The Importance of Instilling Values in the Community

by Mari Nakano, Justin Gier, Jonathan Jarvis

Instilling proper values and ideas about sustainability is just as important as a successful sustainable infrastructure. Without the mentality to live in a fashion that is protecting the community, the community will most likely fall apart and not maintain it’s original goals. Therefore, it is important to consider the various ways in which one can instill such values into the community without it being considered a form of brainwash.

Our group looked into how the socio-cultural can contribute to creating a sustainable tract-home style community. I focused on the possible roles of youth, and I also researched models of existing eco-communities. There are a lot of ideas that we can pull from the articles on these links.

Education
Green Schools Initiative
Having a green school can allow sustainable education to naturally happen

The Eco Literacy Project
This project was founded by Fritjof Capra. It talks about how to incorporate healthier lifestyles (particularly around food) in the school.

Youth Leadership
This link is an example of how youth leadership can play a role in the environment. This site also talks about making eco-projects part of the graduation requirement.

Transportation & Other Things We Should Consider
Green Cities and the End of the Age of Oil
This is a good article that gives us things we can consider when building our own

Models of Existing Eco-Cities
Green Affordable Housing Initiative
Sustainable environments are possible for everyone – not just the rich.

Audubon International
Scroll to the middle of this article and read Audubon’s International’s Principles of Sustainability.

New Urbanism and CoHousing
Check out examples of eco-communities and homes. They talk about “co-housing” which is this idea of having to work on parts of the community together or have to contribute to communal activities. This article also touches upon building on the natural landscape, which is something we talked about in class last week.

I also included some points that I found would be helpful or worth considering for our project:
• making things accessible within walking distance to lower fuel emissions.
• designing the architecture of the home to be more energy efficient/ sustainable
• Supporting initiatives that can push/ support the idea of green building practices.
• Instilling conscious values into the youth – particularly through school curriculum or school graduation requirements
• Biomass: “releasing solar energy stored in plants and organic matter by burning agricultural waste and other organic matter to generate power.” This could really legitimize the idea of burning cities.
• Friendly Competitions: i.e. Competition for Most Eco-Friendly City of the Year. Can be city to city or neighbor to neighbor.
• How can “outsiders” (those not living in the community) contribute to sustaining and protecting the community? How can they benefit the community? How do they benefit by helping?

Re: Project 1: A Look At the Socio-Cultural

The “Socio-Cultural” group decided to take a look at how social and cultural aspects could play a role in a sustainable community. Our main focuses will be on: school systems and curriculum integration into the community, services for the community, creation spaces and community centers, youth leadership, voting systems, sharing/bartering/farmer’s market models and festivals, events and holidays focused on sustainability issues. Our posts will be up in the “Socio-Cultural” category of our blog.