Sustainable Communities news
Members of Northern Arizona University’s Sustainable Communities program are making a difference every day. Discover what projects and studies they are currently involved in.
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Graduate student Joseph Amazuwa Chirwa improves livelihood of African community Accordion Closed
Joseph Amazuwa Chirwa, a graduate student in Sustainable Communities and recipient of the 2019 Maxwell-Lutz Community Impact Award, spent the summer in Africa working on a community-based waste management project in the Chitete-Kasungu Municipality in Malawi. The month-long project aimed to help the local community realize the economic incentive that lies beneath waste. Working specifically with the Chitete Women Cooperative, Joseph encouraged and implemented recycling and composting in the township’s communal garden, worked with the cooperative to manage solid waste, and stressed the importance of micro credit through waste management. He also introduced an in-school recycling campaign to develop technologies to mitigate the waste program. The initial project, intended to improve the livelihood of this low-income municipality, has now been adopted by the community. The project is made possible through funding by Susanna Maxwell and Barry Lutz.
Maya Rappaport shares her passion Accordion Closed
Maya Rappaport, a master’s student in the Sustainable Communities, is on a mission to save the American kestrel—“gorgeous, charismatic, adorable, colorful little falcons” that live throughout the western hemisphere and, though not endangered yet, are well on their way as their habitats and food supplies are wiped out. She’s hoping to stop the dramatic decrease before the species reaches that point. And she needs your help. Read more
Dr. Diana Stuart Coauthors New Book on Climate Change Accordion Closed
SUS Associate Professor Diana Stuart, in collaboration with Dr. Brian Petersen of the Department of Geography, Planning and Recreation and Dr. Ryan Gunderson of Miami University, recently published a new book examining degrowth as a response to climate change. The Degrowth Alternative: A Path to Address our Environmental Crisis? suggests that managed economic contraction is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and their associated climate change impacts.
Parched Exhibit Wins Research/Creative Activity Award Accordion Closed
Parched: The Art of Water in the Southwest is a multimedia art exhibit that was on display at the Coconino Center for the Arts in late 2020, and is now on view at the Amerind Foundation in Dragoon, Arizona. SUS program coordinator Peter Friederici contributed essays to the exhibit, which this spring won the 2021 Research/Creative Activity Award from the NAU Office of Research. Friederici’s fellow award winners were Josh Biggs (NAU Marketing), Debra Edgerton (College of Arts and Letters), Neal Galloway (College of Arts and Letters), and Jane Marks (ECOSS).