Courses
for MDC Faculty and Staff
Community Education
Core
Faculty
| Preparing Students to Work for a Sustainable South Florida |
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Earth Ethics Spring Activities
This year, Earth Ethics Institute (EEI) is
offering students The Wolfson Debate Team proudly co-sponsors a celebration and recruitment event for the Earth Ethics Spring Speech Contest and other Speech-related activities. An interactive activity (and snacks) prompts a personal examination of our campus community and local empowerment resources. Using colored markers and pens, students are encouraged to draw symbols on large displays of bioregional and campus maps to mark significant places of environmental, educational, and community meaning. Information on the Earth Ethics Spring Speech Contest, joining MDC Debate, and support offered by the Communication Arts Center will be available to students.
Buzz Question for Students
Celebrating Place
- Supplemental Reading “Notes on Living Simply in the City” by Marliyn Welker from Plain Magazine, 1995 “Green Cities” by Peter Berg from Radical Environmentalism, 1993 and A Green City Program, 1990 “Mindfulness in Every Room of Your Home” by Joyce DiBenedetto-Colton “Persuasive Speaking:
Alternative Energy Resources and Solutions” by Nicole Colston 1) Aldo Leopold says, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends to be otherwise.” Does that state your view? 2) Berg says that re-inhabitation involves learning to live in place in an area degraded by human activity, and working to restore it. In thinking about degradation in your area, what is one thing that might be restored? 3) How would you describe your feeling of responsibility for the land in the area where you go to school? Where you live? What factors have contributed to that feeling? 4) Which area of alternative energy resources are you most interested in? Why? 5) What are the major considerations of a persuasive speech writer? 3) Can you think of any “brown-fields” (as described in the “Battle of Midway” article) around your home, work, or school? 4) Find the name of an organization working to protect the natural features of your place. Share it with your group. |
Visions of Nature
Earth
Ethics Institute Spring Speech Competition
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Responsibility to Your Place Facilitated by Nicole Colston Wednesday, February 2, 2005 From 3:00-5:00 pm “Communication Arts Center” Rm. 2313 Wolfson Campus Video Viewing (35 min.) “Global Brain” by Peter Russell A moving presentation which explores the theory that the Earth is an integrated, self-regulating living organism and asks what function humanity might have for this planetary being. It suggests we stand at the threshold of a major leap in evolution, as significant as the emergence of life itself, and that it is only through such a shift in consciousness that we will be able to successfully manage the global crisis now facing us. Group Discussion Questions 1) What did the philosopher Alan Watts refer to when he coined the term “the skin encapsulated ego”? What are the environmental consequences of so many individuals having “skin encapsulated ego”? 2) What is the next great “Revolution” in society (after the Agricultural, Industrial, and Information Revolutions) and how will it differ from the Revolutions of the past? 3) If an organism needs several billion atoms in order to function and if the evolution of consciousness needs several billion nerve cells to develop, then what will be needed for humanity to be linked into an integrated, functioning system? 4) What are the benefits to the individual (as well as society as a whole” of having “leaky margins”? 5) How can a time of crisis be such a wonderful time to be alive? How can we learn to appreciate times of crisis? Supplemental Reading “A Spirituality of Contentment” By Dee Dee Risher from the Other Side, Summer 1992 “Excerpts from Living Lightly in the City” By Janet Luhrs in Simple Living No. 1 “Beyond the Blue Glow: A Year Withot TV” By Lisa C. Lambert in The Oregonian 1999 “Can’t Live Without It” By Alan Thein Durning from World Watch, May/June 1993 “A Declaration of Sustainability” By Paul Hawken from the Utne Reader, Fall 1993 Discussion Questions 1) What are you most attached to? Nice Houses? Nice clothes? Status? Financial Security? Independence? Privacy? Comfort? Has this attachment brought discontentment into your life? 2) Risher claims that to choose a life of voluntary simplicity requires a radical break from our culture. Do you agree? Are you ready? Where will you find support? 3) Durning says advertising images tend to project “sexual virility, eternal youth, social belonging, individual freedom, and existential fulfillment.” Do you respond to any of these? 4) Hawken’s says that in order to have a sustainable society, business and governance must be integrated with the natural world. How does this vision relate to voluntary simplicity? |
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Acting For Your Place Facilitated by Nicole Colston
Wednesday,
February 16th, 2005 “Hot Spot” Debates Students will take turns Supplemental Reading “Making a Difference” by Katrina Shields from In the Tiger’s Mouth, 1994 “There’s No Specialization Like Home: Making a Career Out of the Place You Live” by John K. Bullard from Places (Environmental Design), Fall 1991 “The Power of One” by Sharif M. Abdullah, 1991 “Battle of Midway” by Margaret L. Knox in Sierra, 2001 Discussion Questions 1) “Making a Difference” identifies obstacles to taking action. Have you ever felt like taking some action to protect your place, but didn’t do it? What kept you from acting? 2) In the area of empowerment, are feelings of optimism and pessimism important factors in your motivation or ability to take action? How do you deal with pessimism? 3) Can you think of any “brown-fields” (as described in the “Battle of Midway” article) around your home, work, or school? 4) Find the name of an organization working to protect the natural features of your place. Share it with your group. |
Visions of Nature
Earth
Ethics Institute
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