GSBC 2018 WEEK #7 : Green expressions of sustainability

25 MAY 2018

We started at Green office at the VU at 14:00

Part #1 Sustainability Exhibition at VU

Thalassa Hogenboom, education coordinator with Green Office VU, & Assist. Prof. Astrid van Teefelen VU led the session about sustainability and the conservation of biodiversity & ecosystems.

Thalassa briefing students about the exhibition

An open exhibition was laid out around a beach volleyball court in the Vrije University (VU). Despite working in the VU everyday, I had ignored it all these days. Only because of the green office tour, I spent time reading (and appreciating) it. Many posters in the exhibition were from the Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS).

I found the definition of Sustainability in a poster:

Sustainability means that human society can continue to exist because, ecosystems are able to go on providing life-sustaining services such as clean water, soil fertility, climate regulation etc.

Some interesting learnings and observations and from these posters:

1.Partnership between religion and science can be useful to combat climate change : E.g. Installing solar panels on the roof of the church.

2.Study of human geography (cultures, society) and physical geography must be done together.

3.Because children are not so economically important to their parents, urban parents tend to have fewer of them.

4.The Kyoto protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which commits its Parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets.

5.J. Krishnamurti has founded Green School in Rishi valley in the state of Andhra Pradesh (India) with the purpose to create the right climate and environment so that the child may develop fully as a complete human being.

6.We stop taxing things we like such as jobs and investments in new technologies and start taxing things we don’t such as waste and pollution.

Students @ the exhibition

We tried to focus on one of the four things while reading the posters in the exhibition: Food, Clothing, Energy and Electronics

Part #2 Workshop

After the exhibition visit, we all returned to the Green Living Lab. We were divided in four groups (one per category) and had a brainstorming session. We wrote/drew our ideas on a Flipchart size paper.

We collaborated with other teams to exchanges views

and finally

The Food poster

we presented our idea in front of everyone. Overall, it gave us broader perspective about sustainability.

[… to be continued]