FOUR YEARS. GO. is a rallying call asking us all to…

Wake Up to the enormous harm we are doing to Earth and ourselves

Wake Up to the profound opportunity we have now to create a future to match our deepest longing and greatest dreams

Become change agents in redirecting humanity’s current path from self-destruction to sustainability

Do it now. Don’t wait for any one or anything. And complete it by 2014.

via designinfluence.org

I have always been troubled by the ‘bean sitting in a damp paper towel on the window sill in a clear plastic cup’. It is easy, mess-free and rather quick to reward – parents expect it, but is it a true learning experience? I think it is time we scrap this yearly ritual and look into what other options we have for ‘growing’ in the classroom. Grow Great Grub is a book I would like to see being used by teachers and children to explore the possibilities that may exist around them.

“Your patio, balcony, rooftop, front stoop, windowsill, or planter box is a potential fresh food garden waiting to happen. In this book, Gayla Trail, the founder of the leading online gardening community You Grow Girl, shows you how to grow your own delicious, affordable, organic edibles virtually anywhere.”

Congratulations Gayla! Your drive and accomplishments never cease to amaze me.

Africa today: “Women and children walk an average of 6 miles a day to collect water. 1 child dies every 15 seconds due to the lack of clean drinking water. More than 10 million children die every year from preventable illnesses. 270 million children have no access to public health services.”

Design For The Children “is an open, international design competition asking architects and designers from around the world to develop a sustainable, culturally responsive, pediatric clinic model for East Africa.”

Competition is closed. View the winner here.

NEWS, PROJECTS, PAPERS and LINKS

EcoLabs gives us EcoMag – “a magazine about art, design & sustainability. Each issue will focus on a theme while investigating issues lying at the root of the ecological crisis”.

The theme of the first issue is ‘Future Scenarios’. EcoMag is available as a low resolution Pdf download here.

“Over the next 10 years, 500 million young people will seek employment in a rapidly changing world. Imagine…in 30 years, our professional working lives, we need to create homes, feed, communicate, create wealth, govern, and educate…for a low carbon, prosperous, healthy future.

In 30 years we can turn this world around
AND IT STARTS HERE RIGHT HERE

Join:
• David Orr, best known for his pioneering work on education for sustainability
• George Lakoff, linguist and political activist on how we think and communicate.
• Janine Benyus, writer, innovator, and consultant on the science of biomimicy.
• CEOs of Canada’s leading cleantech firms
• The best in business, governance, education, architecture, healthcare, food systems, industry, cleantech and energy, and communications.”

“The Urban Forest Project is a series of unprecedented outdoor banner exhibitions taking root in cities around the world. In each location, artists, designers, students and the general public will employ the idea or form of the tree to make a powerful visual statement on banners that will be displayed throughout the community.

The tree is a metaphor for sustainability and, in that spirit, the banners at the close of each exhibition will be recycled into totebags and auctioned off to raise money for a local non-profit organization. Each local project will also incorporate or support an environmental call to action such as tree planting initiatives. The program can easily be adapted to address a number of green and creative initiatives in a variety of ways to shape a project that is unique and expressive of the local community.”

via visualculture

Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must Be Sustainable, by Nathan Shedroff – published by Rosenfeld Media

“Design is the Problem explains:

1. How sustainability isn’t as difficult to understand and address as many would have you think
2. Several of the leading frameworks and perspectives on sustainability
3. How to insert sustainability into the development process that you’re already using
4. The many, practical strategies that make the products, services, and events you design and develop more sustainable—right now”

via oberholtzer-creative.com

Crane & Co. 100% Cotton Paper
Tree free, Energy efficient, Reduces waste, Renewable and recyclable!

via oberholtzer-creative.com

Open-Ended Learning: Design Responses to K-12 Education Today

“The explosion in school construction in recent years to meet the demands of a post-9/11 baby boomlet has forced a fundamental shift in how we approach K–12 schools. For architects, this new thinking—with its call for project-based learning, an increased role for technology, and more sustainable and socially responsible institutions—has resulted in more flexible spatial configurations, integrated break-out and project rooms, and better connections between the indoors and out. For example, the Nueva School, in Hillsborough, California, designed by Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, with some curriculum developed by IDEO and the Stanford D. School, has students growing food and learning from the building itself, extending the school’s role into the wider community. We asked eight leading design firms to submit a recent K–12 school project that featured an innovative approach, application, or idea. Their responses—wind turbines, green roofs, using a building as a teaching tool, and something the architects call “ad hoc urbanism”—illustrate how changes in education are affecting the design of schools today, providing a new blueprint for the classroom of the 21st century.”

Continue with metropolismag.com…

GM’s Education “website offers teachers and students resources and activities that highlight energy, environment and sustainability topics.”