URBAN ENVIRONMENTSA Service Learning Course in New York City to Foster SES Resilience

Keith G. Tidball, Dept. of Natural Resources, Cornell U. 14 Apr 2008 Resilience 2008 Conference, Stockholm Sweden

Main Points

1. Learning about urban social-ecological systems requires a systems thinking and an experiential learning approach that assumes an adaptive learning environment and resilient adaptive learners.

2. Understanding the role of persons, humans, in urban SES resilience is of critical importance.

3. Must help learners be knowledgeable ABOUT resilience, must help begin to think as future mangers in terms of managing FOR resilience, and must actually FOSTER SES resilience in the actual Urban system of interest.

Introducing Urban EnvironmentsWe must begin with what concerns

the student most deeply. We must proceed in such a way and with such materials as to enable him [sic] to gain increasingly rational insight into these concerns. -C. Wright Mills I954

Why Urban Environments?“If the last century was the century of urbanization , the twenty-first will be the century of cities. It is in the cities that decisive battles for quality of life will be fought, and their outcomes will have defining effect on the planet’s environment and on human relations.”The Honorable Jaime LernerFormer Governor of Parana, Braziland former Mayor of Curitiba

State of the World 2007, “Our Urban Future.” Worldwatch Institute.

http://www.state.gov/cms_images/41global_pop_dens.jpg

Urban Environments: Course Structure

• Urban horticulture and community gardening

• Urban community forestry• Urban fisheries and wildlife• Green design, architecture and

landscaping• Urban ecology and social ecological

systems, and resilience theory

Learning about resilience Learning to foster resilience

http://www.resalliance.org/1610.php

Fostering Resilience in NYC

Photos: KG Tidball

Learning About Resilience in NYC

Photos: KG Tidball

Resilient Learners... ? “ From urban wildlife

in Central Park, community gardens, to environmental injustices in Harlem, so much of what I experienced over Spring Break was new to me. Not only have I discovered things that I did not know but I also have been inspired to ask myself a different set of questions.”

-UE Student, 2007 Student Chelsea Clarke, ’10, helping clean up a Harlem Community Garden. Photo: KG Tidball

Urban Environments Service Learning as Praxis

• Opportunity to participate in supplemental or "co-curricular" service-related activities

• Deliberately choose sites to maximize encounters with community members actively immersed in issues related directly to the course content

• Learners intentionally "reflect on" their service related observations and experiences

Hironimus-Wendt, Robert & Larry Lovell-Troy, 1999. “Grounding Service Learning in Social Theory.” Teaching Sociology 27:360-372.

In Conclusion...

• Evaluation?• Next steps?

In Acknowledgment...

Thanks to: Faculty Fellows in Service Program at

Cornell University Cornell University, especially the Public

Service Center’s New York City Programs

Department of Natural ResourcesStudents of Urban EnvironmentsNYC partners