Green Leaf courses

EcoArt class inspires students by bringing together the social and natural worlds

Shayla Brown — Fri, 12 May 2023 18:58:12 +0000

EcoArt class inspires students by bringing together the social and natural worlds Shayla Brown Fri, 05/12/2023 - 14:58

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Students from the EcoArt course. Photo provided.

As a movement and concept, ecological art, or eco art, stretches back decades. And EcoArt has been a part of ��AV’s School of Art since 2010, thanks to Mark Cooley, associate professor and director of new media.

“The whole concept of eco art is understanding the interconnectedness of our social world and our natural world,” said Cooley. “The environmental problems that we face are the product of our culture.”

The Green Studio, founded and directed by Cooley, is an outdoor eco art studio, located on the grounds of Mason's Art and Design Building, which gives students a space to create environmental artworks.

“That's been a big thing is to have a studio that is outside that anybody can take advantage of,” said Cooley. “There are demos and classes that take place there out there, [although] now I'm teaching the class online.”

AVT 385 EcoArt is one of Mason’s Green Leaf courses, designed to incorporate sustainability and its practices across the curriculum. The course offer contains five areas that touch on different environmental issues for students to create their own projects around: Activism, Overconsumption, Growing and Foraging, and Environmental Remediation.

The 20 students enrolled in the course this semester come from a variety of majors. While the course is taught online, all EcoArt students have access to campus resources like the Green Studio.

Cooley provides his students with examples of different interdisciplinary artists to show them ways to create nontraditional art.

“There are so many creative pursuits. Of course, there are the traditional ‘fine arts’ painting, sculpture and so on, but there's also a whole lot more, photography, video, landscape design, cooking, foraging, farming,” said Cooley, whose own interdisciplinary creative work ranges from gallery installations, permaculture design, documentary and experimental film, and music composition.

Cooley added, “That's why in the class I'll shy away from the word 'art' at times and try to embrace a more general sense of creativity and responsibility across disciplines.”

Senior Robin Jay Macielinski, an art and visual technology major concentrating on new media, said he was inspired by an artist they studied in class who used natural dyes and pigments for his EcoArt project. “I went out into the environment and located plants that we had identified through the ‘foraging’ unit, and I turned them into dyes to use as watercolor for my own environmentally friendly watercolor dyes made from organic material.”

“Professor Cooley is very enthusiastic about what we learn and it's his favorite thing when students come to him with stuff that he either didn't know or enlightens him more on what he already knew,” said Macielinski. “He's always open to students sharing new ideas of how to apply art to what we've learned about environmentalism in the course.”

Professor Mark Cooley gardening in Mason's Green Studio. Photo provided.

Part-time Mason student Andrew Windheim is also enrolled in the class. After retiring from a 28-year career in finance, Windheim said he decided to follow his heart and focus on artistic and creative endeavors, and EcoArt fit the bill.

“Professor Cooley demonstrated for us how gardening is a creative undertaking and a step toward mitigating environmental degradation,” said Windheim, who integrated several of the course projects with his own garden development.

This involved a two-phase approach to remediate an overgrown part of his backyard and to establish a sustainable, ecological “Resurrected Garden.”

“We identified the different vegetables and herbs we wanted to grow, like rosemary, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and pole beans. I then graphically depicted the space, analyzed the prevailing environmental conditions, and determined which crops would be good companions,” said Windheim.

In this way, he was able to reclaim the space and get more in touch with the ecological aspects of the planning and create a viable garden in the process.

Other student projects included a marketing-based presentation on water and soil quality and remediation surrounding the Flint Water Crisis.

“Art is about the relationship of the self to the outside world,” said Cooley. “I wanted to get creative thinkers involved with environmental issues to work toward recognizing some of the problems and perhaps offering some creative solutions for the future.”

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College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA)

Green Leaf courses make sustainability a part of Mason's curriculum

Colleen Rich — Thu, 11 May 2023 15:55:03 +0000

Green Leaf courses make sustainability a part of Mason's curriculum Colleen Rich Thu, 05/11/2023 - 11:55

Green isn’t just a school color at ��AV. At Mason, “green” is way of life, and sustainability is central to the university’s mission.

Mason professor Changwoo Ahn (in green) instructs Ecological Sustainability students doing field work at the Wetland Mesocosm Compound on the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

“Sustainability is one of Mason’s core values and in order to be a leader in the green movement, we are taking a holistic approach by integrating sustainability across research, education and operations,” said Mason Provost Mark Ginsberg. “By infusing sustainability into the curriculum, we provide our students with the knowledge and skills they need to become eco-citizens who will actively seek ways to reduce their environmental footprints.”

One of the ways Mason is doing this work is with Green Leaf courses, which are designed to help to raise environmental awareness while providing students with a comprehensive knowledge of their local and global environment. Mason has more than 125 of these classes across 25 academic programs, covering topics from AVT 385 EcoArt in the School of Art to TOUR 340 Sustainable Tourism in the School of Sport, Recreation and Tourism Management.

The courses also contribute to Mason’s Gold rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), which the university joined in 2010 as a charter member.

“By infusing sustainability into the curriculum, we provide our students with the knowledge and skills they need to become eco-citizens who will actively seek ways to reduce their environmental footprints.” —Provost Mark Ginsberg

Many of the courses have a workforce component that help students explore career options in their field of study. Students in Changwoo Ahn’s BIOL 379/EVPP 378 Ecological Sustainability found a lot of value in a field trip to environmental consultants Wetland Studies and Solutions Inc. and were excited to hear from guest speakers in the research-focused class.

“[The field trip] was great because it helps you get ideas about other opportunities available in the field,” said environmental science major Erin MacMonigle. “Dr. Ahn also brought in some great speakers. I wish more classes were like this one.”

Mason alum and College of Science adjunct professor Michelle Ryan, PhD Environmental Science and Public Policy ’15, brings her experience as a consultant for a global telecommunication company to the Green Leaf classes she teaches.

This semester one of Sustainability in Action's community-based service projects included picking up trash at Occoquan Regional Park. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

In EVPP 322 Business and Sustainability, Ryan has the students analyze how businesses have interacted with the environment—both negatively and positively—as well as the pivotal role businesses play in developing solutions to address environmental concerns. The students work in teams and get to pick a real company to analyze, then share their findings and presentations with the class. This semester the students chose Starbucks, Nike, National Geographic, and Dominion Energy.

“I like to bring a lot of reality to course discussion and have them tackle real-world problem sets,” said Ryan.

Some Green Leaf courses also offer hands-on experiences. Students in EVPP 480 Sustainability in Action have the opportunity to literally get their hands dirty and make a difference on and off campus. In this class, with sections taught by faculty members Jennifer Sklarew and Cynthia Smith of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, students commit to 40 hours of service learning. This semester one of their community-based service projects included picking up trash at Occoquan Regional Park.

EcoArt students pursue individual projects as a part of their coursework. Student Andrew Windheim used what he learned in class to remediate an overgrown part of his backyard and to establish a sustainable, ecological “Resurrected Garden,” as he calls it.

Mason will be highlighting a number of these Green Leaf courses in an ongoing series.

Learn more about sustainability at Mason

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Green Leaf courses

Sustainability

Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE)

Environmental science class puts sustainability in action

Colleen Rich — Thu, 06 May 2021 18:16:33 +0000

Environmental science class puts sustainability in action Colleen Rich Thu, 05/06/2021 - 14:16

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Daniel Sklarew

Students also planted and mulched saplings as a part of the ongoing Rappahannock Parking Deck Reforestation Project. Photo by Sarah D'Alexander

During the month of April, the students in ��AV’s Sustainability in Action course (EVPP 480) were incredibly busy making a difference on and off campus.

This spring, 51 students—a record number, according to Environmental Science and Policy Professor Dann Sklarew—enrolled in the three sections of the course team taught by Sklarew, adjunct professor Suzanne Dee, and doctoral student Elizabeth Schierbeek. Adjunct professor Rupal Mangukiya also assisted. All four of the faculty involved are Mason alumni.

Sklarew designed the course, which serves as a Mason Core: Synthesis option and capstone course for student majoring in environmental and sustainability studies or environmental science, or those pursuing minors in sustainability studies or sustainable enterprise.

While EVPP 480 was offered as an online synchronous course, the students had ample opportunities to literally get their hands dirty with socially distanced community-based service projects. During Earth Month they worked on their required Sustainability Transformation Action Research Team projects for the class.

Sklarew calls the students enrolled in the course “actioneers.”

“Over the past few weeks, actioneers have weeded garlic rows and planted potatoes on an organic farm in Alexandria, armored a mountain path from runoff at Sky Meadows State Park, and cleaned up by kayak and on foot a pickup truck full of trash at Occoquan Regional Park,” Sklarew said, mentioning a few of the projects students tackled this spring. “At each site, a Mason alum who previously took this class served as one of their hosts.”

At the Sky Meadows State Park, the host was Mason alumnus Ryan Selove, BA Integrative Studies ’15, who is a park ranger and the coordinator of volunteers at the park.

In addition, Dee had three teams of students working on different campus composting projects focusing on the Potomac Heights Organic Vegetable Garden, the Innovation Food Forest, and education materials about composting at Mason.

Environmental science majors Jackie Batchelor and Ade Olua and management major Emily Konchan are the team planning a three-bin cinderblock structure for composting at the Potomac Heights garden, to replace the previous structure which was made of wood and “in complete ruins,” they wrote in their proposal.

“The Potomac Heights and Innovation Food Forest compost projects, which use the same design, will be considered simultaneously for approval by Facilities, and it sounds like they will get approved within the next month or so,” said Dee, who has an MS in environmental science and policy from Mason. “Our plan is to have a summer cohort finish them.”

Students also planted and mulched saplings as a part of the ongoing Rappahannock Parking Deck Reforestation Project, supported by the Office of Sustainability’s Patriot Green Fund and the Greenhouse and Gardens program. The student-led effort is intended to turn the area around the parking deck into a more self-sufficient, biodiverse location on the Fairfax Campus.

“We planted a total eight trees and shrubs, which were designated by the site plan approved and developed by Facilities,” said Honors College student Sophia Chapin, who graduates with her BS in environmental science this month. “The inkberry shrubs provide winter habitat for birds, particularly American robins that also feed on its berries. The flowering dogwoods are great for wildlife such as songbirds and edge species because of their high calcium and fat content. All of the vegetation on site is Virginia native so that as the forested area grows, so does the benefit to our native wildlife.”

Sklarew said that students in the class can volunteer to help with other teams’ projects. “Service learners from this cohort have logged more than 1,670 sustainability-advancing hours since January,” he added.

More than 450 students have taken EVPP 480 since it was first offered in Spring 2011. Over that decade, Mason students taking the class have contributed more than 16,000 service hours to sustainability-related projects on and off Mason’s campuses.

If you are an alumnus/a or friend of Mason with ideas for future pro-sustainability service learning or action research projects, please contact Dr. Sklarew at dsklarew@gmu.edu or 703-993-2012.

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Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP)

Green Leaf courses

Green Leaf courses

EcoArt class inspires students by bringing together the social and natural worlds

In This Story

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Green Leaf courses make sustainability a part of Mason's curriculum

Learn more about sustainability at Mason

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Environmental science class puts sustainability in action

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