{"id":15662,"date":"2020-04-30T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T15:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=15662"},"modified":"2020-04-29T15:00:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T21:00:06","slug":"teaching-our-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2020\/04\/teaching-our-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Our Values"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sustainability in the Classroom<\/h3>\n

At Colorado College, sustainability is a core value that is evident in classrooms across campus and in field study locations near and far. <\/strong>According to CC\u2019s Office of Sustainability, most CC students are involved in sustainability classes or activities. In addition to its renowned Environmental Studies Program, 23 other academic departments are offering sustainability courses in the 2019\u201320 academic year. Altogether 80% of departments provide such courses, totaling 8% of all courses offered at the college. Outside the classroom, a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program serves 77% of CC students. This focus on sustainability reflects the reality that for today\u2019s students, climate change is not an issue that they will have to face someday; it\u2019s here.<\/p>\n

In the 32 years he\u2019s taught at CC, Economics and Business Professor Mark Smith has helped students gain real-world knowledge by introducing them to people working on the front lines. In Block 1 last fall, students in Smith\u2019s Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on the Colorado River course went to Denver, Glenwood Springs, the Grand Valley, Grand Junction, and Gunnison, where they met with six members of CC\u2019s alumni community, including water resource managers, a farmer, a rancher, and other experts in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like introducing students to people who are on the ground. I call it kicking dirt clods. They\u2019re actually walking in the fields, seeing the water being turned out into a field of alfalfa, or peaches being grown,\u201d Smith says. \u201cAnd, I also like confronting students with various stakeholders who are all sympathetic. I think there\u2019s a certain intensity of the experience that they appreciate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Economics major Diellza Muriqi \u201922<\/strong> took Smith\u2019s course because she has an interest in environmental economics. For the first two weeks, students read about water in the West, sustainability, market successes and failures, and public choices. They took to the field during the third week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea what the water crisis was here in Colorado before taking that class. Because at CC, we have enough water, we have every source that we need. But going to that field trip, talking to all these organizations in Colorado, made me understand how big of an issue water is,\u201d Muriqi says.<\/p>\n

People from organizations they met with talked about many things, including sustainable usage of water and how they\u2019re encouraging farmers to replace flood irrigation with sprinklers. Farmers talked about their family farms being affected by drought. Muriqi plans to specialize in environmental economics in graduate school, and she believes a variety of career opportunities will be available for her, including some that address water resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cI come from Kosovo, and we have different issues there. Here the issue is not having enough water, but in Kosovo it\u2019s the treatment of water. So I could work with sewage treatment plants to make it possible for the water to be treated in a way so that it can be used again. That\u2019s a possibility,\u201d Muriqi says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

During Professor Sarah Hautzinger’s First-Year Experience course, students visit a Baca Grande, Colorado, home that was built from the wood of an old barn and is entirely off-grid to learn about sustainability decisions in the home and how these choices impact day-to-day life. Photo by Jennifer Coombes<\/p><\/div>\n

Associate Professor Corina McKendry teaches environmental politics and political economy in the Political Science Department and for the Environmental Studies Program. McKendry says environmental courses are in demand at CC. Introduction to Global Climate Change is offered five blocks per year; it\u2019s usually full and often has a long waiting list. A new course called Environment & Society was offered four blocks this year, and it too has been full.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a broad interest and concern among the faculty from across the disciplines about teaching classes that really engage with questions of sustainability, of environmental justice, and of climate change,\u201d McKendry says. \u201cAnd students are interested in the intersection of environmental problems with social equity and economic vitality.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKendry also directs the CC State of the Rockies Project, whose mission is to enhance understanding of and action to address socio-environmental challenges in the Rocky Mountain West through collaborative student-faculty research, education, and stakeholder engagement. Last summer, six State of the Rockies fellows conducted research on climate adaptation and inequity in the Front Range. All of the fellows are presenting their research at academic conferences.<\/p>\n

Natalie Gubbay \u201920<\/strong>, a mathematical economics major, conducted quantitative and qualitative research that resulted in a paper she\u2019s submitted for publication. Her paper, \u201cSpiraling Up Through Drought Responses in Colorado\u2019s Agricultural Communities,\u201d explores how 15 Colorado farming communities respond to drought, the strategies they\u2019re using to do that effectively, and the implications of that adaptation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that attracted me to this opportunity was that it straddles the world of independent research, but also engages with local communities, and it produces and disseminates information that could be applicable and of benefit to the area around our college,\u201d says Gubbay.<\/p>\n

Gubbay looked at traditional economic measures, like county gross GDP, income, and education statistics and she researched social capital and social networks for all 15 counties. Additionally, she produced case studies for Kit Carson and Conejos counties, which involved interviewing community leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was asking questions about strategies and resources that were important in enabling these different community members who were really central to community resilience in both counties, and asking them what strategies and resources enable them to do their work successfully. I learned a lot more focusing on the ways in which they are actively addressing drought and climate change, even in communities where people don\u2019t believe in climate change, than I would have just understanding the constraints,\u201d Gubbay says.<\/p>\n

Her report back to the community leaders was well received. Kit Carson County included it in their community health improvement plan, which will be submitted to the state of Colorado.<\/p>\n

Sustainability in the classroom is augmented by a variety of co-curricular experiences. Through Pikes Peak Workshop, teams of three to four students are paid to research a topic that addresses sustainably managing outdoor and recreational assets near campus. Sense of Place trips deepen students\u2019 knowledge about regional sustainability issues. Through academic coursework and co-curricular experiences, Colorado College impresses upon students both the serious challenges that they must face and their ability to be the ones to make positive changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sustainability in the Classroom At Colorado College, sustainability is a core value that is evident in classrooms across campus and in field study locations near and far. According to CC\u2019s Office of Sustainability, most CC students are involved in sustainability classes or activities. In addition to its renowned Environmental Studies Program, 23 other academic departments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1388,"featured_media":15556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-15662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-2020","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2020\/04\/Teaching-Values-1_BUL-SPR20.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15662"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15885,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15662\/revisions\/15885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}