Curitiba and Cuba's Environmental Awareness

As Cristina mentioned in the last blog, our carbon footprints highlight the fact that much of the world lives in a manner that is excessively wasteful. Recently we watched two videos in class that left our group thinking about they way we live. Both countries have undergone major changes in areas of housing, transportation, businesses, and social services in ways that have improved the quality of life for millions of their citizens. For example in Curbitia, Brazil they reorganized the entire downtown area to make it more functional for citizens and private businesses. Initially they had a problem with large amounts of traffic and the usual solution would be to build more roads but the mayor chose to develop the downtown area for the people not cars by eliminating cars on certain roads. He also prevented building new buildings in downtown rather created a linear system where buildings could be built and public transportation could reach them. Through those actions 60 percent of the people in Curbitia take public transportation even though one in three people have cars. 

Melanie- I thought it was really interesting how these countries we thought were worse then us, understand the ways to become more environmentally aware and have found different ways to incorporate it into their cities. It was cool how Curibitia was able to make it's flood zone area turn into parks for recreational use. Instead of putting in a concrete cannel that would just make the city look ugly and they were able to do something more for it. Even Cuba who has been through so much, was able to find ways to make their agriculture practices better. They were able to make due with what they had. They made trucks into buses and it was very cool.

Meredith- In the film about the city of Curitiba, I found it interesting that they placed such a strong focus on recycling. Busses are sent to locations throughout the city in order to collect people’s trash and recyclables in exchange for bus tokens. A “trash that is not trash” campaign developed and after just three months, 70 percent of Curitiba families began to separate trash and recyclables. In order to stimulate the growth of small businesses, programs were offered for citizens to learn skills for free and then move into the workforce or form their own business. Parks were created to beautify the city and use resources wisely. Sheep are used to eat the grass in the parks to maintain the appearance of it. By building parks in low-income areas, under privileged families enjoy a safer and more appealing environment.

 

Christian- The way the transportation in Curibitia worked really amazed me. Not only did they make public transportation the preferred method of travel, they also made it efficient, reliable and convenient. That is something we struggle with in the US. They designed the city so that buses have their own lanes and won't be caught in traffic. Also they had lots of bus stops so that the buses could serve everyone. They also started a program that gave away free bus tickets to people that recycled. This was a great program because it encouraged people to recycle and also gave those that otherwise could not afford it a chance to use the bus. The program did not cost the city anything because the bus companies get paid by the kilometer and not by the person. So not only does the bus program help keep the city from becoming congested with cars, lower carbon emissions, and is convenient to citizens, but it also helps clean up the city by making people recycle. I also liked in the Cuba video how they used to use tons of pesticides, but now they only use organic stuff. This is something the world is going to have to learn to do, however like it did in Cuba it will probably take the end of oil to bring this change about.

 

 

 

 



Meet the Team/ Our First Field Trip

Hey everyone!!! We are team Gaang Greene and we are very excited to share our FGCU colloquium experience will all of our blog followers!!! :) Lets start by introducing our team members. On the far left in the picture above we have Melanie Perez, I, Kristin Oines, am next to her with my sunglasses on my head, in the middle is Cristina Vega, our team leader, next to Cristina is Meredith Rankin, and on the end is Christian Douglas. This picture was taken last Tuesday when our class went on a field trip around our Universities campus. On this trip we learned about all of the actions our campus is doing to make our school more sustainable and go green. We started off by passing Academic Building 7 which we found out is a LEED certified building. This means that it is a high ranking sustainable building and because this building has that certification we get money back from the state. In addition, we learned that Academic building 7 isn't the only lead certified building on campus; Osprey Hall is another. After taking a look at Academic building 7 we went and took a look at some of the solar panels we have on campus. At FGCU we have a 14 acre field of solar panels. These panels give us 18% of the total power we use on campus! (Below is a picture of one of the solar panels located outside of our FGCU Welcome Center.)

After discussing the use of the solar panels on campus we continued our adventure to the FGCU Food Forest. This was our groups favorite part of the field trip! The FGCU Food Forest is an actual forest planted and set up 100% by FGCU students. They carefully designed this forest so that all of the niches are filled allowing the forest to be completely sustainable. We found out that after about one more year of work the forest will be completely sustainable on its own. One could leave that forest alone and come back after 10 years and it would still be thriving and bearing fruit! How amazing is that? Some of the food that can be found in the food forest include: pigeon peas, bananas, papaya, sweat potatoes, mango, American beauty berry, mulberry, and passion fruit (just to name a few). Melanie said, "Visiting the Food Forest was a ton of fun! I enjoyed my first visit there and would like to come again. While visiting I was able to taste some leaves and an orange flower. It was pretty neat; it was just missing some dressing in order for it to taste like something." Cristina agreed and also stated that one of her favorite parts of the trip was tasting the orange flower Melanie talked about. To the above right is a picture of Cristina venturing out of her comfort zone and giving the flower a try. Meredith also stated, "I found it to be very enjoyable (the FGCU Food Forest) because I had never been there. Everything in the forest was edible, so I was able to try some of the various leaves and plants. It was neat to see that the food forest does not require a lot of maintenance at all during the year because the Florida sunlight keeps the plants and food healthy." When we left the Food Forest we headed to one of FGCU's nature trails. This is where our group picture above was taken. The nature trail was one of Christian's favorite places. He said, "I really enjoyed walking through the nature trail. I had never been on that trail before and I didn't even notice that trail was there. FGCU has so much to offer that so many students don't even know about." Melanie also said she enjoyed the nature trail as well. She added, "I never knew that pine needles smelled like citrus and you could actually use them for when you have a cold." I really enjoyed learning that also. I don't know many natural remedies so I really enjoy learning what my options are besides medicine to be more health conscious. The nature trail looped us around toward the FGCU energy plant. There we spoke to one of the gentlemen that works at the plant and he brought us around back to see where the campus actually freezes water at night and then lets it thaw, using that water to cool some of the building on campus. I found this one of the most interesting parts of our trip. I had no clue that we did that and what a good idea! Our "green" technology here at FGCU is truly amazing. Cristina said, "I really enjoyed learning more about how environmentally aware our University is. I am quite involved here at FGCU, but it was nice to see some of these things first hand and to here some concrete facts so that I can share what we are doing at FGCU with others. I take pride in what our University is doing to help insure a better tomorrow." I think our whole group agrees with Cristina on that. We all take pride in our university and its nice to be able to share how far FGCU has come with others!

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Cristina here, I just wanted to add some things I learned about after the trip. For one, all of the housing buildings in South Village have solar panels on the roof that heat the water for residents and all but one building (Everglades Hall) is LEED certified. As more housing is being built in south village it is cool to see that they have taken the environment into account. Housing has made an effort to minimalize their carbon footprint by choosing environmentally friendly paint, turning half the hallway lights off at midnight, low pressure shower heads, and energy efficient washers and dryers just to name a few. As a class assignment we looked at our own carbon footprints and I realized that I clearly cannot expect to maintain the lifestyle I do without some negative effects. But after visiting the food forrest I was able to see that the idea of growing my own food in the future is not too far off rather once I take the time to do it I will not need to spend hundreds of hours a year on upkeep. I would like to see the food forrest get bigger over time once the plants get stronger and trees get bigger.

testing!