Category: Sustainability

ECOS students win a national video contest!

smuthukrishnan / / Awards, Current News, Department, Shi Center, Student News, Student Research, Sustainability

The GLP Films’ Student Film Project is an annual contest that invites students to pick up a camera and create their own short films documenting sustainability-related stories in their school, home, or community.  This year three EES / SUS students (Tim Sharp, Josie Newton, and Melanie Brown) in the Engaged Living ECOS program submitted a film “Gardening for Good” that they made as part of their FYS 1126 course (Sustainability) with Dr. Dripps. Their film won the college division! Congrats to these three – the film can viewed here or by clicking on the image below.

WINNERS

College – "Gardening for Good" Josie Newton, Tim Sharp, Melanie Brown, Furman University

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https://vimeo.com/album/2919991/video/98380526

Other winners are:

Middle School – "Parras Grades of Green" Lilly Sprangler, Parras Middle School

https://vimeo.com/album/2919991/video/98384804

High School – "ECO2School" Samantha Perry and Jasmine Jolly, Maria Carrillo High School

https://vimeo.com/album/2919991/video/98382649

GIS in community problem solving!

smuthukrishnan / / Community Research, Department, Faculty News, Furman, GIS News, Sustainability

Using GIS and Drones, Furman University students are studying the existing condition of street lighting in neighborhoods with the goal of making these areas safe and reduce incidences of crime in Greenville communities.  As part of their GIS class project taught by Mike Winiski of Center for Teaching and Learning, they have studied Po Mill and New Washington Heights communities in Greenville to field map street light conditions and intensity and now using drone technology for developing a model of street lighting reach so that this can be scaled to a larger area of study.

Students and faculty have worked with the community members to identify the problem and to address the problem through some kind of community based funding model, so the decision about the location of new streetlights is based not only on solid data, but more importantly the voice of the entire community.  For more information, please check out: http://edge.furman.edu/lights-on-for-safety.htm­l

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Video compiled and edited by Taylor de Lench, Furman University

Prof. Angela Halfacre Publishes Her Book “A Delicate Balance: Constructing a Conservation Culture in the South Carolina Lowcountry”

smuthukrishnan / / Career, Earthscience News, Faculty News, Furman, Publication, Shi Center, Sustainability

halfacre-book-cover1

Description from the University of South Carolina Press: Sustainability of the natural environment and of our society has become one of the most urgent challenges facing modern Americans. Communities across the country are seeking a viable pattern of growth that promotes prosperity, protects the environment, and preserves the distinctive quality of life and cultural heritage of their regions. The coastal zone of South Carolina is one of the most endangered, culturally complex regions in the state and perhaps in all of the American South. A Delicate Balance examines how a multilayered culture of environmental conservation and sustainable development has emerged in the lowcountry of South Carolina. Angela C. Halfacre, a political scientist, describes how sprawl shock, natural disaster, climate change, and other factors spawned and sustain—but at times also threaten and hinder—the culture of conservation.

Since Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the coastal region of South Carolina has experienced unprecedented increases in residential and commercial development. A Delicate Balance uses interdisciplinary literature and ethnographic, historical, and spatial methods to show how growing numbers of lowcountry residents, bolstered by substantial political, corporate, and media support, have sought to maintain the region’s distinctive sense of place as well as its fragile ecology.

A Delicate Balance deftly illustrates that a resilient culture of conservation that wields growing influence in the lowcountry has become an important regional model for conservation efforts across the nation.

Congratulations Dr. Halfacre! 

Dr. Halfacre can be reached at: angela.halfacre@furman.edu

Students receive grant from Piedmont Natural Gas Foundation

smuthukrishnan / / Awards, Furman, Shi Center, Sustainability

Patrick Starr (Earth and Environmental Science and Political Science Major) and Wes Floyd (Sustainability Science Major) are among six students from three Universities that received fellowship from Piedmont Natural Gas Foundation to support and pursue real-world problem solving projects in collaboration with local communities and non-profit and government agencies. 

Floyd will work with Greenville officials to help implement a Sustainability Action Plan for the city.  He will research implementation strategies used by other cities and provide support to the city’s Green Ribbon Advisory Committee, which advises City Council, the City Manager, and other city staff on the development of programs and initiatives regarding sustainability. Floyd, based on his research, will craft a manual for other municipalities about the process of developing a Climate Action and Sustainability Plan.

Starr will work with the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, a Greenville-based foundation committed to advancing sustainable forestry and vibrant rural communities across America. His work will include creating a database of U.S. watershed protection programs and developing a database of all protected forestlands in the 13 Southern states.  He may also work with bioenergy projects.

Furman’s Shi Center for Sustainability is coordinating this grant with Duke and Vanderbilt Universities.

Welcome Dr. Betsy Beymer-Farris, Assistant Professor of Sustainability Science

smuthukrishnan / / Department, Faculty News, Furman, Sustainability

IMG_4343Dr. Beymer-Farris comes to Furman from the University of Illinois, Urbana Chanpaign where she completed her Ph.D. in Geography. As the new Sustainability Science hire in the EES Department, she will teach Principles of Sustainability Science (SUS 120) and Social Systems (SUS 241) courses this year. In teaching these courses, her role will be to motivate students to critically examine the dynamic social-ecological processes underlying the formation and change of place and space, and how they hold the potential to affect change.

The integration of ecology with environmental politics and global economic development lies at the core of Dr. Beymer-Farris’s research interests. Dr. Beymer-Farris is a political ecologist who draws heavily from the literatures of social-ecological resilience, environmental history, and political economy. She has spent over ten years in Tanzania researching human-environmental dynamics of development issues related to global climate change, biodiversity conservation, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture. She is interested in “sustainably utilized” landscapes, carbon forestry (e.g. Reduced Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation or "REDD+"), marine protected areas, alternative food networks, and in (re)conceptualizing social-ecological resilience. 

Dr. Beymer-Farris’s office is within the EES Office Suit (Room 119A) in Plyler Hall.  She can be reached by phone at 294-2505 or by email at Betsy.Beymer-Farris@furman.edu.  Please join us in welcoming Betsy to Furman and Greenville.

Faculty attend sustainability seminar in Europe

smuthukrishnan / / Department, Faculty News, Field Trip, Sustainability, Travel

2011 June in Switzerland

Brannon Andersen, Bill Ranson, Suresh Muthukrishnan, and our newest faculty member, Betsy Beymer-Ferris (starting in August), attended a Mellon Foundation funded travel seminar in sustainability that visited Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark, and Freiburg, Germany.  A total of 18 faculty from 8 different colleges participated in this program.  The group met with city planners, architects, and design experts in each city.  We used public transportation for traveling between cities and used hired bicycles to travel within the city.  Overall, we studied sustainable design in buildings, alternative energy, agriculture, and transportation.  After the seminar was over, Betsy traveled on to do research in Norway and Sweden, whereas Bill, Brannon, and Suresh traveled with Dr. Becky Gould (Middlebury College) to Zermatt, Switzerland to study glaciers, glacial geomorphology, and water resource management (and lots of good hiking).  The outcomes of the travel will be incorporating our experiences and learning into our curriculum and the development of a May Experience trip to Germany and Switzerland. 

Click on links below to see some photographs from these places.

Sustainability Science Curriculum

smuthukrishnan / / Department, Earthscience News, Furman, Sustainability

Sustainability_Science_Brochure_P1The EES department has released a brochure that contains all necessary information regarding the new degree program in Sustainability Science.  Students interested in pursuing B.S. degree in Sustainability Science are advised to meet with one of the faculty advisors in the EES department at the earliest convenient time.  Depending on the individual’s interest, the faculty advisor can provide critical advice on course selection and long-term career plans of the students.   Click on the link below to download the brochure.

PDF Brochure: Bachelor of Science in Sustainability Science

For more details, please visit the department web page: http://ees.furman.edu

Environmental Policy Student Research Presentations

smuthukrishnan / / Department, Presentations, Student News, Sustainability

Environmental Policy offered by Dr. Angela Halfacre (Director of Shi Center for Sustainability and Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Political Science departments) attracts students interested in sustainability, environmental policy, environmental law, earth and environmental sciences, and political science.  This course offers an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how environmental policy can address problems relating to consumption, development, environmental risk, and environmental justice.   An important part of this course are student research projects.  These projects examine  policy, including perceptions and behaviors, on the Furman campus or in the Greater Upcountry region (Greater Greenville, South Carolina).  Connections to and considerations of environmental policy approaches related to preservation, conservation, protection and sustainability are emphasized and examined through the student research. A central theme of the course is the policy and politics of sustainability strategies by scale (campus to community).

EnvPolicy_Poster

The students in the Fall 2010 section of the course shared the results of their semester research through a poster session held on December 1 at the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability located at Cliffs Cottage.  Over 70 participants attended the event, and students shared a short overview of their projects and participants then talked one on one with the students about their research in greater detail.  Representatives from several community partners attended including Greenville Forward, the City of Greenville, Spartanburg County, and Upstate Forever.   Faculty, staff, administrators, and students from several departments and divisions also participated, and shared ideas, fellowship, and conversation about the research while also enjoying seasonal sweets (warm apple cider, apple fritters, and sweet potato bread supplied by Aramark).   Several of the research projects will be continued by the students in their future individual research efforts as well as through "legacy projects" with students enrolling in future offerings of the Environmental Policy course.

More details regarding individual research projects or further enquiries about the center should be sent to Brittany DeKnight at the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability, Furman University.

New degree in “Sustainability Science” within EES

smuthukrishnan / / Department, Earthscience News, Furman, Sustainability

Sustainability ScienceLast week, in an unanimous vote, Furman faculty approved addition of a new degree program in Sustainability Science within the Earth and Environmental Sciences department.  Furman is one of a handful of schools that offers a rigorous, interdisciplinary science degree in sustainability area in the country. 

The Sustainability Science major focuses on the critical linkages between global environmental, human, and social systems. The Sustainability Science focuses on how humans and the environment affect one another on a variety of spatial and temporal scales, and how changes in one system affect others. For example, what social changes need to be made to address Global Warming, and how will implementing those changes affect various communities both culturally and economically? This model highlights the centrality of complex systems analysis, which will be emphasized in the curriculum of the major.

Thus, Sustainability Science integrates social, economic, and governance systems into the analyses of environmental change and resource availability and acknowledges that feedbacks in both natural and social systems play an important role in either accelerating or slowing change. This core skill of thinking about complex systems is valuable to all disciplines, and is absolutely necessary to Sustainability Science and will be emphasized within the major.

Students pursuing this degree will take one introductory course, four core courses, five upper level elective courses that are distributed across disciplines, MTH 150, and complete a senior thesis. Because of the degree of potential overlap of electives between Sustainability Science major and Earth and Environmental Science major, students will not be allowed to double major in both EES and SUS.