Questions for Sanders

1. What is the typical response that you receive when talking to people about A Conservationist Manifesto?
2. How do you believe we should tackle the issues surrounding consumption? Additionally, what do you believe is the "easiest" adjustment that we can make within society to become more efficient and less wasteful?
3. What do you think Indiana University can do in order to become more sustainable as a university? Additionally, in what ways can they spread this message to students in an effective manner?
4.  A Conservationist Manifesto is pretty much everything that the title would make one believe. I am just curious as to what steps you take within your personal life to live efficiently and environmentally sound?

Outline for Paper

Sustainable Education:

·         Introduce Sustainable education

o   Define Sustainability—I plan to use several definitions of sustainability to come up with an idea that I personally feel encompasses all the ideas of sustainability

o   Why introduce these ideas in education?

o   Provide statistics of current state of sustainable education, juxtapose these ideas with past numbers to show growing “progressive nature of society”

·         Issues in Sustainability—ideas to approach

o   Economic

o   Cultural values

o   Media and Sustainability

·         Curriculum/case studies

o   Elementary/middle

o   Secondary

o   Post-Secondary

o   State Mandated Curriculum?/Legislation and funding for sustainable practices

·         Case Studies

o   Where/what practices were adopted

o   Pedagogical practices

§  What is effective?

§  Which do I believe to be the most effective?

o   Implementation outside classroom—organized action

§  Sustainable clubs/organizations

·         Analysis

o   What pedagogical practices were most effective?

§  Why?

§  Influence?

§  Ideology

o   The future of sustainable education

Thesis*: Ideas of sustainable practices are a growing ideology within the realm of education.  There are various pedagogical practices that exist within the field of education, however it is evident that some practices bring about a more effective means of learning.

*I first would like to state that my thesis is subject to change.  I just recently changed to this topic and have not yet had a chance to look at the variety of pedagogical practices within the realm of sustainable education.  

I plan to find my information through the use of the library sources  (EBSCO etc).  However, I have found from my limited research that there may be difficulty due to the contemporary nature of the topic.  It seems that the stance of Indiana University has changed within my 4 years here.  The growing salience of the topic is one that may cause me to result to complete research outside of scholarly articles and look towards personal accounts, articles and case studies.  In the paper I want to provide instances throughout the educational experience (K-12, post-secondary), as well as look into the overall impact that this education has on changing ideology as well as real world application of ideas/practices discussed.  Note that in the outline I wanted to address the impact of ideas within society, economics, values and the media.  It seems these are three major things that dictate a lot of the ideas and issues within this "contemporary" idea.  

Questions for Guest Speakers

Here were the questions that I had going into the discussion, although they were almost all alluded to throughout our conversation.

Emilie Rex
-What is Indiana University's carbon footprint? How does this measure with the rest of the Big Ten?
-How have departments cut down on their use of papers?
-Do you measure progress by comparing IU with other University's initiatives, or is sustainability typically measured on an individual basis?

Jacqui Butler
-What is the political climate like with regard to funding for sustainable intiaitives?
-What are the current initiatives in place to allow Bloomington to become a more efficient community?
-  In comparison to neighboring towns, does the liberal nature of Bloomington allow for an easier experience implementing initiatives?
-How have you been spreading your message throughout Bloomington?

As I stated above these ideas were almost all addressed.  Overall I found the speakers to be very interesting and somewhat disappointing once realizing the limited power that they have.  Having an understanding of sustainable practices and realizing the little salience that they have within the political realm.