created a robotics design challenge with students from the Flagstaff Middle School Anchor Program, which serves children with autism. Another team created an interface that allowed disabled students at Sinagua High School to interact with a remote control car via their Springboard communication modules. Both engineering teams were highly successful: the projects were completed on-time and met the customers’ requirements; the pre-college teachers enjoyed interacting with the engineering students, learning about new technologies while training the engineering students in educational concepts; the pre-college students had fun, gained technical skills, developed positive relationships with the engineering students, and were publicly recognized for their technical accomplishments. In addition, the engineering students enjoyed working on something “real” and serving the community. Due to these and numerous other benefits, the NAU Electrical Engineering department is planning to increase its participation in service learning projects.
Dr. Allison Kipple is an assistant professor of Electrical Engineering at Northern Arizona University, where she teaches courses in electromagnetics, power systems, and engineering design. She received a B.S. in aerospace engineering, summa cum laude, from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Educational Psychology from the University of Arizona. Dr. Kipple also has nearly fifteen years of experience as a practicing engineer, including service as thedirector of the U.S. Army antenna ranges (Fort Huachuca, Arizona), a calibration engineer at the Alaska Synthetic Aperture Radar Facility (Fairbanks, Alaska), and a research assistant at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Sciences (Boulder, Colorado).
Thursday 10:00 to 10:20 am Room 513
More Bang for the Buck: How an International Public Relations Service Learning Experience Expanded Pedagogical Outcomes
The purpose of this paper is to compare the experiences of an international service learning class with the findings presented in the longitudinal study conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute, in which the impact of service learning and community service of 22,236 college undergraduates was assessed on 11 different dependent measures. The results of the comparison indicate a similar outcome in that service participation had significant positive effects on all 11 outcome measures for the public relations students. Students kept a journal and reflected on their experiences. These testimonials were collected over a period of 18 months. The implications of instituting international service learning projects are discussed as are the opportunities and implications for public relations education.
Astrid Sheil, PhD is an assistant professor of public relations at Northern Arizona University. She joined NAU in 2004 after completing a career in corporate communications with two Fortune 500 companies and one international corporation in Helsinki, Finland. She is the faculty advisor for the Public RelationsStudent Society of America (PRSSA) and she just completed a two-year fellowship for Learner Centered Education and Engaging Large Classes. A graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Dr. Sheil holds a masters and PhD in Communication from the University of Tennessee. Thursday 10:30 to 10:50 am Room 513
The Working Text-“A Living Document”
Over the past several years, John has used the “working text” in all of his Administration of Justice Classes. Students are required to complete this document near the end of the semester and are allowed to make corrections, deletions, and additions throughout the semester. The working text is similar in design to a personal portfolio and each student is encouraged to personalize the document. The working text is used in annual assessment activities, and is a source of extreme pride for each student. This document can be used for a variety of disciplines. Examples of student work will be illustrated.
John Cardani serves as the Department Chair for Public Safety, Law, and Allied Health Programs, at Coconino Community College. He is a native to Northern Arizona, and retired from law enforcement in 2000 following a 22 year career. He worked for the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office and is a former Chief of Police. John has worked on the Hualapai, Havasuapi, Navajo, and Hopi nations, and currently teaches “Criminal Jurisdiction on Federal and Indian Lands” at Coconino Community College. For several years, he traveled to Tuba City, located on the Navajo nation, and taught Administration of Justice Courses to criminal justice personnel working for the Navajo Nation government. John has taught classes for Arizona Law Enforcement Training Academies in Prescott, Tucson, and Phoenix, and has had the opportunity to teach every Administration of Justice course offered at CCC. He became a Department Chair in 2003. John currently serves on the Coconino Community College Curriculum Committee, Coconino Community College Safety and Security Committee, Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety Law Enforcement Phlebotomy Advisory Board, and is a member of the Arizona Justice Educators Association. John also serves on the Arizona Criminal Justice Articulation Task force.
Thursday 11:00 to 11:20 am Room 513
Playing With a Purpose
Imagine your student’s learning capabilities when you add adventure and experience to your classroom. This workshop will introduce adventure-based activities that have proven themselves valuable on the NAU Challenge Course and in the college classroom. Come Play With a Purpose.
Nicholas Hagemann is very fortunate to be playing, learning and teaching as the manager of the NAU Challenge Course. Nicholas has presented his unique adventure-based methodology at such conferences as the Teaching and Learning Conference at CCC, NIRSA Regional Conference, APRA State Conference, and Issues and Strategies: Bullying Prevention Conference. Nicholas is also has the unique opportunity to teach Experiential Learning (PRM 352), Health promotion in an Adventure Setting (HS 405), Challenge Course Facilitator Training (PRM 214) and Professional Debriefing for the Outdoor Leader (PRM 215) for NAU. In every workshop, class or program, Nicholas brings a sense of Adventure with a Purpose.
Thursday 11:30 to 11:50 am Room 513
Challenging Prospective Teachers’ Conceptions of Student Motivation:
A Strategy for Real-Life Learning
This study examines a strategy to make learning about the theories of academic motivation a richer and more valuable experience for prospective teachers. Participants (65 women and 7 men) in the study were enrolled in two different sections of the undergraduate Ed Psych course at a large southwestern university. Early in the semester, each prospective teacher met with a third or fourth grade student in one-on-one interviews during a 60 minute site visit to an elementary school. To gather their own data about “what is motivating” from the unique perspectives of the 72 elementary students interviewed, the prospective teachers presented ambiguous pictures of children engaging in school activities and asked them to tell stories about motivational aspects of various scenes. Following this experience, prospective teachers seemed more willing to confront their personal theories and to discuss possible misconceptions about student motivation. Almost all prospective teachers reported that the task was very valuable in expanding their understanding of student motivation, particularly in providing them with “real life examples of theory”. More than half of the prospective teachers described thinking about the complexity of student motivation as they completed related course assignments later in the semester. Almost half of the prospective teachers expressed some desire to learn more about the classroom teacher’s role in promoting student motivation.
Barbara Huff is an ASU doctoral student (ABD) in Lifespan Human Development. Her research interests include motivation to learn across the lifespan. She has presented her work at national conferences during the past three years. In 2006-2007, she co-authored two published journal articles. She currently teaches Educational Psychology, Human Development, and Child Psychology at NAU, Scottsdale campus.
Thursday 12:00 to 12:30 pm Room 513
LUNCHEON SERVED 12:30 to 1:30 pm in the commmons...
SPECIAL INTERACTIVE SESSIONS 1:30 to 3:30 pm (see program)
Refreshments Served 3:30 to 3:55 pm in the commons..
The Development of State-Wide Clinical Internships in an Athletic Training Education Program: A Perspective
An important educational component of many pre-professional allied health care programs is clinical education. It is in this environment where experiential learning thrives, providing students and their preceptors with immeasurable opportunities for service-learning and professional development. Additionally, the clinical education environment enhances students’ learning by unifying theory with practice and reflection with action. It places a larger responsibility on students to take a larger, perhaps unfamiliar, quantity of ownership in their learning. Students partner with their preceptors to fulfill the unique needs of the local community population. This population is dependent on the clinical site but is generally the physically active adult, the professional athlete or any number of collegiate and high school athletic teams. The particular needs of the population necessitate that students are challenged daily to develop and utilize problem solving and critical thinking techniques in deciding on acute injury prevention and care, as well as therapeutic treatment and rehabilitation. It is within the framework of these clinical internships that athletic training students develop into the certified athletic trainer.The current accreditation requirements for all athletic training education programs require a significant portion of a student’s experience to come from the clinical education environment. The athletic training education program at Northern Arizona University is unique in that it is the only program in the United States to utilize state-wide clinical sites and placements. These clinical internships are available in a broad variety of settings, including clinical, high school, college and university, and professional sports. Having such a diverse group of clinical internships provides for an assortment of challenges. These can include the difficult teaching situation, the complex learning situation, preceptor stress and the problem learner.This presentation will highlight the development of the clinical internship, the coordination and cooperation of teaching and learning goals, the assessment process and outcome variables.
Steve Cernohous, EdD, ATC, LAT has been a certified athletic trainer since 1997. He has worked in both the clinical and university settings mentoring both high school and college students. Currently, Dr. Cernohous serves as an assistant professor and clinical coordinator for the athletic training education program at Northern Arizona University. His research interests include qualitative research centered on experiential learning, instructional technologies, and narrative and storytelling pedagogies.
Thursday 4:00 to 4:20 pm Room 513
A Market Research Study for the Development of a Retail Entertainment Complex: An Active Learning Project for College of Business Students at NAU-Yuma
This presentation will describe the process College of Business students from the NAU-Yuma campus used to conduct a market research study for a new retail entertainment complex currently being developed in Yuma, Arizona. The mixed use retail complex will include approximately 25 retail tenants ranging from 1,800 to 5,000+ square feet of retail space and will include retailers providing products and services and dining for all age groups. Students began this active learning project as a course component in a Principles of Management class in Spring of 2007. The project continued as an Independent Study for Summer 2007. Nineteen students were involved in the project, which included three steps: 1) a demographic study of Yuma County, the Imperial Valley of California and Mexicali, Mexico, 2) a product and services study, and 3) a retail tenant analysis. The students will suggest specific retailers that should be targeted for the entertainment complex.I will also discuss in the presentation the student reactions to the active learning project and the skills they developed. In terms of student reactions, my student evaluations scores were higher for 13 out of 14 dimensions when comparing scores for Spring 2007 to Fall 2006 for the same course but without the active learning project. For the evaluation item “I feel that I am performing up to my potential in this course,” my score was 1.0 higher on a 5-point scale, despite the fact the overall class GPA was the same at 2.7. Overall, the project has been very effective in achieving the goal of engaging students in a real-world commercial development business project that will impact the community in which they live.
Dr. Mindy West is an Assistant Professor at the Yuma campus of Northern Arizona University. She earned her Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 2000. Her undergraduate degree is in Marketing and Spanish from Ohio Northern University, and she has a MBA in Human Resource Management from Miami University. Her research interests include international human resources, employee turnover, and legal issues in human resource management. She has published research articles in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and Human Resource Management Review. She wrote a 5-article series on skills for success in college in a monthly regional magazine, Our Parent & Family Magazine. Her main teaching interests are strategic management, human resource management and international management. She earned two teaching awards as a doctoral student at Arizona State University: the College of Business Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award and the Arizona State University Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. She was a nominated for the Teacher of the Year Award for Northern Arizona University in Yuma in 2006.
Thursday 4:30 to 4:30 pm Room 513
FRIDAY SESSIONS
Education for Engaged Citizenship, Environmental Awareness and Sustainability: An Examination of a Service-Learning Project
This paper presentation will focus on using service-learning as an integral aspect of an introductory course in Environmental Humanities. In this class, students were exposed to campus and surrounding community environmental/sustainable needs by participating in thoughtfully-organized service-learning projects. The service-learning projects were coordinated with local community partners so that students were able to connect classroom concepts with local action in regards to environmental and sustainable issues. A central theme of the thesis project was to provide education on the need for a more equitable and environmentally sustainable society, and through the process of service-learning, help introduce students to tangible ways to move in a more sustainable direction.
Marcus Ford is a professor of Humanities at NAU with a special interest in environmental issues. He has addressed the need or a total rethinking of higher education in his book: Beyond the Modern University: Toward a Constructive Postmodern University and, more recently, in an article published in Planning for Higher Education: The "Externalities" of Higher Education.
Amanda Acheson is currently working as Coconino County’s Sustainable Building Program Manager. She is also working on a Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies-Good and Sustainable Communities offered at Northern Arizona University. Participating in this interdisciplinary Master’s program has provided Amanda with a holistic understanding of community and has provided her knowledge of the key elements needed to move our society into a more sustainable direction. Amanda’s passion and commitment to civic engagement, education and sustainability has endowed her with the needed enthusiasm and desire to help our local community transition into adopting more sustainable practices.
9:30 to 10:20 am Room 513
Applying Anthropology: The Graduate Internship Program at Northern Arizona University
NAU Anthropology Master’s degree students in the formal internship program use anthropological knowledge to help solve broader societal concerns. Students in this applied track earn their Master’s degree by following a structured program that involves completing a summer internship. Students bridge method and theory while also earning real world experience during their internship. The summer internship is often the highlight of the student’s career. We ask that the student dream big—what is their dream internship—and then we help to make it happen. Faculty focus on professionalizing our students so that by the time they complete the M.A. degree they are ready to hit the job market or go on to Ph.D. programs. Our graduate students achieve professional levels of performance in ethics, writing, speaking, quantitative analysis, and computer applications.
George Gumerman, IV, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Department Chair, Northern Arizona University.
holds a B.A.from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne and both a M.A.and Ph.D. from the University of California-Los Angeles 1991 George Gumerman IV is currently researching prehistoric food and culture on the north coast of Peru. The Moche Foodways Archaeological Project aims to understand Moche culture through the study of food (http://moche.nau.edu). Moche culture is consumed by death, warfare, and human sacrifice. Gumerman’s discovery of a large funerary feasting complex at the extraordinary site of El Brujo indicates that feasting also revolved around death.Gumerman also has a broad interest in public archaeology including the development of an interactive educational CD-ROM: The Interactive Archaeology of the Grand Canyon and Colorado Plateau (http://idig.nau.edu). Students create a virtual museum exhibit by exploring who lived in the Grand Canyon and how they existed. In addition, Gumerman is collaborating with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, educators, elders, and archaeologists, to develop a Hopi culture curriculum for Hopi schools. The Hopi Footprints project is an incredible opportunity to improve teacher quality that uses archaeology and elder oral history as a foundation to build a standards-based cultural curriculum.
10:00 to 10:50 am Room 513
Make it Real: Sustain Learning by Integrating Theory and Lesson Planning
Learning theorists such as Piaget, Weinstein, and Tinto laid down some foundational theory to help us understand how students learn, and thus how best to teach. Others such as Bandura, Vygotsky, Keimig, Dale, and Gardner added meaningful theory and discourse. Academic retention programs that are based on these learning theories, such as Supplemental Instruction and Peer Assisted Tutoring, have proven to be effective in helping students learn and retain information and succeed at a higher rate than students who do not participate in these programs. In this hands on workshop, you will learn techniques to integrate these learning theories into your lesson plans to help your students become engaged in lifelong learning. Instead of “covering” course content, show your students how to “uncover” sustainable knowledge.
Karla Phillips has always loved to learn and am interested in almost everything. She earned two Associate degrees in technical and science fields at community colleges in Colorado, which eventually led to a Bachelors in Geology, Chemistry, and Math, along with an elementary teaching certificate from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Following graduation, she spent nearly five years living on a boat and sailing through the South Pacific with her husband. She learned about sustainable environments and applied learning on a boat in which she filled such diverse roles as first mate, chief weather forecaster and hurricane tracker, ham radio operator, co- navigator, foreign linguist, and emergency medical technician. They maintained a fresh water supply through desalination and water catchment, produced all our power with solar panels, a wind generator, and a towing generator, and gathered much of their food from the ocean and the islands. Upon arrival in Hawaii, she worked as a math/science specialist providing hands on science and math programs to Pre-K through Sixth Grade students. She was called back into education and coordinated an academic assistance program at Leeward Community College in Pearl City, Hawaii, working with Native Hawaiians, Career and Technical students, and prison inmates. She later earned a Masters in Education Administration from La Crosse University, and a Masters in .Education (Management and Innovation Emphasis) from Western Governors University. She is currently Projector Director of a Distance Learning Title III cooperative grant with Coconino Community College and Northland Pioneer College
11:00 to 11:20 am Room 513
Colorado Plateau Studies and How Do you Know It's Sustainable?
This workshop offers participants a chance to consider their own practices from the standpoint of sustainability, with an emphasis on perspectives from those living and working on the Colorado Plateau. We first briefly review CCC’s Colorado Plateau Studies interdisciplinary resources for cultivating stewardship on the Plateau, and consider interactively what “sustainability” means, both historically and for workshop participants. Then we work in groups to outline the life cycle of items we use in our work, with an eye toward clarifying some of the choices open to those who aim to thrive, particularly in this ancient and extraordinary region.
Phyllis Thompson is a Flagstaff writer and teacher with a special interest in ways we translate values into action. She earned her doctorate at Cornell University and, since the early 80’s, has specialized in teaching interdisciplinary topics such as Creativity, Intercultural Change, and War or Peace?
She recently transformed her book Dear Alice into a prize-winning dramatic reading for the Northern Arizona Book Festival and Sun Sounds radio, and has published articles in magazines like Cruising World and Oceans. Thinking, writing, and working with others around the topic of sustainable practices in education is a wonderful synthesis of these interests.
LUNCHEON SERVED 12:30 to 1:30 pm in the commmons...
SPECIAL INTERACTIVE SESSIONS 1:30 to 3:30 pm (see program)
Refreshments Served 3:30 to 3:55 pm in the commons..
Academic Preparedness to Teach Sustainability
American economy is vulnerably dependent on imports, and creates stress. The emerging sustainable economy is a garden economy. It fosters a sense of place and community connections. Everyone is included, engaging each person’s unique mix of skills. The educator’s role changes in the garden economy. In a garden economy, the educator connects coursework, apprenticeship, community, curriculum, and markets. Do you truly want to teach for a sustainable society? Then you need to ask yourself, what sustainable practices do I engage in every day? If you have not begun to change your own daily practices around basic human functions of eating and excreting, and secondary human functions of sheltering, transporting, clothing, you are not qualified to teach sustainability. Talking is not enough. Who, by these criteria, is qualified? Who wants to experience the paradigm shift and qualify? Presenter recommends permaculture design course as the best way to learn principles of sustainable design and experience the paradigm shift.
Lindianne Sarno acquired an AB in history from Princeton University (Class of '76), and studied law at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. A Italian native of New York City, she worked for a couple of years in corporate city jobs, but found herself dreaming about growing food and animal husbandry. So Lindianne left academic and corporate life and plunged into the hands-on world of growing food in a small rural community in Western Oregon. She eventually grew food, herbs and flowers, and marketed her products in Olympia, WA, Santa Cruz, CA, Eugene, OR, and Ashland, OR. As she worked with seed sowing, manures, composts, orchards, worms, harvests, Italian recipes adapted to the American west, sauces, sprouts, whole grain baking, farmers markets, seed saving, permaculture, soil amendments, and community organizations she found life on the land fascinating. To grow and market food one must use science, history, social skills and much more including one's spiritual senses. In the spring of 2006 She founded Sustainable Tucson, because although Tucson had lots of sustainable activities, no one had pulled it all together and made the skills and knowledge accessible to the general public. Through the organization, Tucsonans are making connections to install rainwater cisterns, plant food gardens, use solar energy, offer green audits, and much more. They are going public in the fall of 2007 with a major education for sustainability conference in partnership with the Arizona Association of Environmental Educators.
4:30 to 4:50 am Room 513
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Innovation Room 514
Innovative models and programs that address ecological sustainability, economic sustainability, resource management and energy conservation.
THURSDAY SESSIONS
Community-Based Participatory Research: A Framework for Multidisciplinary Engagement in and With Communities
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is promoted as a methodological approach aimed at fostering collaboration among community members and researchers (including students), building the capacity of community groups to create change, balancing research and action, and more. This multidisciplinary panel of university researchers and community representatives will discuss five years of experience applying CBPR principles in a binational partnership among the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA) and more than a dozen organizations and institutions in the Santa Cruz watershed (Sonora, Mexico and Arizona, US). The panelists will describe how the partnership has developed and expanded; discuss the evolution of research and outreach activities in the areas of revegetation, conversion of waste vegetable oil to biodiesel, and alternative technologies for cooking, heating, construction, and waste management; and critically analyze the benefits and challenges of this approach from the perspectives of participants in various positions within the partnership.
Diane Austin is a faculty member within the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA) at the University of Arizona (UA). Her interests include environmental anthropology, environmental education, Native American natural and cultural resources management; community development; and social impact assessment. She coordinates BARA's internship program and specializes in developing and implementing participatory research methodologies.
Francisco Trujillo is the Mexican director of BorderLinks, a binational non-profit organization that provides educational opportunities in the U.S.-Mexico border region. In addition, he runs the Casa de Misericordia, a community center and daycare in the colonia of Bella Vista. He has been involved in projects related to revegetation, alternative technologies, and finding alternatives to burning garbage and wood.
Jeremy Slack is pursuing his Master's degree in Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona. His interests are community-based participation and action for social and environmental justice, political ecology, and urbanization. He has worked in BARA on projects related to revegetation, alternative technologies, and finding alternatives to burning garbage and wood.
Friday 9:30 to
10:20 am Room 514
Eating the Landscape: Resilience Theory and Local Traditional Foodways
Much effort is going into reviving and preserving traditional indigenous agriculture and land management systems. A key element in Resilience Theory is the concept that, changes in ecosystems or in the case of Native farmers, societies take place in episodes interspersed with periods when “natural capital" builds up. Suddenly these periods are flavored with what are referred to as “reorganizations” of social “legacies” and that this episodic behavior is caused by interactions between fast and slow variables.” In many Native communities the natural capitol is the farmers, the elders, and youth that are involved in reorganizing and developing new methods for revitalizing and keeping alive traditional agriculture and land management techniques in their home landscapes. The social legacy and the fast and slow variables that are interacting are the traditional ecological knowledge associated with how to coax foods and other useful materials from their lands combined with the youth that will, no doubt, develop new ways to do this based on centuries old traditions. On the Colorado Plateau cultural memory, youthful exuberance, and innovation are creating conditions suitable for strengthening cultural resilience. In Resilience theory our youth represent the small memory loop that feeds back into the larger loop where innovation, based on long-term knowledge and understanding generates new knowledge and practice gleaned from traditions that worked, but also no longer work or is failing to standup to current climatic conditions. In this presentation the author will reveal how resilience theory can be applied to current projects occurring on the Colorado Plateau and in the Greater Southwest and where these projects are making a difference towards revitalizing traditional indigenous agriculture and land management systems.
Enrique Salmón (pronounced sahl-móhn), is a Rarámuri (Tarahumara). He feels indigenous cultural concepts of the natural world are only part of a complex and sophisticated understanding of landscapes and biocultural diversity, and he has dedicated his studies to Ethnobiology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in order to better understand his own and other cultural perceptions of culture, landscapes, and place. Enrique has a B.S. from Western New Mexico University, an MAT in Southwestern Studies from Colorado College, and PhD. in anthropology from Arizona State University. His dissertation was a study of how the bio-region of the Rarámuri people of the Sierra Madres of Chihuahua, Mexico influences their language and thought; poisonous plants used for medicine was the focus for the study. During his doctoral course studies Enrique was a Scholar in Residence at the Heard Museum. Enrique is on the Board of Directors of the Society of Ethnobiology. Enrique has published several articles and chapters on Indigenous Ethnobotany, agriculture, nutrition, and traditional ecological knowledge. He is Adjunct Professor of American Indian and Raza Studies at San Francisco State University.
Friday 10:30 to 11:20 am Room 514
Community for Sustainability
This presentation is about the necessity for humans to come together in cohesive communities in order to make decisive action on critical issues. Sustainability not only relies on available energy and economic resources, but is contingent upon the commitment of people to living in balance with the earth and with other people. The individual is critical to the success of global sustainability. However, individuals must form communities based on sustainable principles in order to evoke change in a powerful way. The energy and commitment of the individual is buoyed and sustained by the energy of the group; and, therefore, the power and potential of the one within the group is amplified. The focus of this presentation is on community leadership, individual and group dynamics, and the steps to creating a cohesive community.
Sydney Francis has a MFA in Interdisciplinary Art. Her thesis research and practicum project focused on community building and through practical application in the arts. Her interest is in the relationship of the individual to the community, and the community to the larger whole. Sydney is an Associate Faculty member and Gallery Director and Performing Arts Presenter at Coconino Community College.
Friday 11:30 to 12:20 pm Room 514
LUNCHEON SERVED 12:30 to 1:30 pm in the commmons...
SPECIAL INTERACTIVE SESSIONS 1:30 to 3:30 pm (see program)
Refreshments Served 3:30 to 3:55 pm in the commons..
Undergraduate Women, Belly Dance, and Body Image: Personal Narrative and Qualitative Analysis
This master’s thesis is an interdisciplinary study, weaving feminist embodiment theory, history of belly dance, and qualitative research methods together. The paper shows how women’s bodies are objectified through the advertising prevalent in Western consumer cultures, reflecting and perpetuating objectification in the ways women perceive themselves and other girls and women. The author articulates how a shift is necessary to create societies that are robust enough to move toward sustainability; that women must be empowered to fully participate as subjects and not only as objects.Through a qualitative research project with undergraduate women, the paper illustrates how the modern fusion-based dance form known as Tribal Style belly dance can be instrumental in shifting women’s ideas about feminine bodies, creating a sense of trust, building community, elevating women’s confidence, and subverting the images of mainstream media. The presentation will conclude with samples from work subsequent to this thesis: the BellyRoles project, a collaboration between photographer Pete Giovale and presenter Hilary Giovale. The BellyRoles project is a collection of photography and narrative of Tribal Style belly dancers in Australia. It further explores the relationships between body image, belly dance, and sustainability.
Hilary Giovale is a facilitator and practitioner of Tribal Style belly dance. She earned a Master of Liberal Studies in December 2006 from Northern Arizona University. Her research focuses on the connections between Tribal Style belly dance, women’s body image, and social sustainability. Hilary completed a teacher certification in Tribal Style belly dance from the Gypsy Caravan Dance Company of Portland, Oregon in April 2007. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona and is the mother of one daughter and a baby who is expected in September.
Friday 4:00 to 4:20 pm Room 514
Exploring the Idea: Working Toward a Little Colorado River Valley National Heritage Area
National Heritage Areas are a relatively new management approach that combine local community, state, federal, and private resources with the goal of balanced development that builds on a region’s natural and cultural character while strengthening the region’s economic vitality. The first National Heritage Area was designated in 1984 and there are currently 37 Areas throughout the country. Other National Heritage Areas have been successful in downtown revitalization efforts, natural area restorations, heritage tourism development, school programs, and a number of other initiatives. National Heritage Area designation is currently being sought for the Little Colorado River Valley, a region bounded by the Mogollon Rim in the south and Black Mesa in the north, the San Francisco Peaks in the west and the Continental Divide in the east. Although still in the initial stages of development, the proposed Little Colorado River Valley National Heritage Area will look to combine private businesses, local governments, non-profits, educational institutions, and state and federal agencies as decisions and projects related to this region’s development are made. This presentation will cover the National Heritage Area concept, brief case studies of successful projects and partnerships from other Heritage Areas, the 2-year effort to designate the Little Colorado, and possible future internship opportunities.
Linda Marie Golier is the Heritage Programs Coordinator for the Center for Desert Archaeology, a non-profit public archaeology organization dedicated to the preservation of the American Southwest’s diverse cultural resources. A lifelong enthusiast of the arts and the outdoors, her first professional job that combined culture with community outreach came in 1997 at the Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington, Kentucky. Since then, she has gained experience in sustainable community and tourism development through her graduate work in applied anthropology at NAU, an internship with the Vacationland Resources Committee in eastern Maine, and now through her position as coordinator of the Little Colorado River Valley National Heritage Area designation effort.
Friday 4:30 to 4:50 pm Room 514
FRIDAY SESSIONS
Two-Eyed Seeing: Developing a Coastal Guardian Watchmen Program
This presentation outlines a unique educational partnership between the Nuxalk, Oweekeno, Heiltsuk, Haida, Haisla and Tsimshian First Nations and Northwest Community College on the central and north coasts of British Columbia. The concept of `Two Eyed Seeing’ is credited to Canadian Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall, and describes the balance of indigenous and western worldviews on science and technology and the integration of both for a holistic (and realistic) way to care for the natural environment.The workshop will describe an inclusive process of curriculum development that intends to meet the diverse needs of First Nations communities on the central and north coasts of British Columbia. Northwest Community College was approached to meet the overarching need for environmental monitoring skills to ensure the sustainability of resources and livelihood for these communities. The northwest coast of BC is a place of great biocultural diversity and developing courses and programs that understand and are founded on First Nations cultural perspectives relating to learning, environment/culture, and celebrate diversity require a re-thinking of current educational models and processes. The workshop will also address attempts at the indigenizing of education in Northwest Community College and BC in general as we begin to realize the importance of “two-eyed seeing” and then a bicultural working together to improve the health of all communities in northwestern BC.
Ken moved from Wisconsin to British Columbia in 1975. For a number of years he worked as a tree-planter and forest/silviculture technician. He began teaching forestry courses at Northwest Community College in Terrace, BC in 1994. Ken recently completed an MA in Community Studies at Athabasca University. His current duties include coordinating the development of the Coastal Guardian Watchmen Training program, providing a feasibility study for the harvesting, cultivation, and processing of traditional plants for the Gitwangak Band, and coordination of Trades programs at the college including community-based delivery of carpentry programs to enable development of community construction crews. Ken has recently survived the 4th highest flood levels recorded on the Skeena River where he resides along the banks of the river.
Friday 9:30 to 10:20 am Room 514
Sustainable Development in the Mining Industry
There is a general perception that mining merely damages the environment, destroys the landscape, and pollutes the atmosphere, without commensurate benefits to society. Public memory, aided by the media, dwells on legacy problems and is a major contributor to this assessment. However, some of these beliefs arise from the manner in which mining is regarded among our academic communities. The need for minerals to maintain our standard of living will be exemplified. An attempt will be made to show that mining companies fully subscribe to the principles of sustainable development, with attention not only to economic gain but also social and environmental concerns and good governance. Examples of what is being done in Arizona will be presented.
Dr. Madan M. Singh’s appointment as Director of the Department of Mines and Mineral Resources, State of Arizona, was approved by Governor Napolitano in August 2005. He was invited to be a member of the Industry Leadership Board for the Department of Mining and Geological Engineering at the University of Arizona, serves on the Board of the Arizona Conference of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc. (SME), and is on the Advisory Council for the Arizona Foundation for Resource Education (AFRE). He is a member of the Mining Foundation of the Southwest. Singh is currently serving on the Committee for Assessing the Need for a Defense Stockpile (CANDS) for the National Research Council (NRC) of The National Academies. He has served on NRC Committees for Mine Placement of Coal Combustion Wastes (2005) and Coal Waste Impoundments (2001). He was elected to the U.S. National Committee for Rock Mechanics, and served on the U.S. National Committee on Tunneling Technology.
Friday 10:30 to 11:20 am Room 514
Government Sustainability
Learn about the City of Flagstaff's new Sustainability Program and the theoretical framework and methodology being employed to build a successful program within municipal operations and throughout the Flagstaff community.
The demand for sustainable approaches to living is higher now than ever before. As knowledge and awareness about the need for energy efficiency and sustainability arises, more and more residents and local businesses request for and have an interest in sustainable building and development.
*Learn how the Coconino County Sustainable Building Program has increasingly become a resource on sustainable building for Coconino County and City of Flagstaff residents.
*Find out what this free program offers, such as: plan reviews and consultations, the sustainable building awards program and sustainable building education materials.
* Discuss the possibilities for creating an employment pipeline for sustainability.
Many complain that there are few work opportunities in Coconino County that will enable someone to manage the high cost of living, especially housing. In fact, in the area of sustainability, especially green building and retrofitting existing buildings for greater energy efficiency, there is an enormous window of opportunity. New programs are gearing up in the high schools and at Coconino Community College that will help a young person with an entrepreneurial spirit and an interest in sustainability to relatively quickly obtain skills and certifications that will soon be in very high demand in this area. John Grahame would like to see people who already live here be able to stick around and make a living helping others live sustainably.
Nicole Woodman holds a Bachelor's Degree in Anthropology from the University of Kansas, a Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Systems from Northern Arizona University and is currently working on a Master's Degree in Cultural Geography from Northern Arizona University. Her thesis research explores attitudes toward wind energy, specifically utility size wind farms. Nicole's professional experience includes non-profit program management, program development and applied research. Prior to joining the City of Flagstaff she worked as the program manager for the Coconino County Sustainable Economic Development Initiative. Nicole sits on numerous committees within City operation and throughout the Flagstaff community.
Amanda Achesonhas been an active member in the Flagstaff community since she settled here over four years ago. Currently, she is working on a Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies-Good and Sustainable Communities offered at Northern Arizona University. Participating in this interdisciplinary Master’s program has provided Amanda with a holistic understanding of community and has helped to develop her knowledge about the key elements needed to move our society into a more sustainable direction. Amanda’s passion and commitment to civic engagement, education and sustainability has endowed her with the needed enthusiasm and desire to help our local community transition into adopting more sustainable practices.Recognizing the vital role that the building industry plays in the shift towards sustainability, she has dedicated her time and energy towards helping to educate the local building industry about sustainable building practices and products. Amanda truly enjoys educating others about the importance of moving towards a sustainable direction.
John Grahame is the program coordinator for the Coconino County Sustainable Economic Development Initiative. A long-time community activist, John surprised everyone by coming in from the cold to work full-time on economic development. “How can you save the planet if you don’t know how to make a living on it sustainably?” asks John.
Friday 11:30 am to 12:20 pm Room 514
LUNCHEON SERVED 12:30 to 1:30 pm in the commmons...
SPECIAL INTERACTIVE SESSIONS 1:30 to 3:30 pm (see program)
Refreshments Served 3:30 to 3:55 pm in the commons..
An Earthship in Action
This presentation gives a practical example of the construction and systems involved in the building of an Earthship by the owner. An Earthship is a passive solar designed house using rammed earth packed into automobile tires and aluminum cans for walls. This off-of-the-grid dwelling in progress incorporates not only recycled materials but, solar/wind power generation, rainwater capture, greywater systems, composting toilets and adobe fireplaces.
Harlan Vale has a background in music. He is a composer and performer. He studied Electronic Music, 20th Century Composition and Audio Engineering while attending Evergreen State College. He was a professional musician in the Seattle/Olympia WA area for 25 years. He was one of the organizers for early Olympia Experimental Music Festivals. He has produced his own 'brand' of electronic music since 1974 and continues to do so under his own label. Now however his music studio is powered by solar panels and wind generators, but he is still a prolific composer that produces CD's of music out of "Thin Aire."
Friday 4:00 to 4:20 pm Room 514
Masonry Domes
This presentation outlines the inspiration and construction of monolithic dome architecture. Dome construction has a rich and varied past. An overivew will be given of the process by which monolithic domes can be constructed as well as their unique sustainable qualities. In this case the builder and owner of a monolithic dome home will outline the integration of this building with solar technology and myriad of benefits he has found in this type of architecture.
Mason Rumney was professionally involved in selling and promoting solar energy in Colorado and is a strong believer in the long term benefits of solar power. Fifteen years ago, Mason set out to build a home that would exist in harmony with nature and the Sedona high desert landscape. He chose solar and wind power because of their long term impact on the earth. He chose a monolithic dome home because it was economical to warm and cool and virtually indestructable. Mason Rumney is happy to give tours of his home and will speak to anyone anywhere about his experience. He is amazed that people continue to choose traditional wood framed square structures. HIs experience over the last fifteen years serves as an example that the dome home solar energy combination is a practical affordable solution to living sustainably.
Friday 4:30 to 4:50 pm Room 514
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Multi-Disciplinary Approaches Room 510 and 515
How do we address the concept of sustainability within various disciplines? What cross disciplinary projects have been initiated?
THURSDAY SESSIONS
Teaching the Literature of Environmental Justice
In 1977, working-class people living in Buffalo, New York, discovered their houses had been built on top of a toxically polluted, in-filled canal. Finding their basements full of noxious liquids thought to be the cause of their children’s health problems, they organized a campaign (Love Canal) to call attention to the connections between the location of poor and marginalized communities and the location of toxins, hazardous wastes and radioactive materials. Since Love Canal, the movement for “social and environmental justice” has become a significant political force in the U.S. However, the people of Love Canal were not the first people or community to call attention to the connections between social injustices and environmental hazards. Since the earliest days of colonization in America, indigenous communities have resisted the mining, logging, and plowing of their homelands. Here in the American Southwest, both Anglo and Pueblo communities have opposed the radioactive contamination of their waters and lands since the 1940s, and urban minority and working-class communities have protested the release of industrial toxins in their neighborhoods.In this seminar, we focus on the literature of environmental justice–contemporary American poems, stories, and novels which examine the connections between social injustices, environmental hazards, and sustainable development. We begin by focusing on definitions of “Nature” and “The Environment,” examining how these definitions have been socially constructed over time. We then turn to William Faulkner’s examination of the complex, changing relationship between humans and nature in “The Bear,” then read several works which depict the effects of environmental degradation. We are particularly interested in the ways that the texts we read have depicted the struggle to create just relationships with a place and within communities. Taking an approach most recently termed “ecocriticism,” we explore the literary, cultural, historical, and ecological contexts for the texts we read. We also explore and question the philosophical bases and connections between Western philosophy and mainstream environmentalism, asking how these connections inform, sometimes problematically, the newly emerging field of ecocriticism. Questions we explore include: What is ecocriticism? What is environmental justice? What is a sense of place? What would a “just” relationship to home, place, community, and environment look like? How does literature play a role in constructing the ways in which we define "sustainability?"
Joni Adamson earned her doctorate in English at the University of Arizona. Before coming to Arizona State University, Dr. Adamson developed and headed the English program at the University of Arizona's south campus. She is author of American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism: The Middle Place and coeditor of The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy. Her essays have appeared in Globalism on the Line: Nation and Ethnicity in a Global Context, Reading the Earth: New Directions in the Study of Literature and the Environment, and Studies in American Indian Literatures. In 2004, she organized the Symposium on Globalization and the Environmental Justice Movement sponsored by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. She was a member of the Federal Facilities Working Group of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, which advises the United States Environmental Protection Agency from 2003-2005. The working group visited environmentally impacted communities throughout America and authored Environmental Justice and Federal Facilities: Recommendations for Improving Stakeholder Relations between Federal Facilities and Environmental Justice Communities. In 2006, Dr. Adamson joined the faculty of Humanities and Arts at the Polytechnic campus to teach in the new Literature, Writing and Film program. She offers courses in American Literature, Native American Literatures, Southwest American Literature, and Literature and the Environment
Thursday 9:30 to 9:50 am Room 510
Seminar on Science and Literature: “Women, Science, and Nature: Relation and Responsibility”
This course introduces students to ecofeminist theory and criticism, particularly in regard to the idea that women’s knowledge is being reclaimed, worldwide, to help recover/establish a sustainable world. Students become familiar with the history of women/gender and science; environmental justice literature by women; and ecofeminist theory (including literary theory) and literature. Students’ unique perceptions of and experiences with nature and science constitute an active, significant element of the learning in this course. In order to create a curriculum that has maximum relevancy, during the semester and beyond, for the students, they are required to write about their own relationship with nature and science throughout the course, in terms of theoretical as well as practical issues and concerns. Somewhat along the lines of autobiographical works like Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (1991), the culminating research project is a 15- to 20-page cultural and intellectual history of the student’s relationship with nature and science, in which students are also required to engage ecofeminist and other environmental literature theory to deepen their understanding of their place within this ongoing environmental/human reality. In this essay, students synthesize the personal and critical writing they have produced over the course of the semester; discover and develop themes and a formal structure pertinent to their personal history; and perform further research into key texts, concepts, locales, people, remembered events, etc., as they are significant to the individual student in terms of her/his lifelong relationship to nature and science. Students’ research includes literary, scientific, historical, and other scholarly resources, and can also include personal interviews and photographs. Several students who have taken versions of this class have later stated that the culminating paper was the best of their college career, and that the course subject matter has had an awakening, lasting effect on how they choose to live, including their energy consumption, writing focus, post-graduate training, and careers. Some of my students, at least, are living more sustainably, partially as a result of the course. In my presentation, I will briefly introduce ecofeminism, describe the course pedagogy, and discuss excerpts of students’ term projects.
Elizabeth McNeil received both her MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) and PhD in English from Arizona State University. Dr. McNeil offers courses in indigenous (US and Hawaiian) literature, Asian American literature, African American literature, women’s science and literature, and creative writing. As the Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of English at ASU, she also teaches a career development course for English majors. She is currently working on a collection of essays on ecofeminism and American ethnic literatures. Dr. McNeil has conducted a text donation project for Arizona prison libraries since 2004 and has recently begun teaching a poetry workshop at a Florence prison that houses sex offenders.
Thursday 10:00 to 10:20 am Room 510
Teaching Sustainability in a Learning Community Writing Course
The concept of sustainability is so broad and complex, and has been so completely co-opted by every form of institution for just about every purpose, that it has come to mean pretty much anything to anybody--what Owens (2001) refers to as “sustainababble”. Therein lies an important aspect of the “crisis of sustainability” in education invoked by Orr (1992). The nebulous nature of sustainability means that pedagogical theory and practice through a narrow disciplinary literacy or discourse is highly problematic and is a likely cause for Orr’s claim that, “we still educate at all levels as if no such crisis existed.” So, the question is, what do we, as educators, do? How do we design approaches to education in sustainability that are not products of disciplinary myopia or nativist attempts to present ways of knowing outside of our own provinces? The New London Group authors, Cope and Kalantzis (2000), have argued that, “different conceptions of education and society lead to very specific forms of curriculum and pedagogy, which in turn embody designs for social futures” Further, on the matter of literacies of sustainability, Yagelski (2001) stresses the need to address the complexities and connections between people, institutions, and communication technologies and their relationships with each other and the physical world. These arguments for a multiliteracy pedagogy served as a powerful framework for designing a learning community cluster that combined physical geography (scientific literacies) and composition (humanistic literacies). This endeavor embodies a design for a social future that resonates with the transdisciplinary pedagogies that are particularly well suited a learning community approach to education. Accordingly, our multi-disciplinary team set forth to tackle the issue of how to design a learning communities project that explores the environmental, economic, and social mandates of sustainable development (United Nations, 2002). The question for us then was: How might we and our students play a role in a sustainable future through complementary studies in geography and writing? What philosophy of teaching would best serve both scientific and humanistic goals? Ultimately our approach to introducing young adults to literacies of sustainability sought to model a process of guidance and inquiry-based learning, i.e. helping students learn how to think, not what to think. We wanted to approach sustainability in education not as a response to a crisis, as Orr suggests, but as a response to an opportunity for exploring the potential for transdisciplinary literacies and to encourage awareness of the multiple “realities” that write, and are written by, our notions of sustainability. For the proposed paper, I will present some of the multiple perspectives (albeit from my own perspective as a writing instructor) that shaped this learning community cluster. I will discuss experiences with the intersection of humanistic (English/writing) literacies and scientific (Geography) literacies in coursework, laboratories, and field trips, and where and how these literacies overlap, conflict, complement and contradict. My primary argument is that ultimately discussions about sustainability, as means to future social activism and as academic endeavor, demands the sort of multiple approaches, discourses, and perspectives that our learning community project models.
Peter Goggin is assistant professor of rhetoric in the English Department at Arizona State University. He researches and teaches theories of literacy and communication technologies, and environmental rhetoric and sustainability. He is author of Professing LIteracy in Composition Studies (forthcoming, Hampton Press). In addition to his work in literacy theory, he has published articles on environmental remediation on overseas military base closures and on sustainability and composition. He has worked with with faculty in the Geographical Sciences to design and teach a Learning Communities project on Sustainability at ASU. He also is the founder and director of the annual Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference.
Thursday 10:30 to 10:50 am Room 510
Teaching the Literature of Sustainability: Panel Discussion
We have found that guiding students in reading and writing about science, nature, and sustainability, to help them tap into ways of thinking about the environment and their place in it that have been previously denied them, can help open these young citizens of the world to the potential of their own natural love of life and the power they can enact to ensure its continuance. For example, in her term paper for Elizabeth McNeil’s course, a student wrote about her previously truncated ability to nurture and sustain her intellect and voice, since US/European society still does not especially value the thinking and being of its women. It is rather astonishing, when one stops to think about it, how much we have squandered in dismissing women’s—or children’s, anyone’s—thoughtful contribution to our collective being. Without this student’s informed, active engagement in our society, and the engagement of other women of all ages, how do we even begin have a whole, healthy society? How do we even begin to recognize what it is that we seek to sustain?
"Looking at my culturally enforced separation from science, I know that the intensity of my connection to literature has been an attempt to reverse the emptiness and powerlessness that inevitably resulted from [my separation from science in elementary and junior high school]. In continuing my study of the animal world, ever expanding my own understanding through my own efforts, I could have learned to see myself as intellectually expert. . . . In my few childhood experiences out in nature, something was born within me that needed to have flourished. Swimming in the great, cold salt of the ocean I found myself in the wild clutch of a tremendous natural force, and I embraced it back; feeling myself a perfect extension of the ancient, earth-shaking grace of those crystal waves, I could have learned to see myself as powerful."
In a culture that still does not fully recognize its complicity in its own, globally felt destruction, this student’s awakening to the power of her writing voice, her intellectual power that she now sees as in concert with the power of nature, has the potential of alerting us to and actually altering the peril that threatens us all.
Joni Adamson, Elizabeth McNeil and Peter Goggin
Thursday 11:00 to 11:20 am Room 510
Where’s a Paradigm Shift When We Need One? Cross-Cultural Religious Concepts as a Framework for Environmental Sustainability
An overview of concepts that form ideals in the traditions of indigenous religions, for those who would like to discuss and explore concepts such as ahimsa (to do no harm); dharma (duty, responsibility); karma (the law of cause and effect, of reciprocity), and others, as a means for transformative education with respect to environmental sustainability. Although different terms and approaches are used, many such concepts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam overlap and can be key in promoting greater understanding of environmental sustainability.. After the introduction of 15-20 minutes there will be breakout small groups to discuss their respective prompts; then the larger group will reconvene and share the essence of their discussions— particularly any insights gained and those which can be used as transformative tools in their particular disciplines.
Martin Lara, M.A. Calif. State Univ. Dominguez Hills: Humanities;
M.M.A. American Baptist Seminary of the West;
M.A. Northern Arizona University: English; M. Ed. Northern Arizona University: Community College Education;
Coconino Community College: Humanities and Religious Studies Instructor.
Thursday 11:30 am to 12:20 pm Room 510
LUNCHEON SERVED 12:30 to 1:30 pm in the commmons...
SPECIAL INTERACTIVE SESSIONS 1:30 to 3:30 pm (see program)
Refreshments Served 3:30 to 3:55 pm in the commons.
Small Scale Chemistry: Sustainability and Chemistry Labs
Almost all post-secondary science courses require some laboratory component. While irreplaceable as a hands-on approach to learning science, traditional lab exercises produce enormous amounts of toxic waste and introduce a great deal risk to student safety compared to non-science courses. Small-Scale Chemistry (SSC) is a lab curriculum which practices sustainability by using much less chemical than traditional lab curricula and therefore generating less waste. By using smaller volumes of chemical, students are afforded the opportunity to conduct more experiments over the course of the semester at a reduced cost to the institution. Most importantly, SSC reduces danger to students by eliminating exposure to broken glassware and large-volume chemical spills.The presenter will facilitate a short experiment in which participants will witness some benefits of SSC.
Troy Cayou earned his B.S at Hamline University, a small liberal arts school in St. Paul, MN and completed his Masters at the U of A in Tucson. He has taught chemistry full-time at community colleges in both Minnesota and Arizona for 6 years. Interested in Small-Scale Chemistry ever since he started teaching, Troy was finally able to implement a Small-Scale Lab curriculum with his move to CCC.
Thursday 4:00 to 4:50 pm ROOM 515
FRIDAY SESSIONS
Sustainable Fiction: Incorporating Aspects of Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability into English and Literature Curricula
My goal for doing this presentation is to introduce more teachers, students, and readers to the many ways authors have incorporated aspects of social justice and environmental sustainability seamlessly into their fiction, and the importance of doing so. I will also provide resources for information on the current global environmental situation but will only devote a small portion of my presentation to this area. Novels, short stories, poetry, and plays can be used to educate students about current environmental and social concerns and provide options of actions readers can take to help make a more sustainable world, environmentally and socially. These concepts are incorporated seamlessly into fiction and students are often more receptive to learning information in these forms rather than solely through textbooks. Literature is also useful for helping readers identify with characters different from themselves which may help them develop an understanding and sympathy for others. Additionally, “because stories elicit whole brain/whole body responses, they are far more likely than other kinds of writing to evoke strong emotions” (Pipher 11). These emotional responses can engender further reading, research, and action. This presentation will discuss the concepts of sustainable fiction and ecocriticism and provide a brief overview of why they are so vital now. It will also offer examples of sustainable fiction in service to environmental and social sustainability.
Friday 9:30 to 9:50 am Room 510
Abbey Carpenter completed a Master of Arts degree in 2000 in Sustainable Community Development at Prescott College. She is currently incorporating ideas and principles from that study into her current graduate work in creative writing with a concentration in sustainable fiction. Her interest in the fields of sustainability and social justice extends to all aspects of her personal life as well as her work University as director of admissions for low-residency programs at Prescott College.
An Inconvenient Curriculum: Engaging Students in Research and Writing about Sustainable Cultures
This presentation will explore issues of sustainability through multi-genre research projects. Participants will discuss ways to engage students as researchers and writers in their local community. One project has students investigate the land and water use of subsistence cultures from the past, comparing this to contemporary local uses of land and water. Another project has students follow the path of a raindrop from cloud to tap. A third project asks students to trace their own carbon footprint as the first step towards exploring an issue in sustainability. A literature-based project explores individual and cultural attitudes towards land and land use in the Southwestern United States. Projects include a mix of research, creative and academic writing, use of technology, and visual and oral presentations. While some projects were designed for Middle/High school students and others designed for college students, these projects can be adapted to specific English/Language Arts learning outcomes.
Sandra Raymond, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor at Northern Arizona University, where she teaches English Education. Her teaching background includes teaching both Middle School and College Composition. She can be reached via email this summer at: Sandra.Raymond@NAU.edu.
Colleen Carscallen, M.A., is the Department Chair of English and Liberal Studies at Coconino Community College, where she teaches College Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing courses. She can be reached via email this summer at Colleen.Carscallen@Coconino.edu.
Friday 10:00 to 10:50 am Room 510
Learning “Sustainability” through the Arts: The Aesthetic Imagination and the Sustainability Narrative
The arts are a crucial factor in the move from a culturally hazardous path to a more sustainable way of living; they are key to investigating sustainability through curriculum. To leave the arts out of the sustainability discussion is to remove one of students’ most significant opportunities to carefully consider their current worldviews and potentially embrace new ways of thinking and being. This presentation will demonstrate that our human actions and decisions are largely based on our values and perspectives, our “cultural stories.” These cultural stories are regularly learned, taught, and perpetuated through aesthetic expression. In order to embrace sustainable life-ways, we must engage in creative expression that explores a sustainable cultural story. Just as importantly, however, we must make important changes in the way we engage the arts, approaching them with our eyes open to the important connections between various kinds of aesthetic experience and the formation of our ideas and ideals.
Tamara Wallace Ramirez works with the Program in Community, Culture, and Environment at Northern Arizona University. She holds a B.A. in Public Humanities from NAU, and is completing a Master’s thesis on the role of the arts in creating a sustainable culture through NAU’s Master of Liberal Studies Program on “Good and Sustainable Communities. Tamara serves on Flagstaff’s Beautification and Public Art Commission and on Flagstaff Foodlink’s board of directors. She and her husband, David, live in Flagstaff, AZ.
Friday 11:00 to 11:20 am Room 510
The Role of Cognitive Development in the Sustainability Curriculum
This presentation will review a number of studies of college student cognitive development that use the “Perry Scheme,” a taxonomy designed to measure higher order cognitive reasoning. These studies show, in general, that college students hold epistemologies at the lower end of the cognitive scale. As a result, college graduates may “buy into” aspects of sustainability but they lack the necessary reasoning ability to make a personal commitment to these ends. The presentation elaborates on the need for a multi-disciplinary emphasis dedicated to fostering higher order cognitive abilities within the context of sustainability. The presentation concludes that curricular dedication conveying knowledge about sustainability while simultaneously employing learning aimed at developing reasoning capacity will enable students to make a personal, lifelong commitment to sustainability.
Dr. Steve Chambers is the director of Institutional Research and Assessment at Coconino Community College. Prior to joining CCC, he was the director of Institutional Research & Assessment and Professor of Educational History at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He has also held similar research and faculty positions at Wichita State University and Northern Arizona University.
Friday 11:30 am to 12:20 pm Room 510
LUNCHEON SERVED 12:30 to 1:30 pm in the commmons...
SPECIAL INTERACTIVE SESSIONS 1:30 to 3:30 pm (see program)
Refreshments Served 3:30 to 3:55 pm in the commons.
Sustaining Complexity by Reading the Impossible
When investigating the idea of sustainability, one constantly encounters a plentitude of closures, or more specifically, constructions of what may or may not be true, possible or necessary. Penelope Deutsher, in her discussion of Derrida’s concept of impossibility explains that “declared closure can be converted by the deconstructive reader into an imagination of what may lie beyond that demarcated threshold” (75 emphasis added). In other words, when presented with what is practically and theoretically impossible, students trained to look for complexity in systems of thinking, can imaginatively envision what Derrida calls the possible-impossible, or the possibility of what lies beyond a threshold that demarcates the impossible. Through an examination of Leibniz’s concept of possible worlds in tandem with the application of deconstructive techniques in a classroom setting, this presentation will demonstrate the symbiotic relationship of sustainability of world and the necessity for sustaining and promoting the complexity of thinking, reading, current events, culture, imagination and self.
As a teacher of literature and composition, I support the cross-disciplinary idea that reading, writing and thinking are vital foundations to other systems and genres. My emphasis in this presentation will be to explore the sustainability of complexity, and more specifically, to demonstrate the possibilities for students to extend deconstructive reading techniques into political, social and environmental spheres. If we view the notion of “text” from a deconstructivist standpoint, as multi-dimensional, multimedia and multi-situational, the skills taught in English courses will be transferable to the problems students face as members of a global community.
Erica Mortom-Starner is a native of Flagstaff, and feels honored to have the opportunity to teach at Coconino Community College. She received her B.A. in English from Northern Arizona University and went on to obtain her M.A. in English at Western Washington University where she also taught courses in college composition. She encourages students to be contributors, investigators, and partakers of discourse in order to gain their own authorship by actively engaging with texts as they work to establish their particular, individual voice in relation to others. She is deeply invested in literature, both as a scholar and a teacher, particularly because it is simultaneously located and nomadic—and while great literature is historical and representative of the past, it is also adaptive, evolving and extends beyond its original contexts into the complexities of modern life.
4:00 to 4:20 pm Room 510
Education for Sustainability: An examination of Ideological Perspectives in Introductory Teacher-Education Textbooks
Education for sustainability refers to a process for reorienting human awareness, competence, values, and attitudes toward effective participation in environmental, economic, and community decision-making that promotes sustainability. The integration of principles of sustainability into teacher education is provided by the following three-part rationale: (a) the degradation of the earth’s biotic systems, (b) the decline of sustainable human communities, and (c) the call by international agencies to advance the consciousness of sustainability through public education. In a conceptual content analysis of six of the best-selling introduction-to-education textbooks in use in college and university classrooms in the United States in 2004, an informal and conservatively-calculated ratio of relevant text to total text reveals a percentage of .09 percent or less than one-tenth of one percent of the text of the six books includes any direct reference to the long-term health and sustainability of the biotic and natural systems of the planet, or any reference to community systems or economic practices that serve to promote sustainable living and stewardship of the planet.Textbooks are vehicles for the transmission of manifest and latent ideological messages about the organized knowledge system of society. They also participate in the construction of the student’s view of reality. The underlying philosophical framework of the text is integral to the way in which the reader interprets priorities and validates forms of knowledge. This study bears witness to the reinforcement by introduction-to-education textbooks of a mechanistic framework rather than an ecological one.
Dr. Hollace L. Bristol received her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from NAU in 2005 with a focus on education for sustainability. Her previous work was as a faculty member at Northwestern Community College in Connecticut where she taught mathematics for 23 years and initiated and taught a nineteen-credit certificate program in Adventure Education. She received her undergraduate degree in sociology and her master’s degree in education from Tufts University. She is currently working as the Math Program Specialist for Coconino County.
4:30 to 4:50 pm Room 510
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Sandra Lubarsky is founding director of the Master of Liberal Studies Program on “Good and Sustainable Communities” and Professor of Religious Studies at NAU. She holds a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University and has written widely on pluralism, dialogue, and the importance of beauty in sustaining community life. In her keynote, "Life-Affirming Educatio,." she describes that our task is to shape a form of sustainable education that is life-affirmative. This is to teach, as David Orr has said, for "intelligence" rather than "cleverness." It will yield students who can think not only critically, but also creatively, constructively, and imaginatively about the possibilities before us. Sandra will open our conference with a keynote address on August 16th at 9:00 am.
Carl Taylor was elected to the Board of Supervisors in November 2004. Born in Arizona, Carl’s professional career was in architecture– where he specialized in high technology and sustainable design projects. Carl is among the organizers of the Coconino County Sustainable Economic Development
He and his wife Holly arrived in Flagstaff in 1997, and have been involved in a number of community activities and organizations
Initiative (SEDI), an organization intended to assist County residents to earn a good living while preserving and respecting the place where they live. Information and detailed strategies for this long-term transformation can be found on the website: CCSEDI.org. Carl will be giving our opening keynote on August 17th at 9:00 am.
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