Making Campus sustain-able

1. Research an infrastructure (pre-activity)

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In the week before the activity, students choose one of four infrastructures - water, transport, food, energy – and researched how these are manifest on Sussex campus. They had also familiarized themselves with the university’s sustainability policy

 

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2. Explain workshop objective 

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I explained that students would learn about campus infrastructures in experiential and material ways. They were to walk across campus in small groups and map all instances of their chosen infrastructure they encountered. Because this activity involved a self-guided, outdoor learning element, it was important to give students clear guidelines, in terms of times and activities, to keep them on track. 

 

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3. Campus walking discussion

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Groups of 3 - 4 students decided on their route in the classroom and then undertook a 25 minute walk, using campus maps to mark any physical manifestations of their infrastructure. They also answered questions on a worksheet I had given them.

 

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4. Presentations

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Back in the classroom, students translated the findings from their walking discussion into presentations, focusing on what they had encountered and on forward-looking sustain-ability recommendations that the rest of the class, who role-played a hypothetical senior leadership team.

 

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5. Debrief

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 Each creative activity needs to followed by a collective discussion session in order to draw out students’ learning and connect it to the larger topics of the class. I often do that in the following class, after sending students a short survey with some reflection questions.