The Leadership Program bridges the gap between academic education and real-world implementation.   The Nature of New York is often overlooked; at IVE, it is the focus of courses and events.   Student projects that have successfully grown into real entrepreneurial ventures.

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IVE Launches Three New Sustainability Initiatives 1. The Nature of New York - exploring our urban environment College Now 2. The nature of New York - ecological literacy in a global city 3. The Nature of New York Leadership Alliance (a.k.a. Green Teams) Detailed Program Descriptions and Links: 1. The Nature of New York - exploring our urban environment College Now This unique high school course will introduce students to Ecological literacy and urban ecology. With 28 hours of classroom and 18 hours of field trips to the parks and nature sanctuaries of NYC, students will learn the language and laws of ecology; how animals and plants interact with each other in sustaining the web of life, and how humans and cities rely on the natural world for their sustenance, health and survival. Students will be given the opportunity and resources to independently research and understand their own, day-to-day symbioses with the natural world; they will be assigned simple, community-based research projects and problem-solving exercises in environmentally-rooted public health and ecology issues, such as Asthma, pollution, species extinction and the importance of salt marshes in mitigating the effects of hurricanes. The students will also have a shot at environmental leadership: while asked to investigate the nature of their communities, they will be given a solid platform with which to create and disseminate an awareness of NYC's ecology by communicating the results of their research with their schools, families and community. In the final two months of the semester students will be asked to divide into teams and create and pursue a specific research project that summarizes their fall's learning experience and establishes their future proactive goals for nurturing an aspect of NYC's environment. The teams will present their research proposal to the public at the Eco-Metropolis Conference in November of 2005, at the CUNY graduate center ( www.opencenter.org/Eco/home.htm), co-hosted by NNYN and IVE. For their research, students will gain privileged access to an established network of scientific institutions and grassroots environmental organizations and media connected to IVE and NNYN. At the semester's end, they will present the results of their projects to a select audience of science and environmental professionals and members of the civil society. Laureates of this "Nature of new York case-study competition" will be given immediate access to more resources, should they chose to continue their leadership project through College. Finally, student will gain in Cyber-literacy: they will post data, results, questions and progress reports (and communicate with each other and faculty) on our website's discussion board (www.ive.cuny.edu/nynn). 2. The nature of New York - ecological literacy in a global city This exciting new component within our CLIP-VE course will look at Eco-literacy: the language of life. For many immigrants coming to New York, this course provides a fascinating holistic look at the deeper language of the metropolitan landscape; at the history and culture of NYC within an ecological, economic and global context. Designed as lecture series with an interactive, web based discussion board, the course will provide exciting insight for students seeking sustainable lifestyles or business solutions in NY, as well those interested in pursuing an academic career in the natural sciences. The premise for this course segment revolves around a new global reality for humans worldwide; in NY and elsewhere for the first time in the history of humankind, we - the human species - have become an urban species. Today more than 50% of the world population lives in metropolises. From New York to Tokyo to Lagos, mega-cities are now the norm. This represents a drastic change in our ecology and how we fit into the world, economically and politically. It represents a huge strain on the global environment of which we are intrinsic parts - and players. To understand this global reality from the perspective of biology and some of the simpler laws of physics is to become ecologically literate. For many, it is the first step in our endeavor to build sustainable communities. New York's role is more than relevant: our city is an essential actor in the underlying patterns and processes of 'globalization' that have led to this new 'ecology' of the species. To learn this language here, to be ecologically literate in New York, is to fully understand the world around us. Ultimately, it is to understand the mechanics of ?and how to change them. The instruction will divide into three elemental components. 1) Fauna, flora, rocks and water of NYC. 2) How do these come together to form ecosystems? What are the different habitats of NYC? 3) Is the City itself an ecosystem? Lessons of a dysfunctional Solutions and sustainable cities 3. The Nature of New York Leadership Alliance (a.k.a. Green Teams) Finally, students from all nature of New York modules will be given the unique chance to create and foster their own sense of environmental justice and stewardship by engaging in our green team Forum (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenTeams/). This extra-curricular program accompanies all of our environmental and leadership courses and as an added resource facilitates networking, interfacing with faculty and the civil society, summer internship opportunities and career-building trajectories in the environmental and social sciences, as well as providing an ample introduction to environmental ethics.   Posted on 2005-09-27 14:03:37  [ Return to Previous Page ]