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2004
- People, Prosperity and Planet
The
first half of this semester was devoted to responding to the
EPA P3 design competition for sustainable practice. This program
provided for the award of 50 $10,000 grants for student design
teams to develop a preliminary proposal towards funding for
a full design. Three groups submitted proposals in the areas
of "Green Roofs", "Green Marine", and
"Sustainable Living Toolkit." The last of
these was recommended for funding but was not actually funded.
The second
half of the course was devoted to more modest proposals aimed
at specific environmental practices on the UMass Boston campus
and encompassed a wide-range of ideas from a central filtered
bottled water supply to dealing with mold in the classrooms.
Both proposal
sets were presented as poster displays in the Campus Center.
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2002
– Conducting an Environmental Impact Report on the
UMass BEST Center
The University of Massachusetts Boston is proposing to redevelop
an existing historic building near its campus into the Boston
Environmental Science and Technology (BEST) Center. Students
in EnvSty 401 used this proposal as a starting point for learning
about how to develop an environmental impact report (EIR).
Students spent the early part
of the semester reading about the history and goals of EIRs
at the federal and state level in the United States. They
also reviewed the specific regulatory requirements for EIRs
in Massachusetts. The class went on two site visits as a group.
The class was divided into two teams, each of which developed
its own approach and outline for an EIR. Each team assigned
aspects of the EIR research to individual students who were
responsible for one freestanding chapter of the final report.
To complete these chapters, students conducted various forms
of field research at the site, sometimes with assistance from
UMass faculty who possessed the appropriate technical expertise.
The individual student chapters
were presented to the class in draft form, and a group critique
process was used to identify ways that each chapter could
be improved. In addition to handing in a final chapter, students
conducted a poster session at the end of the semester at which
they presented their research findings to the UMass community.
UMass faculty, deans, and administrators responsible for making
final decisions on the proposed BEST Center attended the poster
session and discussed the research with students.
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2001 – Developing an Environmental Justice research
proposal
Environmental Justice (EJ) is an area of study within environmental
planning that examines whether certain ethnic, socioeconomic,
or other groups suffer a disproportionate burden of environmental
stresses in a particular society. This is an extremely important
issue that raises difficult analytical questions. What constitutes
a “disproportionate environmental burden” and how
should it be documented? How does an analyst deal with issues
of historical racial discrimination that are not directly linked
to environmental problems? What is the best way to identify
the groups that might be suffering from environmental injustices?
Students
spent the first 10 weeks of the semester reviewing and discussing
the academic and professional literature on EJ. They reviewed
federal and state policies designed to promote EJ and spoke
with officials responsible for developing EJ policy in Massachusetts.
Each student then wrote and submitted a draft research proposal
in which they identified a potential environmental justice
problem, reviewed the literature relevant to that particular
problem, and proposed a specific research project that would
help policy analysts better understand the problem. Students
reviewed and critiqued each proposal in draft form before
developing a final environmental justice research proposal
on their particular topic.
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1999 - How Did You Get Here?: An Assessment
of Transportation Patterns and their Environmental Impacts at
the University of Massachusetts, Boston
Research focused on the following major areas: Assessment of
the environmental impacts of automobile use; availability and
accessibility of the UMass community to information about current
as well as alternative transportation options; analysis of why
UMass students, faculty and staff choose one form of transportation
over another; comparison of the costs (both real and perceived)
of various transportation options at UMass Boston; and assessment
and formulation of proposals that could alter transportation
decisions for the benefit of the environment, UMass-Boston,
and surrounding communities.
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1998 - Analysis of Recycling Programs at the University
of Massachusetts Boston
Research documented current recycling levels and compared
with other colleges and universities in Massachusetts and made
recommendations for increasing the percent of materials diverted
from the conventional waste stream. |
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